3.0
Extra Lives
ByPublisher Description
Tom Bissell is a prizewinning writer who published three widely acclaimed books before the age of thirty-four. He is also an obsessive gamer who has spent untold hours in front of his various video game consoles, playing titles such as Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, and Oblivion for, literally, days. If you are reading this flap copy, the same thing can probably be said of you, or of someone you know.
Until recently, Bissell was somewhat reluctant to admit to his passion for games. In this, he is not alone. Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably outearns Hollywood. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well designed if mindless entertainment.
Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming—but he also believes games could be even better. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell’s descent into the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions.
Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is like no other book on the subject ever published. Whether you love video games, loathe video games, or are merely curious about why they are becoming the dominant popular art form of our time, Extra Lives is required reading.
Until recently, Bissell was somewhat reluctant to admit to his passion for games. In this, he is not alone. Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably outearns Hollywood. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well designed if mindless entertainment.
Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming—but he also believes games could be even better. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell’s descent into the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions.
Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is like no other book on the subject ever published. Whether you love video games, loathe video games, or are merely curious about why they are becoming the dominant popular art form of our time, Extra Lives is required reading.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities61 Reviews
3.0
DJ Gillard
Created 2 months agoShare
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Thomas Goddard
Created 5 months agoShare
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“This one was not what I expected going in. More of an autobiography and sometimes wildly off topic, compared to what I thought it was and believe it was pitched to me (as a reader) to be.
A video game enthusiast talks about the power of games.
It was okay. I don't feel like to gained much from reading it. Sitting down to this, I've got very few recollections from the book's content.
But in my notes I have written that at times the writing really clarified a lot of why games mattered... to him.
I think if the book was titled a bit better - Why Games Matter To Me - he'd have sidestepped the assumption that he would be tackling any universal qualities and effects of games on the population.
He's probably a better reviewer/journalist than he is at long form, because this felt fragmented and a little unruly in his hands as a topic. He needed more little hops and less waffle.
Still. Not bad. Again, if you like video games - pick this up - but really do read it as one man's wrestling with justifying why games matter to him personally.”
Yuan Serafico
Created 11 months agoShare
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FutureGhost
Created about 1 year agoShare
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shauna awad
Created about 1 year agoShare
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“This was a mildly fun read for me. It got too a little in depth about games I wish it hadn't, but I almost expected that based on my own tastes.”
About Tom Bissell
Tom Bissell (Xbox Live gamertag: T C Bissell; PlayStation Network gamertag: TCBissell) is the author of Chasing the Sea, God Lives in St. Petersburg, and The Father of All Things. A recipient of the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Bay de Noc Community College Alumnus of the Year Award, he teaches fiction writing at Portland State University and lives in Portland, Oregon.
Other books by Tom Bissell
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