Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games
Encyclopedia
Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games was published in May 1982. The book, published by Signet in New York, was a brief guide to strategy for console video games in existence at the time. The book was divided into chapters by console type or manufacturer, and each chapter had an article on each game title available for that console. The book was published in paperback, with 676 pages and illustrated throughout with black and white line drawings.
Ken Uston
was a blackjack
player, and at the time this book was published, had already had six books in print. Two of his previous books included Mastering Pac-Man
(1981) and Score! Beating The Top 16 Video Games in 1982, dealing with standalone arcade games, which also had a "short intro to the Atari VCS, Intellivision, Odyssey2 home systems and some Coleco and Entex table-top games."
The book was intended as both a guide to selecting a video game console from a growing market of then-expensive entertainment systems, and as a brief guide to gameplay of each game, however not necessarily for beating them. Some of the systems have enjoyed a resurgence in the 21st century (Intellivision
, for example), giving the book a slight degree of longevity in its original purpose, and the book remains a useful capsule history of available games and systems in 1982.
Each game article (over 200 in number) was divided into sections (some sections were combined or omitted depending on the article):
Ken Uston
Ken Uston
Ken Uston was a famous blackjack player, strategist, and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play at blackjack...
was a blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
player, and at the time this book was published, had already had six books in print. Two of his previous books included Mastering Pac-Man
Pac-Man
is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
(1981) and Score! Beating The Top 16 Video Games in 1982, dealing with standalone arcade games, which also had a "short intro to the Atari VCS, Intellivision, Odyssey2 home systems and some Coleco and Entex table-top games."
The book was intended as both a guide to selecting a video game console from a growing market of then-expensive entertainment systems, and as a brief guide to gameplay of each game, however not necessarily for beating them. Some of the systems have enjoyed a resurgence in the 21st century (Intellivision
Intellivision
The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...
, for example), giving the book a slight degree of longevity in its original purpose, and the book remains a useful capsule history of available games and systems in 1982.
Chapter titles
- Home Video Game Systems - a brief description of each system.
- A comparison of the systems and games.
- Atari 2600Atari 2600The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
- IntellivisionIntellivisionThe Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...
- Magnavox Odyssey²Magnavox Odyssey²The Magnavox Odyssey², known in Europe as the Philips Videopac G7000, in Brazil as the Philips Odyssey, in the United States as the Magnavox Odyssey² and the Philips Odyssey², and also by many other names, is a video game console released in 1978.In the early 1970s, Magnavox was an innovator in the...
- ActivisionActivisionActivision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
- Astrocade, The Professional ArcadeBally AstrocadeThe Astrocade is an early video game console and simple computer system designed by a team at Midway, the videogame division of Bally. It was marketed only for a limited time before Bally decided to exit the market. The rights were later picked up by a third-party company, who re-released it and...
- Fairchild Channel FFairchild Channel FThe Fairchild Channel F is a game console released by Fairchild Semiconductor in August 1976 at the retail price of $169.95. It has the distinction of being the first programmable ROM cartridge-based video game console...
- Apollo
- ImagicImagicImagic was a short-lived American video game developer and publisher that developed games for the Atari 2600, Intellivision and other video game consoles in the early 1980s...
Each game article (over 200 in number) was divided into sections (some sections were combined or omitted depending on the article):
- Evaluation
- Basic Objective
- Scenario
- The Board
- Controls
- Facts You Should Know
- Strategies