Pixel pushing

Increasingly, history covers things that happened in my lifetime. Even my childhood is now referred to as ‘the late 1900s’. Most of my younger years were spent on computers and the history of those machines, their inner-workings, and the games I played on them is something I’m always drawn to.

Press Start The Complete History of Video Gaming is my latest read on the digital past. It attempts to cover the whole of the medium, from the very first moving pixels right up to today’s massive polygon pushers; albeit from a mostly non-UK perspective. That’s a lot to cover and it means each step of the journey gets only a brief, breathless overview.

If you’re looking for depth, this isn’t the tome for you. Books focussing on particular platforms, or periods, like Racing the Beam are better bets. However, if you’re after something with a more ‘coffee table’ feel, this is fun to dip into and relieve some of those late 1900s memories.