[BOOK REVIEW] CREDIT 00: I LOVE GAME GRAPHICS
- 8th March , 2008 by KNDY in Book Reviews
- 0 comments
BOOK TITLE: CREDIT 00 - I LOVE GAME GRAPHICS by Sagara Nobuhiko, Iida Kazutoshi, Kusano Tsuyoshi and Umekawa Yoshimitsu
Published in 2003 by AllRightsReserved
PAGE COUNT: 182 Pages
I tend to purchase a lot of Japanese art books which I use as reference material or just a source of ideas when my I’m not thinking straight.
When I purchased this book, I figured why not give it a try. Definitely would be cool to check out the art or ads of video games from Japan. I play and review a lot of import games, that I felt this would be a worthy addition to my art book collection.
“CREDIT 00: I LOVE GAME GRAPHICS” is best explained by Kusano Tsuyoshi as “Every single work is very fragmentary, and I did not go into a thorough explanation of each game. I have created these works with a feeling that replicates what I felt when playing the game, adding a graphical approach and setting up the layout”.
The book is mainly a graphic book focusing on consoles and video games with a several page written intro by the authors. Also, copy that goes into the history of video games from the technical end to the arcade phenomenons.
The book does not solely focus on Japanese consoles or games, you get American releases and close up photos on a white background of consoles from companies such as Atari, Intellivision, Epoch TV, Vectrex, Nintendo, Sony, etc.
You also get to see several advertisements for arcade machines, video games from the end of the 70’s and 80’s, as well as box art.
The graphical aspect can be seen in many pages, such as the Space Invaders aliens layered on top of photos of Tokyo, to photography with a video game artistic approach such as a dozen of Famicom’s scattered on top of each other.
Actually, there are quite a good number of photos with old school video game elements layered on top of the photos for artistic effect.
The authors decided to break things down into categories with companies such as Atari, Sega, etc. to discuss the companies histories and feature their artwork. As companies such as Atari have featured ads and artwork of box art, Japanese companies such as Sega, Taito, Namco, Konami, Nintendo seem to feature screen captures from title screens to actual gameplay but no advertisements.
At the 3/4 mark of the actual book, that’s when you get to see the artistic side with Illustrations and photography. Photography is pretty cool, featuring Tokyoites playing their portable consoles. But a lot of photos with old school video game elements layered on top of the photos.
Logos for companies and games are also featured as well.
All in all, the book will mostly resonate with those fond of old school video gaming. Those of us born or lived during that era who look at these images for nostalgia. As an artbook on its own, I guess it depends on the individual. On the illustration side, there are few. But mainly, I look at the book more of focusing on nostalgia, putting together screen captures and advertisements from various companies (or for advertisement - company, mainly being Atari) and thus it being more nostalgic than artsy.
I wish there were advertisement contributions from the Japanese companies because for those of us who have played the collections (especially like Capcom and Sega’s collections for the PSP and consoles), we got to see the various artwork released in Japan.
But visually, for what the book comes with, for me, it was satisfying to see a good number of the games I enjoyed on this book. Especially as the years pass and we move on to consoles with more power, this is the type of the book to hold onto and look at and just appreciate how things were back then, how difficult games were back then but most of all, how that era was enjoyable in those years of gaming.
Again, this book is more nostalgic than a full out art book but all in all, I’m still happy with the purchase because it was a peek into yesteryear and reminiscing of the many video games I played and the fact that you can find this book under $20 now from some online stores makes it much easier for the pocketbook.
Tags: CREDIT 00: I LOVE GAME GRAPHICS, Iida Kazutoshi, Kusano Tsuyoshi, Sagara Nobuhiko, Umekawa Yoshimitsu