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| Author: Chris Kohler
Publisher: BRADY GAMES
Category: Book
Buy Used: $38.99
Used (3) from $38.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 415907
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 312
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 0744004241
Dewey Decimal Number: 794.81536
UPC: 752073004248
EAN: 9780744004243
ASIN: 0744004241
Publication Date: September 14, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Excellent book--some flaws April 13, 2005
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is an excellent book. However, it's a bit too short and has some issues.
Firstly, as mentioned in other reviews, this book is really dry. It's written in an academic fashion--and is loaded with unncessary scene-by-scene analysis of classic Japanese games that I largely skipped over. The author seems to desperately want to be taken seriously in an acadcemic sense---which leads to some dry reading.
Also, the author is an EXTREME Nintendo and Square fanboy. In a short book like this, it's impossible to cover the rich history of Japanese games--but there's hardly a mention of other Japanese giants such as Sega, Hudson, Capcom, Konami, etc. And apparently Nintendo can do no wrong as the author gushes over every single Nintendo product. To the point where he's giving valuable pages to Silicon Knights--a rather unremarkable western game developer--simply because of their tight relationship with Nintendo. Silicon Knights is a mere footnote in Nintendo's history--while there's not a single mention of Rare anywhere.
Anyway--the Akihabara shopping guide is great. I'm going to use that when I go to Japan, no doubt. Also he makes a lot of observations about the Japanese game industry that I haven't seen anywhere else. He's also managed to get some decent access to various Japanese developers for interviews--which makes for much better reading than other books which simply cull from old magazine interviews.
In the end, it's an interesting but very tiny slice of Japanese game history. It's also a raging love letter to Nintendo and Square--which makes the author unable to grasp the depths to which Nintendo has fallen. (Squares downfall is nicely detailed though)
I'd like to see him write a few more volumes on the subject, this time focusing on the greater history of Japanese games. But as it is, I highly recommend this book. It's one of the few video game history books that offers new insights.
 Should be titled "An Ode to Nintendo" March 26, 2005
10 out of 16 found this review helpful
Frankly, unless you're as enamored with Nintendo as Kohler is, you'll probably find the scope of this book far too narrow to be of any real interest or provide any insight. Kohler has essentially (and I don't begrudge him his good fortune for being able to do so) translated his love of video games and anime into both a successful thesis and a published work. To the uninitiated, "Power-Up" would appear to be an insightful, well-researched treatise; as someone who is approximately Kohler's age and grew up with the same influences of Japanese video games and culture, I found myself time and time again saying, "Yeah, so what?" Save for some of the historical background, the book was largely a collection of geek common knowledge, where "geek" refers to someone whose interests include video games, anime, computers, and the like.
Futhermore, as I mentioned earlier, from the way this book is written, you'd get the impression that the only company that has ever made a video game is Nintendo. References to Atari, Sega and Sony are extremely rare. While I agree that Nintendo has played the largest role in the rise of video games, other major players have established themselves in the last five to ten years, and their contributions are largely glossed over, particularly Sega. These omissions are what give the feeling that Kohler has basically taken his childhood experiences of playing Nintendo, fleshed them out a bit and put them on the shelf.
In short, I wouldn't change the content of the book but I would most certainly change the title to reflect the heavy, one-sided Nintendo bias of the book. If you're in your twenties or early thirties and grew up as a fan of video games and anime, don't bother reading this book - you already know what happens.
 Interviews with industry movers and shakers February 12, 2005
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Power Up examines video games in general, and Japanese video games in particular, as an interactive storytelling medium. But video games were not always regarded as art - Japanese influence pioneered cinematic techniques that transformed games from primitive, non-story plaything such as the classic Pong to sweeping epic sagas such as the hero's complex journey in role-playing games like Final Fantasy 7. Though non-Japanese games are included in the discussion, Power Up especially examines how storytelling ideas in Japanese videogames have so thoroughly permeated the gaming world, from the first-ever game cutscenes in Donkey Kong onward. Author and dedicated game fan Chris Kohler presents his research of and personal interviews with industry movers and shakers such as Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Mario), Hideo Kojima (designer of Metal Gear Solid), and many more. The impact of classic series on game storytelling and narrative include discussions of specific series such as a Mario games, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, and Grand Theft Auto among others. Black-and-white photographs and screenshots illustrate this fascinating exploration of everything from how videogame music evolved from bleeps and boops to full-symphony orchestras to the adventures that might await any truly hardcore gaming fan who dares to shop in Akihabara. Though Power Up concentrates especially on video game history, references to modern developments up through 2004 keep this survey current. A highly recommended treat for gamers in particular, and a valuable resource for students and researchers seeking to better understand the cultural shifts in video games as a communicative, interactive, expressive artistic medium as vibrant (and popular!) in its own right as books and movies.
 Historical correctness isn't enough October 30, 2004
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
I'm a rather even-tempered kind of guy -- except when I see falsehoods bandied about like truths. I see that all the time in videogame journalism. Not an issue of EGM or Gamepro goes by without me going into a rage at the ignorance of the editors. And the less said about G4techTV, the better.
I stayed calm throughout Power-Up. Chris Kohler certainly knows his stuff. But his writing left me feeling empty -- there's no soul to it nor any brilliant (or even not-so-brilliant) insights. Power-Up is dry to the point of reading like an instruction manual, as another reviewer mentioned, or an assigned class report. When Kohler does digress, he tends to toss in entirely irrelevant and boring trivia (for example, he spends a full page on the installation of FF XI, noting how the PS2 version works with any USB keyboard, not only the overpriced official Sony product).
I've found many of Chris Kohler's articles in Wired (et al) to be both informative and well written, so it's a real pity that Power-Up doesn't make itself deserving of shelf space by Steven L. Kent's The First Quarter. Power-Up's not a bad book, just mediocre.
For fans, by a fan. October 25, 2004
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
I've read a number of video game books over the years, and while most are well researched and informative, they seem to take a cynical or flat out negative tone most of the time. Possibly because they are more focused on the business side of the industry. Not so with this book. A labor of love by a fan who actually speaks and reads the language in which Japanese video games are created, he takes us on a journey from the beginnings of Nintendo in the late 1800's to the modern era without missing a beat along the way. The author also examines aspects of the industry that have gone unexamined in other texts, such as game music and Akihabara. It also includes a number of interviews with leading members of of various aspects of the Japanese gaming world. All in all, it's a wonderful example of what these inds of books can be, and I truly hope to see moreon this subject, both from this author and others, in the near future.
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