Lucky Wander Boy 172
Lucky Wander Boy | |
author | DB Weiss |
pages | 272 |
publisher | Plume |
rating | 9 |
reviewer | Hello Kitty |
ISBN | 0452283949 |
summary | the Big Videogame Chill |
It's the mid-90s and Adam Pennyman's got no particular place to go, so he finds himself in a Los Angeles apartment with a cranky soon-to-be-ex girlfriend and a copy of MAME, everyone's favorite game emulator. His collection grows until he feels compelled to document it, or his life as realized through his gaming, in an unpublishable text called the Catalogue of Obscure Entertainments.
Unimpressed, his girlfriend starts edging out of his life just as a chance meeting with a former friend lands Adam a copywriting gig at Portal Entertainment, a dot-com ostensibly in the process of turning various videogame properties into movies. (The real business, of course, involves turning smoke and mirrors into venture cap; alumni of, oh, D*N or El*ctr*m*dia are encouraged to up the dosage of whatever they're taking to quell the flashbacks during the passages describing Portal's office culture.)
But Portal puts Adam within reach of the gamer's Grail: Lucky Wander Boy, a rare and bizarre game created by the reclusive Araki Itachi. Lucky Wander Boy was years ahead of its time, and so intricately coded that no one, no one, ever reached third level. Or have they? Adam nearly did once, long ago, and has been haunted ever since by a memory of gameplay that just couldn't have truly happened... could it? Adam will go far to find out. Very far indeed.
I love me some metaphysical conceits in my fiction, so strictly for the description of the Lucky Wander Boy game I'd rate this book highly. (It doesn't exist. It couldn't exist. I want it to exist. Dammit.) The author's done a fine job capturing a certain kind of thinking that occurs when smart people start reading deeper meaning into their obsessions.
Adam's ruminations on many of the classics (Pac-Man, Microsurgeon, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., et al.) ring player-true -- which is why it's so glorious and scary when he goes off the rails with you right beside him. If you played in the days when primitive graphics and freshly-minuted archetypes made gameplay somehow even more addictive, this book will cause howls of recognition. Best of all, it's well-written and for the most part affectionate to the subculture; be glad this quasi-historical novel was written by the promising Weiss and not by that maiden aunt of yours who wouldn't let you have any more quarters.
You can purchase Lucky Wander Boy from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Implausible (Score:5, Funny)
Right here is where the story would lose me. It is nigh impossible that some nerd with MAME whose mission is to seek out this one mythical video game is going to have a girlfriend in the first place.
If it were a movie I'd be screaming at the screen.
I can prove you're wrong. (Score:3, Funny)
Behold! I give you CmdrTaco [cmdrtaco.net]!
Fucking geek steroetypes. (Score:5, Insightful)
God. You know what's unbeleivable? Somebody so stupid they actually would place their suspension of disbleif in something so bad as a stereotype. 1. It's fiction. So suspend away NONE OF IT IS REAL. 2. That would be like saying "God, this cop-buddy comedy with a black man in it isn't racist enough in it's portrayal of a subculture.".
You got the subject wrong... (Score:2, Funny)
Either that or you're thinking of a different one than I am.
Not surprising (Score:3, Funny)
My God man, no wonder you've never met any stereotypical geeks! There're not going to be at places you MEET people! True geeks avoid social meeting places and if you approach them at work they just mumble something about staplers until you go away and leave them to their coding.
Want to find some REAL geeks? You need to stay IN more - go on IRC, start a blog. The geek
heh I'm at work right now.... (Score:1)
Re:heh I'm at work right now.... (Score:2)
Why wait? Surely there must be SOMETHING you can do about it!
GTRacer
- Not really endorsing such interoffice activity
Re:Fucking geek steroetypes. (Score:2)
Well, he did say he's married...
thank you (Score:1)
Re:? that was unnecassary. (Score:2)
Possibly his problem is that he's never spoken to an actual female... Perhaps he should get out more?
Kintanon
Re:? that was unnecassary. (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:? that was unnecassary. (Score:3, Interesting)
Good one, kid.
Re:? that was unnecassary. (Score:2)
Re:? that was unnecassary. (Score:2)
Re:Implausible (Score:1)
Freakin' introspection...
heh, yeah (Score:1)
Re:My wife got pretty good at chair sex... (Score:1)
it sure beats having sex with a joystick (Score:1)
Of course, with the PSX/2 vibrating function, it's almost as if the controller was asking for it.
Stop Whining (Score:5, Interesting)
Am I the only one who saw Tron? Last Starfighter? Mario Brothers?
Would an InSync ballad to Centipede be what you are looking for? Popular culture has been riddled with the games I loved to play. And vice versa. This whining is unseemly.
Re:Stop Whining (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stop Whining (Score:2)
Re:Stop Whining (Score:1)
The Last Starfighter [imdb.com] was the first film I ever saw at a cinema.
I'm hoping it will be out upon DVD sometime soon..
Re:Stop Whining (Score:1)
p.s. That's a link off of the imdb page that you linked to. In the upper-right, click on DVD...
Re:Stop Whining (Score:1)
D'oh!
Thanks for the link .. I actually searched Amazon.co.uk before posting my message and got no matches. It' turns up just fine on Amazon.com.
*sigh*
Mario Brothers Was Crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Dramatic Interlude
It seems that video games occupy a certain space of popular culture and that it is only slowly expanding beyond that. The geek influences are still in place even though they're mass market items. When I am interested in a new video game or a new system, I don't check the mainstream news outlets, I go to a video game website or read a video game magazine. Comparing this to when I want to read a review of a new movie - just open the newspaper or just watch the trailer on TV and judge it from that. Video games have clearly broken out of the niche of being a toy for kids BUT the marketing of them seems to be stuck in a limited circle. Of course, maybe this is a good thing - perhaps it's the fact that people are interested enough in video games to seek out information about them, without huge marketing budgets pushing them down our throats, that shows just why the video game industry pulls in so much more money.
Oh also, the Mario Brothers movie was crap. I think that stunning pile of dog feces shows that a lot of people outside of the video game industry just don't get it - they don't have the ability to translate because their heads are stuck in Hollywood mode. All they did for that wretched mistake was take the basic characters from the game (two Italians, one wearing red, the other wearing green) and throw them into a run of the mill crap movie. There was no real use of the dynamics of the games. Video games are different. :D
Re:Mario Brothers Was Crap (Score:2)
But it sounds like from what I've read here that the industry is tough and making money is not easy. Why spend big dollars on advertising if you don't have to?
Not to mention I would not think the indicators you mention above necessarily are good for measuring pop culture (t.v. ads and newspaper reviews). But I do see video game ads quite a bit. Also I see commercials where video games play a pa
True Dat, Yo (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mario Brothers Was Crap (Score:3)
Maybe we just watch different channels, but I've been seeing a fair number of ads for specific carts as well as consoles themselves. Dothack, Xenosaga -- I don't even own a console (well, I've got a VCS) but I've seen and
Re:Mario Brothers Was Crap (Score:1)
On a related-video games on TV-note, I do watch Extended Play on TechTV (which, in case you've not seen, is a show that has video game reviews) and I really enjoy that. The host is a bit of a clown but I get around that by pretending he doesn't exist. But do you think a show like that would make
Re:Mario Brothers Was Crap (Score:2)
Ghettoization of Gaming Coverage & Ads (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. I agree. Pop culture has long since taken video games to heart, but the powers that be in Hollywood and the other centers of Big Media still don't get it.
Now, personally, I think that it's a generational thing. Oddly enough, given their core customers, media companies famously are run by guys (pretty much all guys) who are positively decrepit. And like Wall Street, the culture is so strong and pervasive that even if somebody isn't from that world, they ape its morés and b
Re:Stop Whining (Score:1)
Re:Stop Whining (Score:1)
Well, N'Sync DID sample Pac-Man (and gave it credit) for their song "The Game is Over". But personally, I think Buckner and Garcia [bucknergarcia.com] did it better.
wokka wokka wokka wokka wokka
Re:Stop Whining (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Stop Whining (Score:1)
No Nsync, please. Please don't ruin my memory of the greatest album ever [bucknergarcia.com]. Yes, I'm a nerd, and I bought the CD from their site. :)
--madgeorge
Re:Stop Whining (Score:2, Funny)
Homer: "I'm in a place I've never been before!"
Marge: "What does it look like?"
Homer: "Did you ever see the movie Tron?"
Marge: "No."
Apu: "No."
Doctor Hibbert: "No."
Otto: "No."
Dr. Frink: "No."
Chief Wiggam: "Yes.... I mean no."
Re:Stop Whining (Score:2)
To replace the two that I disqualified I add the following Tomb Raider and Mortal Combat
Re:Stop Whining (Score:2)
The truth is that post-Madonna, post-Reagan academia *loves* tropes like those in gaming, while as for transmission within pop culture itself, hmmm, how many early music videos used video game imagery? At least ten? Twenty?
How about movies? War Games anybody?
Well, moving on, lesse, clothing? Check. How many gen-Y kiddies bought their Atari or Pac Man t-shirts at Urban Outfitters who never even
Can't read (Score:1, Funny)
How powerful is Hollywood? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How powerful is Hollywood? (Score:2)
Re:How powerful is Hollywood? (Score:2)
Re:How powerful is Hollywood? (Score:1)
Re:How powerful is Hollywood? (Score:1)
In 2002 the video game industry (hardware, software, and accessories) brought in about $10M.
Hello Kitty is *just* a little bit off with his Hollywood & Vegas combined statement.
QED
Billion not Million (Score:1)
QED
Waaaay Off Base (Score:2)
Nope, isn't even close. Once you include DVD sales/rentals and such, Hollywood is way above and beyond the gaming industry.
Cold Hard Numbers (via Business 2.0 Magazine) (Score:5, Informative)
Videogames Vs. Hollywood
You've probably heard that the videogame business is now bigger than the movie industry. Don't believe the hype. The reality: Videogame sales last year still trailed Hollywood box-office receipts (not to mention books and music). Throw in revenues from VHS and DVD sales and rentals, and game software becomes a distant also-ran.
Share of the entertainment dollar, 2001 (TOTAL: $59 Billion)
Video (VHS and DVD): 28%
Books: 28%
Movies (box office): 14%
Music: 19%
Videogames: 11%
US perhaps (Score:2)
Of course, your figures are also for 2001 (a bad year, just before CameCube and Xbox kicked in).
Re:Cold Hard Numbers (via Business 2.0 Magazine) (Score:2, Insightful)
Well take a looksee at this. Videogame sales have apparently tripled, then, since 2001. And we all know that piracy is "killing" the music business, so its share will have gone down. DVDs are more popular then ever, so its chunk may have risen. So either the video game industry has Andersen for bookkeeping, or Bidness 2.0 and CNN have some wonky numbers.
Ten Pence (Score:1, Insightful)
Previoud high score just scraped in at the 80k mark.
I didn't win the weekly high score prize because my dad owned the said arcade.
Shame. Was a fiver. Could get chips, a litre of cider, and a spccy game in them days. With change. Didn't drink mind you.
RTFR? (Score:1)
Where *does* pacman go?! Arghh
Lucky Wander Boy (Score:3, Funny)
Lucky Wander Boy == Buddy Lee! (Score:2, Funny)
Quarters? (Score:1)
Who needed quarters? Didn't you read the Jolly Roger Cookbook? Getting arcade games for a penny instead of a quarter. Or mabye I read that somewhere else. Flicking pennies up the coin return and getting credits. woohoo.....
claims... (Score:2)
this seems like wishful thinking. Perhaps Hollywood could not have been a 5 billion dollar market (back then there probably weren't videos, dvds, omnipresent cable tv, product placement, etc.), but Vegas ?!? i really do not think there was a domestic market bigger than Vegas in 1981. maybe DoD... and oil... and cocaine..
WTF pop culture do you live in? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see...there have been pop songs about arcade games, movies based on arcade games, movies about people playing arcade games, movies about people arcade video games, television cartoons based on arcade games, and almost every household you see on tv in US of A has at least one video game system.
Yes, there is no Hollywood 'walk of fame' star for gaming, but what kind of 'due' do you expect?
I think the important question is, why does every video game on tv sound like Pac Man for the 2600?
Re:WTF pop culture do you live in? (Score:3)
They actually do this so that it is easily recognized as a video-game. I guess I can understand--as hardware gets better and better some games' graphics are increasingly realistic. Having Pac-man or Space Invader sounds lets everyone know that someone is playing a video-game and not watching car races or something like that.
Re:WTF pop culture do you live in? (Score:1)
cheap royalties or running joke? (Score:2)
I've heard it on at least a dozen different sit coms, for range of game--road racers, FPS, etc. I can't be the only person who's noticed this.
Re:cheap royalties or running joke? (Score:2)
Re:WTF pop culture do you live in? (Score:2)
Not to mention the more quoted reason that those sounds from the 2600 are the only ones they don't have to pay someone for.
Re:WTF pop culture do you live in? (Score:1)
Re:WTF pop culture do you live in? (Score:2)
Wow, that sounded cynic. Sorry, I am.
2600 Pac Man (Score:2)
Ugh. The 2600 version has the worst sound fx of any version I've ever heard. Eating the dots sounds like "gonk gonk gonk gonk" instead of the authentic "waka waka waka waka".
arcade games (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:arcade games (Score:2)
I would have KILLED for one of those when I was fifteen.
*Please* say that you will make the top graphics plate swappable.
So, are you gonna sell these things or what?
Rustin
Let me guess (Score:2, Funny)
Lucky Wander Boy - Sounds Familiar (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
wtf. (Score:1)
Pinball (Score:1)
I moved to Space Invaders: Gone as well
Such is life, such is the way of world and all pop culture. What can I say Shit Happens!
Re:Pinball (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pinball (Score:2)
[and to answer jonas' question below
Sounds like Zen and the Art... kinda... (Score:2)
but it sounds like if you are interested in that sort of philosophy 101 kinda stuff (NOT an insult! I am very into the philosophy 101 stuff! I'd rather not read Kant) its got a video-game wrapper.
but it sounds like something I'd get from the library and read.
Pacman? That's easy... (Score:1, Funny)
There was a urinal just off-screen. You wouldn't think he'd drop his load in front of a crowd of teenagers, 4 ghosts and a bunch of cherries do you?
I met the author... (Score:3, Interesting)
I read the book too, and I agree very much with the review. The excerpts from the "Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainments" were my favorite part - some very canny insights into old-school arcade games. I particularly liked in one section where on of the character starts critiquing the catalogue in a manner that completely echoed what I was thinking...
Go read the book, it's cool!
grib.
back in my day (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the reason I was turned off from arcades, dagnabbit.
OT: I think the best baseball game ever made was SNK "Baseball Stars" for the NES. I've yet to seen one be as fun as that.
Re:back in my day (Score:2)
he sheer volume of quarters I pumped into Dragon's Lair is about what some would pay to have sex with a real woman, let alone Princess Daphne.
Re:back in my day (Score:2)
I have; there's some in Northwest Ohio. (Findlay has one that I've been to.) There, they are usually run as an extension or "kid-friendly" version of the adult-focused mega-arcades (like Dave & Buster's) that are in vogue currently.
Nickel arcades (Score:2)
Findlay, you say? Where is that exactly?
Rustin
Captain N: The Game Master (Score:1)
Title Rhythm (Score:2, Funny)
Do NOT taunt happy fun ball...
Amazon's "Also shopped for list" (Score:2, Funny)
Perspective (Score:1)
As mentioned, this isn't exactly accurate. Arcades were and are still very much of an either/or proposition: Either you went, or you did not; and the folks in the later case greatly outnumbered those of us in the former. Yet anthor example of being good vs. being popular. If this doesn't make sense, watch Tron a couple of times th
Arcades "Back In The Day" (Score:3, Interesting)
If you played in the days when primitive graphics and freshly-minuted archetypes made gameplay somehow even more addictive, this book will cause howls of recognition.
I feel priveleged to have been born in '68, because I got to experience arcades at the height of their glory. Best arcade I ever went to: Spaceway Raceway in Springfield Mall. Actually, there were *two* arcades in Springfield mall during the 80s--IIRC, they were both called "Timeout" at one point. The Spaceway Raceway was the one that was remodeled to include a circular electric bumper-car track.
The important thing is that the arcades were DARK. This cannot be stressed too much. Also, games were new, we were young, and this was "cutting edge technology that nobodoy knew where it would take us". It was soooo... easy to get "lost" in this fantasy world... perhaps too easy. I honestly believe I was addicted to games at one point.
Timeout is still there, but SWRW was turned into something else... not sure what. The beginning of the end came for me when games started getting "cartoony" and I learned to drive. Then they started turning on lights in Time Out. They started turning on lights in all the arcades, reason given was that drug deals and pick-pocketing were going down. Lousy people always have to spoil it... but perhaps this was part of the "Star Wars Cantina" low-grade danger that made the places so appealing... that, and the fact that I had to ride my bike pretty far to get there.
It all fell apart when I went to college. Even before that, they were losing their luster. And, when you can drive a car, there are much more interesting places to go...
Of course kids these days have better tech, but I can't help but think they are deprived. There tech is too good. No epic bike rides for gaming... they sit on their butts too long... the effect of the tech and the direction it will take seems more predictable.
Games now? I fire up Quake once in a while when I'm frustrated with something, but that's it. The addiction left, as mysteriously as it came.
Re:Arcades "Back In The Day" (Score:2)
I used to be really into video games back in the late seventies when Asteroids was considered very high tech.
There is just no way that the sort of arcades I went to could exist now. First of all, I went to ones on the edge of Times Square in New York City. Yeah, that Times Square. Pre-cleanup, with drug dealers and trannie hookers and all the stuff they've now made movies of. And I was a geeky little white boy waiting patiently (mostly) for my tu
Re:Arcades "Back In The Day" (Score:2)
Wow. Took the words outa my mouth.
Favorite arcade memory - a chance meeting with one of my high school minor-nemeses at one of the rougher downtown arcades. Hey, it was the only place that had enough Robotrons that I could actually play for an hour or so without having to yield the mach
In search of turtles, the Arcade Game... (Score:1)
Hmm... (Score:1)
'Lucky Wander Boy'? 'Araki Itachi'? Nostalgia instead of appreciation? Oh... just, *cringe*
I read this book (Score:2)
If you're considering buying this novel, don't. It's really ba
cheating? (Score:2)
Seems kinda thin storywise, (Score:2)
Re:Arcade games were a FAD (Score:2)
That's not quite true. (Score:3, Interesting)
Many of the latest cuts from the top DJs are remixes of older tracks, and in the late 90's there was a definite 'disco vibe' to a lot of the commercial club output.
Recent club music seems to be having a bit of an 80's resurgence (as does European pop music in general - for proof, listen to 'Freak Like Me' by the Sugababes).
Disco culture, however, has proven popular since the 70's. If you're in
Re:Arcade games were a FAD (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Arcade games were a FAD (Score:3, Interesting)
Me too, however I get the same thrill matching wits and reflexes while playing Quake/UT/etc. online. It's nice to play for free and I don't have to leave the house.
The other nice thing is no one complains that I am stark naked.
Re:Arcade games were a FAD (Score:1, Offtopic)
-prator
Re:So (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, that does make sense.
You see, right now, classic gaming and arcade culture haven't been recognized by any segment of popular culture. However, a large percentage of young adults (and, indeed, older adults) today played video games as a child (or still do). Hence, writing an accessible book that recognizes this experience will automatically become a part of "popular" culture, since a large portion of the population wi
Re:Merits of old games (Score:2)
One I enjoy for the strategy and timing, the other is just funny as hell to run around, picking up weapons and killing the other team's players. Boring? Never. I can play cyberball for hours. While I win most of the time, it still pulls the upset here and there (damn blitzing linebackers!). While I have games up to WarCraft III, I still pull up MAME and Cyberball almost daily to get that rush of running a kickoff back, or catching a
focus (Score:2)