Blog Tour: Fuck Yeah, Video Games – Daniel Hardcastle

 

*I received a free ARC of this book with thanks to the author, Unbound, and Anne Cater of  Random Things Blog Tours. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*

 

Blurb:  As Daniel Hardcastle careers towards thirty, he looks back on what has really made him happy in life: the friends, the romances… the video games. Told through encounters with the most remarkable and the most mind-boggling games of the last thirty-odd years, Fuck Yeah, Video Games is also a love letter to the greatest hobby in the world.

From God of War to Tomb Raider, Pokémon to The Sims, Daniel relives each game with countless in-jokes, obscure references and his signature wit, as well as intricate, original illustrations by Rebecca Maughan. Alongside this march of merriment are chapters dedicated to the hardware behind the games: a veritable history of Sony, Nintendo, Sega and Atari consoles.

Joyous, absurd, personal and at times sweary, Daniel’s memoir is a celebration of the sheer brilliance of video games.

 

 

If you love video games and enjoy laughing, then this is the book for you.

Please tell me I don’t need to give you a language warning… you’ve all seen the title of the book, yes?!

In this book, Daniel Hardcastle romps joyously through various games and consoles, apparently at random, peppering his opinions with personal anecdotes, witty asides, and Pratchettesque foot notes.  Each short chapter features a different game or console and few are limited to just a straightforward review, but instead gloriously reimagined as fictional prison diaries, recaps of his childhood mission plans and reminiscences about schoolyard swaps and secrets.

Personally I am mainly a PC gamer these days, but have (and in some cases still do) owned a SNES, Sega Mega Drive, GameBoy, PS1-4 (inclusive) and Ninetendo DS.  Not to mention my early days playing Jumping Jack on the ZX Spectrum.  So I have a vague clue about the games and consoles that appealed to me (The Sims, The Elder Scrolls, Sonic, Mario, Donkey Kong Country, Civilization) and less knowledge about the more mainstream war,, combat and sports games.

Regardless of whether I was familiar with the games and consoles covered in the book though, Daniel Hardcastle’s easy-to-read style and tongue-in-cheek humour had me totally hooked and, having intended to dip in and out of the book, I found myself unable to put it down until the last page.

Hardcastle’s enthusiasm for games, lack of ego when it comes to his skills, and sheer joy in bantering with (at!) fellow fans shone through every page.  Likewise, Rebecca Maughan’s illustrations reflect the same joy and humour, perfectly complementing the text and adding an extra layer of enjoyment for the reader.

In reading this book I spluttered with audible laughter so many times that my husband has begged me to buy him his own copy for Christmas (he claims I’ve sprayed pop all over my copy).  In short, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to fans of video games and funny stories.  Game Over.

 

   My progress in Sonic the Hedgehog was ironically slow.  First, I had to work out what jumping was for.  Thinking about it, jumping is probably the most frequently included part of gaming that doesn’t come up often in your daily life.⁴  If the only way to get somewhere was by jumping I’d probably call up some health and safety department and complain.  The only time I ever jump these days is if a spider surprises me in the garage.  Not just jumping, mind; any variation from a continuous flat surface could ruin my day.  It tut almost out loud every time the gap between the train and the platform is particularly wide.

⁴ Fruit eating is another big one.  If anyone ate as much fruit as early gaming characters, they’d catch whatever the opposite of scurvy is.

– Daniel Hardcastle, Fuck Yeah, Video Games

 

 

You could be in with a chance of winning a hardback copy of this book – just follow the link below and the instructions you find there!

Fuck Yeah, Video Games book giveaway

 

 

• This is the most successful book in UK crowdfunding history: it funded in a mere 42 minutes, and has so far been backed by over 9,000 supporters. If these pledges were counted as sales, the book would have been a Sunday Times bestseller in the week of its launch.
• Dan’s OfficialNerdCubed YouTube channel has over 2.6 million subscribers.
• The book features a foreword by legendary game designer Tim Schafer, and a guest chapter from fellow YouTuber Stuart Ashen (aka Ashens), who has 1.4 million subscribers.
• For fans of Terrible Old Games You’ve Never Heard Of by Stuart Ashen, Hey! Listen!: A journey through the golden era of video games by Steve McNeil, The Nostalgia Nerd’s Retro Tech by Peter Leigh, Speccy Nation by Dan Whitehead.

 

Find more from Daniel Hardcastle at his website here, or follow him on Twitter, YouTube and Goodreads.

Fuck Yeah, Video Games is available on Amazon right now!

 

Don’t forget to stop by the other blogs on this tour (see the poster below for details) for more great content and reviews!

 

 

 

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