Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-playing Games | 
 enlarge | Author: Matt Barton
Publisher: A K Peters Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: $39.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 38115
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 451
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.5
ISBN: 1568814119
Dewey Decimal Number: 793.93209
EAN: 9781568814117
ASIN: 1568814119
Publication Date: March 3, 2008
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Product Description
Computer role-playing games (CRPGs) are a special genre of computer games that bring the tabletop role-playing experience of games such as Dungeons & Dragons to the computer screen. This genre includes classics such as Ultima and The Bard's Tale as well as more modern games such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. Written in an engaging style for both the computer game enthusiast and the more casual computer game player, this book explores the history of the genre by telling the stories of the developers, games, and gamers who created it.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
A wonderful look at some classic CRPGs, and then some August 10, 2008
Dungeons & Desktops is a very rich and detailed look at the history of computer role-playing games. Matt Barton takes us on an extensive journey, beginning with the genre's roots in tabletop games, to its early years on mainframes and BBSs. We're then given a tour of some of the most beloved CRPGs of all time, such as Richard Garriott's Ultima series (a personal favorite) and The Bard's Tale. Barton even explores Japanese console RPGs, as their explosive popularity with gamers in the 90s has had an acute effect on modern CRPGs. The book concludes with the future of CRPGs in the form of persistent massively multiplayers, such as World of Warcraft.
What makes D&D (hah!) a treasure is that Barton doesn't just pay attention to the hits and genre influencers, but also the misses, such as Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (which Barton calls the worst CRPG ever) and games which never got their due, such as the great Planescape: Torment. The MMORPG section could have used some better fact checking (e.g. EverQuest's realm is called Norrath, not Narrath, and Asheron's Call 2 was shut down years ago), but otherwise the book is quite spot on.
Fans of gaming history will really appreciate this book and may rediscover some long-forgotten classics. I know I have. If you'll excuse me, I need to go play some Universe.
 An enumeration of Computer RPG August 2, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
A was pretty excited when I heard about this book. Being a very specific topic its rare to find books as this. The book is basically structured as a quite complete enumeration of CRPG grouped by 'ages' or periods of time the author has indentified. Sadly, I miss a more coherent view of the whole. I mean, instead of a gripping CRPG industry story the book looks like an encyclopedia of games, a kind of scholar work. If you are more interested in the people and the context behind those games than the games themselves, I would recommend 'Dungeons and dreamers'by King Borland instead.
Anyway a good reference book.
 Leonard Maltin for CRPGs July 18, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I would hesitate to call this book a history of CRPGs - a chronology would be more appropriate. Barton is comprehensive - every major CRPG from the inception of the computer is covered, but as another reviewer pointed out it is more of a collection of review summaries - I would liken it to Maltin's capsule reviews of films.
The organization into the different ages is intriguing, and aside from the nostalgic look at games I had forgotten about, it the best part of the book. The author does not do enough to flesh out the trends, technologies, people and other aspects that may have gone in to the different ages. They are all covered piecemeal with the review capsules, and this hurts the coherence.
The jumping from capsule review summaries to personal opinion is a bit awkward as well. I would have liked to have read more of the author's opinions - they were the on the whole more interesting than the reviews themselves.
The decision to include a bit on console RPGs without deviating from the spirit of the book was a good one.
All that said, for those of us who lived through the entire period and remember seeking out judgment day, getting eaten by a grue, or fighting vorpal bunnies it is a trip down memory lane and a nice reference volume, just not the most coherent read-through.
Read Wikipedia Instead July 15, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I ordered Dungeons and Desktops hoping for some insight on the development of the computer RPG genre. Unfortunately, after slogging through 436 pages of disjointed, superficial game summaries, I had gained insight only into the book's low quality.
To start, the book has all the professionalism of a photocopied high school book report. Besides being littered with typos, the writing is bland and cliched: "We've got a lot of great CRPGS to cover in this chapter, so let's ready our trusty Longsword +3 (+4 vs. critics) and charge into the fray!" The book's screen captures are mostly dark black rectangles with some light black highlights, which is a shame--half the captures look like they're supposed to be title screens, and I really wanted to learn more about video game title screens (as opposed to, say, video game interface and mechanics).
A similarly high-schoolish aspect is the footnotes, which are rare and whimsical. Chapter 8, for example, describes 50 games in 63 pages. Just about every description includes a judgment on the game's quality or a sweeping assertion that "most critics liked this" or "few fans enjoyed that." The entire chapter, however, has footnoted references to just five outside sources. (My favorite is on page 268: It basically says, "For more information on BBS door services, see the Wikipedia article on BBS door services.")
The chapters themselves are organized roughly by game release dates, and they read like detailed descriptions of an Excel Spreadsheet. They feature summaries of the hackneyed plots of game after game after game, even though most of them are just "Go rescue this magical artifact from Lagoth Zanta or possibly another monolithic evil whose name would also earn you 86 points in Scrabble." Also included are lists of each game's character attributes: This one has strength, intelligence, and dexterity; that one has power, wisdom, and quickness; and another one has energy, understanding, and agility. Fascinating.
One solution would have been to focus chapters by themes (say, the evolution of RPG storytelling, or the development of magic systems). The lack of such insightful organization might have been forgivable, however, if I could have trusted the book as a source of raw information. But when reading about games I had played, I frequently got the feeling that the entries were written after skimming the aforementioned Wikipedia. For example:
*The author says that the game play of Secret of Mana is similar to the game play of Final Fantasy except for the battle system. This is like saying oranges taste similar to apples except for their orange-like taste.
*After describing the first two Zelda games, the author says the third allows the chance to collect heart containers on the world map, as if that feature weren't in the previous two. He makes a similar statement about the Dragon Warrior games and battery back-up.
*The author spends a quarter of his Quest for Glory II review describing how each class has various humorous career paths. For example, he mentions that fighters and wizards can become combat instructors and computer programmers, respectively. However, none of these "career paths" are actually in the game: they are just a throwaway gag in the manual.
In all, the stunning depth of research made me wonder why I had paid to read one gamer's ramblings on what he liked and disliked about every computer RPG in history. I have the Internet for that. In fact, a lot of the book is just copy-and-pasted from the author's articles on gamasutra.com (where the screen captures are much clearer).
I suggest spending your money on an actual game instead.
Comprehensive yet Disappointing History May 28, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Dungeons & Desktops is a comprehensive and thorough history of the Computer Role Playing Game genre. It's basically a more fleshed out version of the author's earlier four-part series on the Gamasutra website, maintaining the same format of dividing the games into different ages (Dark, Silver, Gold, Platinum) and devoting some time to each game, explaining key gameplay features, release information and sometimes the author's thoughts on the game's merits.
The book's greatest strength is in cataloging both well-known and obscure games in the genre and explaining how each was innovative in some way or representative of a trend in the genre. In this way, the book gives a fairly good outline of the history of this wide-ranging genre. Even hardcore fans of the genre may be surprised by some of the very early examples Barton was able to unearth. As the book moves into the more familiar modern age, it becomes less interesting in this regard.
Although the book covers an impressive number of titles, there were spots were I felt the writing was bogged down by the repetitive nature of looking at game after game, a result of being an expanded Web feature article. Although Barton pauses at times to discuss major trends, I thought this was inconsistent, and the bulk of the book reads like Mobygames summaries of dozens of games. At times, I wanted more about the people behind the games, and voices other than the author's to break up what amounted to a series of opinions on various games.
This isn't helped by some questionable choices in organization and selection. A thorough look at console games like the Final Fantasy and Zelda series should have been reserved for another book, while Gothic, a well-known modern PC RPG series, gets nothing more than a few paragraphs as a footnote to the downfall of the Ultima series (ironically, the author states that the series has been unfairly overlooked). There are also issues that arise from attempts to lump the games into different "ages." Why one game is listed in one age and not another isn't always clear, and it leads to a confusing chronology.
I spotted a number of minor errors in the text, mostly related to chronology. A few examples: Oblivion was not released simultaneously on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Also, Vampire the Masquerade was released before Half-Life 2, and was the first Source Engine game released. While these may be minor, it left me wondering how many more I didn't catch. Also, the printing quality of the screenshots leaves much to be desired. Most look like dark blotches.
Barton's articles, from which much of this book comes from, are still a great read and catch nearly all the key games in the genre. I felt that this book did little more than add games that are of far less importance, and therefore of little interest to most readers. This book may be valuable for those who want a very comprehensive catalog of computer role playing games, but I would recommend that most readers stick with the free online articles.
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