For the past several years, an old college friend of mine drops in around Christmas time to pay me a visit and play some games. This list of games is typically quite bizarre. My goal in this entry is to simply walk you through what we played...

Our book, Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time, has been spotted on Italian TV. Claudio Todeschini and Stefano Gaburri, who translated our work to Italian, were featured on a Rai.TV program. Check out their original blog post about it, then check out the video. It's a great feature on them and the book (even for those of us who don't speak Italian) and it starts at approximately the 06:25 mark. Cool stuff! (Matt and I should be receiving our copies of the Italian edition any day now as well)

Pixel Perfect Gaming has posted a very nice review of our book, Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time. Right now it appears on their front page, but here's the direct link to the review article for when it gets bumped down. I won't spoil what the reviewer has to say, but I certainly can't complain on this one. Don't forget, Vintage Games is still available from retailers worldwide, has its official page here, and an Italian edition here. Enjoy!

Randolph Carter of "Reading the Text" has posted an interview with me concerning my gaming background, projects, and career. It's a good read for anyone hoping to follow in our footsteps as game book authors. :)

Claudio Todeschini, the Italian gentleman who is spearheading the special Italian edition of our book, Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time, has sent word that the Italian Website is now live, along with a Twitter feed, Facebook group, blog, and Pong bonus chapter in both HTML and PDF formats. Too bad I can't read Italian, but there's no denying this is a wonderful, wonderful effort, truly above and beyond!

I don't have all of the details, but I was given the heads up from Italian friend Luca Antignano (involved in CreatiVision homebrew activities, among other things) that our book, Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time, will be present at the Video Games History event, October 3 and 4, 2009, Italy. I'm told the book will be both part of the promotional materials and also "introduced" at the event. As you may or may not recall, while Vintage Games is available worldwide, there has been interest from other publishing companies to create region/language-specific "special editions" of the book, starting first with Italy. Also, be sure to check out another Italian site, GamesCollection, for additional news.

University Chronicle has an extensive interview feature on both me and Matt Barton, and our work on Vintage Games, as well as our upcoming feature film documentary, Playing Games, which is referred to in the article by its previous working title of The Age of Videogames. Let us know what you think (and henceforth I wish to be known solely as "The Loguidice" like in the article)! ;-)

Marty Goldberg and ClassicGaming.com just put up a great review of our book, Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time, available at booksellers worldwide, including Amazon.com. While I naturally disagree with the reviewer trying to differentiate what a "videogame" and a "computer game" is based on display - I believe anything that generates its own changeable display of a sufficient resolution qualifies as a videogame (in other words get over the word "video" and treat it as the concept it is, making it both past and future proof (which is one of many reasons why I prefer it as a single word) and not beholden to what amounts to Ralph Baer's convenient legal argument) - overall the review is a positive one. Check it out here.

As previously mentioned, Retro Gamer magazine issue 65, and GameRoom magazine July 2009, covered our book, Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time, available at booksellers worldwide, including Amazon.com. Well, my copies of each of the magazines came today, and I wanted to share some quick thoughts - including some low quality iPhone photos (to protect their IP naturally; buy your own copies - they're worth it!) - on the magazines.