Atari Archive Vol. I Paperback – October 11, 2023

Historian Kevin Bunch dives deep into the Atari 2600 and early games, painting a vivid picture of the landscape for this important period in video game history. On top of great contextual anecdotes and insights, the book features fantastic images that add to overall enjoyment while reading. This book is a tremendous archive of information for readers familiar with the time period and subjects or just starting to learn.

Mr. Bunch has taken his detailed and meticulous youtube.com video skills and poured them into this vibrant and amazing tome about the first two years of Atari VCS/2600 games. It's better researched than almost all other Atari 2600 books, with amazing images and stories. Honestly, if you love the Atari VCS/2600, don't miss this!

Very good book

This immense labor of love represents a huge amount of work on Kevin Bunch's part. His meticulous attention to detail, exhaustive research and accessible writing voice make this a highly enjoyable and educational reading experience.What's apparent throughout the book is Kevin's willingness to take the time to do things right; witness the uncannily clear photographs of real CRT screens. This is bound to become the new and definitive reference guide, regarding the early period of the Atari VCS. What's more, in spite of the sheer amount of information, the writing style is chummy and warm.The sections that discuss contemporaneous systems are also superbly researched and full of insight. This may, for instance, be the most thorough and spot-on treatment of the computer first called the Bally Professional Arcade (and later the Astrocade) ever published on paper.I very highly recommend that you cough up the surprisingly low asking price for this great book. Treat yourself! It's worth it, believe me. If you have any interest in early, interactive, electronic entertainment, you'll love this. Please support it. Besides, I want to see a second Bunch book, a third and so forth!The Very Picky Stuff for Fellow Grammar-Heads----"Road rage" was not an existent term in the late 1970s. Nor was "bundled." The latter was a phone company's marketing term from three decades later. Its commonality these days speaks of the modern adult's impressionability (thanks perhaps to years of cell phone brain-draining).In a nutshell, "bundled" is a term that you're -supposed- to adopt and use, in order to help companies pass off higher prices as comfy and friendly. Many people have gone right along with it, sadly. If anyone cares, the actual term is "packed in" or, to be even more precise, "pack-in cartridge."Further, common usage be damned, "reference" is only a noun. It's never a verb. The phrase to use instead is "refer to."Finally, the erroneous "they" is frequently used here in place of the more fitting, generic "he" when describing a singular subject.Apart from all of that, a few forgivable typos exist throughout the book's prose: relatively VERY few when we're talking about modern-day writers. Mind you, this section of my unaccountably long review is just for the pedants and picky-minded (such as myself, apparently). Kevin is an excellent writer overall, and he avoids many common grammatical and punctuational mistakes. For instance, he doesn't follow an adverb with a hyphen, or use an apostrophe in the possessive "its." Bravo!

I've been a fan of Kevin Bunch's Atari Archive Youtube channel for years - he's the only Youtuber I've seen who manages to combine informative writing and deep-dive research (often involving as many actualn Atari developers as can still be found now, almost 50 years after this console and many of its games were developed) with fun editing and lots of extra editorial content from the few game review sources of the time, and this book is a perfect summation of that Youtube channel's genial and conversational style, with lots of colorful photos of game cartridges, beautifully-fuzzy CRT screenshots so the games look like you remember them, and excerpts from internal Atari documents from the time helping describe how the Atari 2600 and its games were made.Anyway, buy this book and subscribe to Bunch's channel. They're both A+, and I want many sequels to this book.

I've heard many stories about Atari over the years, from various podcasts, articles, and videos, and "Atari Archives" is one of the best. Having immensely enjoyed Kevin's videos on the top, I was excited to have what amounts to a hard-copy of that content. Kevin has always done an excellent job stepping back from the Atari history to bring in the stories of competing products from the same era, comparing and contrasting the games, and highlighting the overall gaming market of that era. A must-have for video game history buffs, and especially VCS / 2600 aficionados. I look forward to future volumes.

Got this book day 1 from Limited Run Games. Extremely nuanced look at all these games that on the surface seem very simple. Really recommend for anyone interested in gaming history.