Attack of the Flickering Skeletons: More Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of Hardcover – November 2, 2017

A sequel to Ashen's previous book, Terrible Old Games You Probably Never Heard Of, Attack of the Flickering Skeletons further looks at terrible old games that were sold commercially, released on home computers, and released between 1980 and 1995.Like TOGYPNHO before it, entries begin with the first page showing a screenshot of the start screen with the title, format, year of release, developer, publisher, and original price (in pounds) listed below it. The following pages describe the synopsis of the game and how it plays. Screenshots litter the pages, helping show what is described and are underlined with a humorous caption. Capping off each entry is a box detailing reviews of the games from old magazines and noting other versions of the game and how they compare to the one discussed in the book.However, Skeletons have also added three new boxes to the final page. One jokingly details how to recreate the game in real life. Another suggests other games that you could play instead. The final box is unique to each entry, covering a factoid concerning the game in some way.The book also continues TOGYPNHO's "Terrible Games You..." entries where various guest writers talk about the topic. Here, the writers are British Gaming YouTubers. The book also contains another guest entry by Guru Larry and contains an interview from Mentski, where he discusses disappointing home ports of arcade games and unofficial sequels.The sequel also has additional articles that help break up the monotony of the entries. They range from an additional box to entries that look at the lowest scores of various magazines to a comparison between European and US versions of Commodore 64 games.Unlike the previous book, however, Skeletons does cover two things that Ashen has covered before. The first is an update concerning an entry from TOGYPNHO while the second is an additional entry that novelizes a presentation he did on Hareriaser for Norwich Gaming Festival 2017.Overall, Flickering Skeletons is an even greater book than its predecessor. It combined all that I liked about TOGYPNHO while fixing some of the monotony. However, it can still be monotonous if you read straight through. It is definitely a book that is made to be occasionally flipped through, reading any entries that capture your eyes.

As the sequel to Terrible Old Games, this was just what Dr. Ashens ordered. I will say, however, that the formatting of having the actual page, rather than the text formatted for Kindle, was a bit of a headache. Enjoyable book, just difficult to read sometimes

The writing is as good as the previous installment, but the formatting feels very close to someone removing the staples from a magazine and scanning both pages as one

An excellent sequel! Worth the purchase price for the “Hareraiser” story alone. I am a longtime fan of classic games and somehow I had never heard that one before…thank you, Stuart!!

Almost as fun as the first book. This one probably suffers a bit from knowing what to expect. It’s definitely worth it if you enjoyed the first though.

A good read and insight into just how terrible the old games industry was part 2. Still surprising how many terrible games made it to market back then, several of which are liberally called "games'.

As a long time follower of Ashens's Youtube channel, I enjoyed the opportunity to purchase some physical tat from him and learn about some games that probably should have had some elbow grease put into them.

I bought the book to support Ashen and the hardcover is very thick. The book and contents are very entertaining but the page design is lacking in cohesion.

Fabulous!!

Spurred on by the first book which i thoroughly enjoyed on my Paperwhite Kindle I purchased this second book by Stuart Ashen on crap 80s games. The writing as ever is spot on, but it's such a difficult experience on Amazon Kindle since its hard to read. It's been designed on what I assume to be colourful background print so is difficult to read, since it's essentially like trying to resize a JPG on every page, and images aren't the Kindles forte. It's a shame as the first Old Games' book is easy to read on a Kindle as you'd expect, but don't bother with the this book on Kindle - it's hard work to read unless you have time to resize every single page and scroll (if you have a Kindle and have tried to browse the internet on it you'd know that despite the quality of the material ....it's too much like hard work and you're better off using a computer). Better off buying the physical copy I'd say, if you're contemplating buying for an Amazon Kindle.

The media could not be loaded.  I rather enjoyed this book, despite being a more wordy book rather than the picture books I tend to flick through (curse you Audible for my terrible attention span) - I found the payoff worthwhile!It is well written and covers a broad selection of titles as well as interviews from current YouTube and Blogging Pundits. The latter gives nice context, especially if you follow them.The print quality is excellent with nice colourful pages with decent artwork. I would say its just on the threshold on number of pages I would expect for a hard-back, but if you consider it as a mini coffee-table book it is perfectly proportioned.Definitely a labour of love, if you have even just a passing interest, check it out!Andrew @backofficeshow

The book is great when it's what I bought it for: Stuart Ashen talking about terrible, obscure old games from the 8 and 16 bit age of home computing. The problem is that a good chunk of the book is "guests" wibbling on about games that often don't fit all of those criteria. For example, one guest rambles on about the "Kriss Kross Make My Video" Mega CD game, which is a famously terrible game with probably every videogame critic on YouTube having covered it at some point.If you're interested in the views of assorted alleged YouTube personalities as well as the author's, I'd wholeheartedly recommend this book. If you're not interested in these guests... the book's still good, but you might find yourself skipping bits.

Not formatted for use on standard kindles - you have use pinch to zoom to get it to readable size then have to mess about trying to scroll it to the next column of text - even at the reduced price of £5.99 it isn't worth the hassle