Prepare to Meet Thy Doom

And More True Gaming Stories

By: David Kushner

Narrated by: Wil Wheaton

Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

From Masters of Doom author David Kushner comes Prepare to Meet Thy Doom, a compilation of true gaming stories covering many facets of America's biggest entertainment business: the video game industry. In addition to more than a dozen fascinating tales of game creation, play, business, and controversy, Prepare to Meet Thy Doom follows up on Kushner's previous best seller, Masters of Doom, with a long-awaited update on id Software founders John Romero and John Carmack.

©2015 David Kushner (P)2015 Audiobooks.com Publishing

Interesting material

Gripping listening, very interesting if you're into video games. But the chess article feels kinda inappropriate, style-wise, it makes uncomfortable listening.

An interesting and unsorted collection

David Kushner starts off by billing "Prepare to Meet Thy Doom" as the successor to "Masters of Doom", a rambunctious tale of the formatin and success of id Software while following both John Romero and John Carmack lives in and out of gaming. In reality, Prepare to Meet Thy Doom is a collection of stories David Kushner wrote many non-gaming A-list magazines such as Rolling Stone / Wired / Playboy / Salon / Blendr / Spectrum. While both Johns kick off the story with "Where are they now?" pieces, the rest of the book is a mish-mash of unrelated tales over the past decade. Stories aren't limited to video games, as it diverges to the world of DnD and even chess. The book's high point is when David Kushner gushes over Atari founder, and original anti-establishment digital bad boy, Nolan Bushnell, who put the roof up on the start up culture. Kushner's excitement is palpable, and makes for a better read, and better researched than the few other books in the same vain like Jeff Ryan's "Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America".

There's also a few interesting stories on distant memories like Second Life, which has been nearly 3-4 years since I recall any major media discussing it, the ambitious and somewhat forgotten Spore and once activist lawyer (now disbarred) Jack Thompson. There's even a story dedicate to a flo like AFP which sent me to google as it bombed so badly that I had never heard of it. The end of book trails after Rock Star, and due to the nature of reprinting separate articles for separate publications, finds a few steps retraced.

It's an interesting retrospective through of-the-time case studies but really could use follow ups for "at the time of publication" as most (if not all articles) collected are freely available online. I enjoyed the stories but would have liked to see Kushner's lens focused again on another set of digital misfits.

Collection of articles

The first book is amazing.
This is not really a book.
It is of a collection of vaguely related short pieces.

Not bad but not what I was expecting

If you’re looking for an in-depth follow-up to “Masters of Doom”, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. While the first book was a deep dive into the creative lives of Carmack and Romero, this one is nothing more than a smattering of articles on the videogame industry originally printed in magazines over several years. The check-in with Carmack and Romero to see what they’re working on “now” is so short you could miss it if you blinked. As for the rest of the articles in the book, some are interesting but most are laughably dated. I hadn’t even heard of one of the games covered and had to look it up Wikipedia to see if it had undergone a name change or had busted before being released.
All in all, the book was interesting for its snapshots-in-time feel but isn’t worth a credit or full price. Either wait until it’s discounted below 30% of original price, or go look up the individual articles online.

Interesting content yet somehow repetitive

The reading was pleasant as I expect from Wheaton. I felt the stories seemed to repeat content. Perhaps with a slightly different perspective that the previous story but they felt to similar in essence. Still enjoyed it overall.

A bit too much on GTA

Interesting group of stories but I would have liked it better if there was less on GTA and included more on something else.

the stories were fun

some of the stories felt like a sales pitch l. but most are just fun

Gamers - amateur or hard code will like it greatly

Would you listen to Prepare to Meet Thy Doom again? Why?

Yes! Will Wheaton is both an Excellent narrator/voice actor and has lived through so much of the personal computer history's beginning that we can really relate to him.

Any additional comments?

Great history of game developers and the companies they built and how it changed the video gaming landscape forever. These stories recount how several of the more popular game titles and gaming genres got started as well as how game developers get to dictate the direction of the business rather than corporate pencil pushers. Read it - you not regret it.

not what I expected

was looking for more information about ID software. although the other stories are great not a lot was about ID software

Desserts After the Main Course

David Kushner's collected articles are entertaining bite sized morsels of videogame recollections, but after the superb first helping of Masters of Doom, this collection only leaves you feeling bloated. I could have probably stomached it if there had been some updates or better pacing, but I was left hanging on only by Wil Wheaton's excellent narration.