📖✅ Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-’em-Ups Review | "I’ll see you at the player select screen" #VideoGameBooks

We’ve been lucky enough to cover some of Bitmap Books’ previous releases, and all have been some of the most impressive tomes to cross our desks, from the likes of the (as far as I’m concerned) legally definitive A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games to the more -surprisingly – emotional hit of A Gremlin in the Works, Bitmap Books are seemingly the pinnacle of quality books for the gaming scene. Perfectly edited, beautifully illustrated and wonderfully written.

Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-’Em-Ups straddles both of the above-mentioned styles, in that it is a definitive look at a specific – and much-loved genre- of video games, but also has the personal touch of A Gremlin in the Works in that it’s written by a single person, Dave Cook. 

Following the contents and extremely handy ‘platform key’ pages, there is a foreword by Yoshihisa Kishimoto (Double Dragon, Wrestlefest), author Dave Cook, however, boots the doors of the book open with an understated introduction that covers the birth and subsequent dedication of his passion of the beat 'em-up genre. 

It’s a low-key opening that subtly gives off the sense that the reader is about to embark on the same journey that Dave Cook mentions in his opening pages, a jaunt through every beat-em-up game released from the mid-’80s through to the ‘20s, and it really does feel like sitting next to a good friend who is well-versed in the genre, ploughing through different games whilst explaining the highs and lows. It’s a very breezy, casual and illuminating experience.

A hardback edition, the cover of Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-’Em-Ups features a full-colour image set from behind the player character as he clenches a fist, ready for battle. Dressed in baggy, cuffed trousers; boots; fingerless gloves; shoulder armour and a bandana – he represents a familiar figure! Heading towards him, down the tarmac of an unassuming city block are myriad enemies brandishing axes, spears, arrows, and swords – all in stylish silhouette, captured underneath a burning sun. Below is the title of the book in a bold, white font. Flipping over to the reverse, we can see a description of the gold contained within the 450 pages of the release.

The way in which the book is set out really clicked with me, and was also quite forward-thinking. A chronological setup, Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat-’Em-Ups is separated into decades, naturally beginning in the ‘80s. Each ‘chapter’ starts off with a double-page feature covering how that decade moved the genre forwards, as well as the key releases. Following this, games are split out into single pages, double pages, or fold-out quadruple pages (awesome) dependent on the part they play in their impact on the genre.

Dave Cook then spends the allocated page space highlighting the key points of the game in question. I really enjoyed the sense of camaraderie in his thoughts, such as certain games being pretty perfunctory, but the bosses are cool and – hell with it – it’s a well-spent hour of your time with your mates. 

It makes you just want to have a beer in your hand, friends at your side and time to kill, which is what this genre is all about, in my eyes. Regardless of the page real estate that the game in question is allocated, the accompanying art is always gloriously captured and represented. I approached the book thinking that I would love to drink in a fellow beat-’em-up lovers’ thoughts on my favourite games, but in reality, it’s the more niche releases that really stuck in my mind, and I found myself making notes on my phone as I read, keen to learn more about this limited and yet deeply nostalgic, compulsive, and social genre.

It’s getting to the point now where I just wish I had a GF rubber stamp of approval for Bitmap Books releases, they really do feel like the high-water mark in terms of gaming books. What I personally find intriguing is, that although each release is up to the usual Bitmap Books high standard, they don’t feel clinical and repetitive in repeating their approach for success. 

If the JRPG book felt like a definitive text on a genre, and the Gremlin book was akin to being a fly on the wall through a company’s wavering decades, this is like sitting next to a good friend blurting out their passions in a way that feels invigorating and contagious. 

"I’ll see you at the player select screen"

📖BUY IT HERE:

🔖https://www.bitmapbooks.com/products/go-straight-the-ultimate-guide-to-side-scrolling-beat-em-ups