The Broken Paragon by Jonny Lupsha

The Broken Paragon by Jonny Lupsha

broken paragon


Firstly, let me introduce you all to Jonny Lupsha. Jonny is the owner of A Carrier of Fire which is his own publishing house. He has a BA in journalism and has been writing professionally since 2004, living in northern Virginia with his wife, daughter and new born son.
With a young family around him, I don’t know how he finds the time to write amongst his day to day duties as a husband and father. Saying that however, I am glad that he does.
jonny_Lupsha


The Broken Paragon is Jonny’s third book to be published and is an amazing non-fiction work. I would describe it as the ultimate book for gaming geeks. Jonny has taken various games and stripped them back to basics. Gone into great detail of how game companies can fool us into thinking a games area is bigger than it actually is. The use of music in games. Interviews with voice actors. Symbolism and subjects not many would write about, but have been used to great effect within the gaming world.
I am a self confessed gaming geek and have a huge love of Silent Hill. This was one of the reasons I needed to get my hands on this book as Jonny has gone into various details about the games, not to mention the subject these games used as back stories that people wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about in polite company. When I started reading the work however, I was fascinated by more than just the topic I had set out to read about.
First and foremost, this is a collection of essays. It’s not a fan fiction or fantasy about video games, a lot of time and effort has gone in to researching the subject matter within its covers. If you are expecting fantasy within a computer game scenario you will be sadly disappointed.
Under normal circumstances, I have never been someone who is interested in reading someone else’s views on a subject unless it is on social media or a website such as this, I certainly wouldn’t normally go and purchase a non-fiction reference book, but this dealt with subjects I needed to know more about. It is extremely well written and even I learnt a lot about my favourite subject of the Silent Hill franchise. There are certain things that you would never think of when you are actually playing the games, but when you read this book you think to yourself how the hell did I not notice that?
It features numerous papers on various topics from within the gaming medium and although there are some in here that didn’t really interest me as much as others, I still read them all. Jonny knows his gaming stuff. Everyone can be an ‘expert’ to some form of degree and become arrogant in that area, but not once is there a feeling portrayed that what Jonny writes about is right. Yes, there are some things that are probably from his point of view, but from the amount of research evident within the writing, most of what is here is fact and I for one can allow him to put across his idea from time to time, it’s an educated one.
Games covered range from various papers written about the Silent Hill games, Bioshock and The Last of Us to name a few. I especially loved the idea of a case study performed on choice based gaming in which he uses his family to play through a few different games and discuss why they made what decision at certain points of the game using Telltale’s Walking Dead. But its more than that, it goes into the history of gaming and how long choice making decisions have been around in certain franchises. Some games designed now are solely based on this idea to steer the game in a certain direction, but I was never fully conscious of it happening in other games I had been a fan of in the past.
I don’t really want to give too much away about the content of the book, but I have now read it a few times and find it impossible to get bored of, not to mention that I am honoured to have a personally signed edition of the book from Jonny.
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In summary.. if you love your gaming, this is a must read. It will open your eyes to certain aspects that you didn’t realise about before. Its an outright 9/10 for me, possibly encroaching on a 10 for me still going back to it. I guess that you don’t really have to be a gaming nerd to enjoy it either as it’s not all about the technology.
All I can say in summary is go out and buy it, as well as his other books. You will love it, I know I did.


Andi Hodgetts Website
Andi Hodgetts IMDB
A.I.R. Entertainment
 

Please note that my work is my own intellectual property and I do not give permission for anyone to use anything above without either contacting myself or Celenic Games Studios

Gamer since the age of 2 when I was introduced to the Dragon 64. Age is just a number, in my head I will be forever young

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