My family never had a lot of money, so I played my NES for a long time before I upgraded to the SNES, and I didn't buy a lot of games, but there were several rental outlets nearby -- including one owned by members of the extended family, which was complete and total win -- so I had access to a limited selection. The problem was that I had no idea what to play! Most of my friends weren't very into gaming, so I couldn't even exchange recommendations with them. I had good ol' Jeff Rovin, though. His books were available in the grocery store and at Wal-Mart, so they were easily accessible (often in the checkout aisle). I had the whole array of neon-covered paperbacks, and often rented games just because I'd read about them in one of the How to Win books. In fact, I can thank Jeff for Deadly Towers. Thanks, dude. Thanks for that (you ass).

I knew the ins and outs of games I'd never even seen, thanks to Jeff Rovin, and a lot of my development as an obsessive gamer can be laid directly at his feet. I read anything and everything as a child, from my parents' books to the backs of shampoo bottles to the encyclopedia (yeah, I was that kid), but Jeff Rovin's books legitimized the minutiae of gaming for me. Because these books existed, because someone published them and they were available in stores and even at the library, video games were okay, and so was spending hours trying to find and do everything.

Now, searches for Rovin's books return derision, and probably for good reason. They were written for sheer profit and probably not out of any genuine enthusiasm, and even bad games rarely got bad ratings (see above: Deadly Towers). Rovin, who went on to edit the Weekly World News, was probably one of the original shills. But he was a god to the kid I used to be, and those bright covers and pulpy pages still occupy a soft spot in my gamer's heart.