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NBA Jam
When NBA Jam dunked its way into arcades in 1993, players discovered just how fun basketball can be when freed from rules, refs, and gravity itself. But just a few years after the billion-dollar hit conquered the world, developer Midway, publisher Acclaim, and video arcades themselves fell off the map. How did a simple two-on-two basketball game become MVP of the arcade, and how did this champ lose its title? Journalist Reyan Ali dives deep into the saga, tracking the people and decisions that shaped the series. You'll get to know mischievous Jam architect Mark Turmell, go inside Midway's Chicago office where hungry young talent tapped into cutting-edge tech, and explore the sequels, spin-offs, and tributes that came in the game's wake. Built out of exhaustive research and original interviews with a star-studded cast —including Turmell and his original development team, iconic commentator Tim Kitzrow, businessmen and developers at Midway and Acclaim alike, secret characters George Clinton and DJ Jazzy Jeff, Doom co-creator John Romero, and 1990s NBA demigods Glen Rice and Shaq—Ali's NBA Jam returns you to an era when coin-op was king.
Suddenly I was a Shark! My Time with What Remains of Edith Finch
What Remains of Edith Finch was released in 2017 amid a gaming public that had largely dismissed the walking simulator as a gaming genre. But for those who appreciated the power of a combat-less, story-driven video game, What Remains of Edith Finch would become a beacon for what’s possible when a game rejects traditional video game markers of progress in favor of narrative progression as its core player motivation. Jimmy Fallon, Saturday Night Live alumnus and host of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, says of the game, “it’s one of my favorite things… it’s gonna change your life.” In Suddenly I was a Shark!: My Time with What Remains of Edith Finch, author Caleb J. Ross explores the life-changing impact of this unassuming video game about a young woman’s attempt to understand a curse that has killed every member of her family. By mixing developer interviews, personal stories, and examinations of the game’s many literary inspirations, Caleb delivers a powerful story of personal change via one of the most important walking simulator video games ever made.
Final Fantasy V
When Final Fantasy V was released for the Japanese Super Famicom in 1992, the game was an instant hit, selling two million copies in the first two months alone. With a groundbreaking job system that combined the usual character classes like knights, thieves, and mages with offbeat classes such as chemists, dancers, and bards, the game appeared to be a shoo-in for North American distribution. But the game was dubbed "too hardcore" for a Western audience and was swapped out with Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, a simplistic new game tailor-made for Americans. That didn't stop a teenage Chris Kohler from tracking down Final Fantasy V. The young RPG fan got a Japanese copy of the game, used it to tea...
Katamari Damacy
What kind of game would meditate on humankind's symbiotic relationship to nature by asking players to rip up entire mountain ranges by the root? Or criticize capitalism by letting us literally consume everything from a thumbtack to a streetlamp-and have a great time doing it? Only a game that takes its silliness very seriously. But the 2004 release of Katamari Damacy almost didn't get the ball rolling. Reviewers worldwide weren't sure how to classify it and initial sales numbers were low. Those who actually played it, though, were won over by its novel gameplay, goofy surrealism, and catchy soundtrack. Pushed into the mainstream by its passionate fans, Katamari remains one of the best video game examples of pure anarchic fun. Based on new interviews with staff including creator Keita Takahashi himself, game designer and writer L. E. Hall explores the game's development, lore, sequels, and cultural impact, examines Takahashi's body of work, and investigates the power of play itself.
Silent Hill 2
A troubled man travels to a mysterious town from his past after receiving a letter from his wife... who's been dead for years. And while our "hero" explores dark corridors and battles countless disturbing enemies, his journey offers more psychological horror than survival horror. Welcome to Silent Hill, where the monster is you. Silent Hill 2 doubles down on what made the first game so compelling: The feeling of being lost in a foggy, upside-down town as unsettling as it is familiar. Nearly two decades after first experiencing Silent Hill 2, writer and comedian Mike Drucker returns to its dark depths to explore how this bold video game delivers an experience that is tense, nightmarish, and anything but fun. With an in-depth and highly personal study of its tragic cast of characters, and a critical examination of developer Konami’s world design and uneven marketing strategy, Drucker examines how Silent Hill 2 forces its players to grapple with the fact that very real-world terrors of trauma, abuse, shame, and guilt are far more threatening than any pyramid-headed monster could ever be.
From Pinballs to Pixels
From early classics like Contact to marvels like High Speed, gaming publisher Williams dazzled arcade goers with its diverse range of quality pinball games. The age of video games catapulted the company into legend with blockbusters like Defender and Joust, and by the end of the 1980s it was the largest coin-op publisher in North America. Williams' acquisition of Bally/Midway began a period of hits that included Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam, as well as the best-selling pinball machine of all time, The Addams Family. The history of Williams spans nearly six decades and is filled with great games, huge gambles and technical innovations that impacted every aspect of pinball and arcade video games. With interviews of 40+ former designers and executives from Williams/Bally/Midway, as well as information from hundreds of contemporaneous news reports and documents, this book presents a never-before-seen chronology of how the small company became a coin-op juggernaut. Thirty pinball and 26 video game classics are examined in depth with direct input from the people who made them, along with the story of the events that shaped one of gaming's greatest publishing houses.
The N64 Encyclopedia
The fourth book in Chris Scullion’s critically acclaimed series of video game encyclopedias, The N64 Encyclopedia is dedicated to the Nintendo 64, one of the most well-loved games consoles ever released. Although the Nintendo 64 didn’t sell as well as some of Nintendo’s other systems, and it struggled in the shadow of the bold newcomer that was the Sony PlayStation, nearly everyone who owned an N64 was in love with it and the four-player multiplayer it provided as standard. Despite its relatively small library, the Nintendo 64 had a healthy number of groundbreaking titles that would revolutionize the way we play video games. The likes of Super Mario 64, GoldenEye 007, Mario Kart 64 and...
Shovel Knight
Based on extensive original interviews with the Yacht Club Games team, writer David L. Craddock unearths the story of a fledgling group of game developers who worked so well together at WayForward Games that they decided to start their own studio.
Minesweeper
If you had some free time and a Windows PC in the 1990s, your mouse probably crawled its way to Minesweeper, an exciting watch-where-you-click puzzle game with a ticking clock and a ton of “just one more game” replayability. Originally sold as part of a “big box” bundle of simple games, Minesweeper became a cornerstone of the Windows experience when it was pre-installed with every copy of Windows 3.1 and decades of subsequent OS updates. Alongside fellow Windows gaming staple Solitaire, Minesweeper wound up on more devices than nearly any other video game in history. Sweeping through a minefield of explosive storylines, Journalist Kyle Orland reveals how Minesweeper caused an identity crisis within Microsoft, ensnared a certain Microsoft CEO with its addictive gameplay, dismayed panicky pundits, micromanagers, and legislators around the world, inspired a passionate competitive community that discovered how to break the game, and predicted the rise of casual gaming by nearly two decades.
Grand Central Arena
It was supposed to be a simple test flight, one that pilot Ariane Austin was on only as a last-ditch backup; intelligent, superhumanly fast automation would handle the test activation and flight of humanity's first faster-than-light vessel. But when the Sandrisson Drive activated, every automated system crashed, the nuclear reactor itself shut down, and only the reflexes and training of a racing pilot saved the test vessel Holy Grail from crashing into the impossible wall that had appeared before them, a wall which is just part of a monstrous enclosure surrounding a space twenty thousand kilometers across. With all artificial intelligences inert and their reactor dead, they had to find some ...
