As the title implies, this book tackles the history of videogames through a quite unique viewpoint: gamepads. This book analyses each and every gamepad released for a home console, from the Atari 2600 controllers to Xbox 360 ones. It is divided in five parts. The first one goes through the early beginnings of game controllers : it analyses the ones created for Spacewar! and Tennis for Two, among others. The second part is dedicated to the evolution of controllers handling, and details how the va
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Keywords : joypads, history, gamepads, game design
This autobiography is composed by the personal journal of Jordan Mechner during the creation of his famous game Karateka (1984). The authors tells us about his thoughts, his doubts, his joy, and more specifically about the different steps towards the creation of this popular game. A very interesting read, despite a rather "rough" writing style : this book allows you to literally enter inside the head of Jordan Mechner, a creative genius with a lot more doubts and fears that we cou
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Keywords : biography, jordan mechner, karateka, artist, creative process
This book unveils the story of a very important home console: the Sony PlayStation. Thanks to the interviews of more than twenty people who worked on this project, the author, also a member of the team, invites us to a journey behind the scenes of the creation process of this console. By mixing these various interviews, each chapter of the book details the different stages of the PlayStation project: an awkward beginning when Sony partnered with Nintendo to create a CD-Rom drive for the Super NE
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Keywords : playstation, revolution, sony, men in the shadows, industry, home console
This book unveils the story of a very important home console: the Sony PlayStation. It focuses on Ken Kutaragi, the key person in this project, who is today acknowledged as the "father of the Playstation." The author tells us how this visionary engineer lead Sony to tackle the home video game console market, in spite of the vigorous opposition shown by many other people in the company. Each chapter of the book details the different stages of the PlayStation project: the initial inspi
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Keywords : playstation, revolution, sony, ken kutaragi, industry, home console
The biography of Kevin Savetz, a computer and video games journalist, who is also a real "geek", in the positive meaning of this word. In this book, he tells us about his childhood and grown-up years, deeply tied to the main technological evolutions of the 80-90's: the rise of personal computing, the birth of video games, the BBS networks, and of course Internet. Born in the beginning of the 70's, Kevin Savetz grew up in company of the Channel F, the Intellivision, the TI 99/4A, the At
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Keywords : kevin savetz, geek, bbs, internet, computer, video game, culture
This bible is dedicated to the PC Engine home console (also known as TurboGrafx 16). This second volume starts by telling you the story of how this console arrived in France, alongside with the story of studio RED, the creators of the famous "PC Kid" game. But the main part of the book is a full listing of every game ever released for this console on the CD-ROM format (more that 400 games). Each game is presented with a screenshot alongside with a small text describing it. A refere
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Keywords : history, pc engine, turbografx 16, cd-rom, bible
This book is full of beautiful pictures presenting several examples of movies based on video games (Super Mario Bros, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Doom, Silent Hill...), alongside with movies inspired by the video game culture (The Last Starfighter, Tron, Wargames, Avalon, Gamer, The Lawnmower Man...). Easy and pleasant to read, this book is an excellent introduction to the topic of relationships between video games and movies.
Keywords : video games, movie, cinema
This books focuses on the history of videogames in Britain, and more specifically on the best-known videogames in history that originates from Britain: Tomb Raider, Grand Theft, Auto, Elite, MUD, Populous, Lemmings, Carmageddon, Runescape, EarthWormJim, etc. This book also details the history of some famous english computers, such as Sinclair's ZX family, the Amstrad computer line, the BBC Micro and its legacy, that includes the ARM processors nowadays embedded in almost any smartphone. Extremel
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Keywords : history, videogames, britain, grand theft auto, tomb raider, elite, populous, mud
This tiny black & white book (120 pages) presents a selection of remarkable games released on the ZX Spectrum. It features classical hits (Heads Over Heels...), underdogs games (Knight Tyme...) and "bad idea games" (Trashman...). Each game is presented over one or two pages with one screenshot. It's far from being an encyclopedia, however it offers an interesting selection of games.
Keywords : zx spectrum, selection
The biography of Yoshihisa Kishimoto, a japanese game creator unknown by the general public, although he created one of the most famous videogame series: "Double Dragon". This well written book is full of pictures and starts by telling you the childhood of this little-known genius, alongside with his thug-like youth where he was always eager to fight inside and outside of school. He hopefully changed his lifestyle before becoming a real criminal. Fond of movies, he then started to crea
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Keywords : yoshihisa kishimoto, double dragon, kunio-kun, renegade, thunder strom, road avenger, vier, biography