{"title":"Landmark Video Games","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the captivating world of video game history with the Landmark Video Games series. Each book explores the creation, impact, and legacy of gaming's most influential titles. Perfect for gamers and history buffs alike!\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"silent-hill-book-bernard-perron-9780472051625","title":"Silent Hill","description":"Silent Hill: The Terror Engine, the second of the two inaugural studies in the Landmark Video Games series from series editors Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, is both a close analysis of the first three Silent Hill games and a general look at the whole series. Silent Hill, with its first title released in 1999, is one of the most influential of the horror video game series. Perron situates the games within the survival horror genre, both by looking at the history of the genre and by comparing Silent Hill with such important forerunners as Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil. Taking a transmedia approach and underlining the designer's cinematic and literary influences, he uses the narrative structure; the techniques of imagery, sound, and music employed; the game mechanics; and the fiction, artifact, and gameplay emotions elicited by the games to explore the specific fears survival horror games are designed to provoke and how the experience as a whole has made the Silent Hill series one of the major landmarks of video game history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49506177777937,"sku":"GOR007927642","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50150102565137,"sku":"CIN0472051628G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0472051628.jpg?v=1751072405"},{"product_id":"mortal-kombat-book-david-church-9780472055227","title":"Mortal Kombat","description":"Upon its premiere in 1992, Midway’s Mortal Kombat spawned an enormously influential series of fighting games, notorious for their violent “fatality” moves performed by photorealistically rendered characters. Targeted by lawmakers and moral reformers, the series directly inspired the creation of an industrywide rating system for video games and became a referendum on the wide popularity of 16-bit home consoles. Along the way, it became one of the world’s most iconic fighting games, and a transmedia franchise that continues to this day.  This book traces Mortal Kombat’s history as an American product inspired by both Japanese video games and Chinese martial-arts cinema, its successes and struggles in adapting to new market trends, and the ongoing influence of its secret-strewn narrative world. After outlining the specific elements of gameplay that differentiated Mortal Kombat from its competitors in the coin-op market, David Church examines the various martial-arts films that inspired its Orientalist imagery, helping explain its stereotypical uses of race and gender. He also posits the games as a cultural landmark from a moment when public policy attempted to intervene in both the remediation of cinematic aesthetics within interactive digital games and in the transition of public gaming spaces into the domestic sphere. Finally, the book explores how the franchise attempted to conquer other forms of media in the 1990s, lost ground to a new generation of 3D games in the 2000s, and has successfully rebooted itself in the 2010s to reclaim its legacy.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49739172151569,"sku":"NGR9780472055227","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51480486019345,"sku":"GOR014297541","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0472055224.jpg?v=1751326285"},{"product_id":"starcraft-book-simon-dor-9780472056774","title":"StarCraft","description":"\u003ci\u003eStarCraft\u0026gt;\u003c\/i\u003e(Blizzard Entertainment, 1998) is a real-time strategy video game, placing the player in command of three extraterrestrial races fighting against each other for strategic control of\u0026gt;\u003cbr\u003e resources, terrain, and power. Simon Dor examines the game's unanticipated effect by delving into the history of the game and the two core competencies it encouraged: decoding and foreseeing. Although\u0026gt;\u003ci\u003eStarCraft\u0026gt;\u003c\/i\u003ewas not designed as an e-sport, its role in developing foreseeing skills helped give rise to one of the earliest e-sport communities in South Korea. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Apart from the game's clear landmark status, \u003ci\u003eStarCraft\u0026gt;\u003c\/i\u003eoffers a unique insight into changes in gaming culture and, more broadly, the marketability and profit of previously niche areas of interest. The book places\u0026gt;\u003ci\u003eStarCraft\u0026gt;\u003c\/i\u003ein the history of real-time strategy games in the 1990s--\u003ci\u003eDune I\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eCommand \u0026amp; Conquer\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAge of Empires\u003c\/i\u003e--in terms of visual style, narrative tropes, and control. It shows how design decisions, technological infrastructures, and a strong contribution from its gaming community through Battle.net and its campaign editor were necessary conditions for the flexibility it needed to grow its success. In exploring the fanatic clusters of competitive players who formed the first tournaments and professionalized gaming, StarCraft shows that the game was key to the transition towards foreseeing play and essential to competitive gaming and e-sports.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49753132237073,"sku":"NGR9780472056774","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0472056778.jpg?v=1750741293"},{"product_id":"doom-book-dan-pinchbeck-9780472051915","title":"DOOM","description":"In December 1993, gaming changed forever. id Software's seminal shooter DOOM was released, and it shook the foundations of the medium. Daniel Pinchbeck brings together the complete story of DOOM for the first time.   This book takes a look at the early days of first-person gaming and the video game studio system. It discusses the prototypes and the groundbreaking technology that drove the game forward and offers a detailed analysis of gameplay and level design. Pinchbeck also examines DOOM's contributions to wider gaming culture, such as online multiplay and the modding community, and the first-person gaming genre, focusing on DOOM's status as a foundational title and the development of the genre since 1993. Pinchbeck draws extensively from primary data: from the game itself, from the massive fan culture surrounding the title, and from interviews with the developers who made it. This book is not only the definitive work on DOOM but a snapshot of a period of gaming history, a manifesto for a development ethos, and a celebration of game culture at its best.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51320955732241,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51320958845201,"sku":"CIN0472051911G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0472051911.jpg?v=1750976642"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/landmark-video-games-book-series.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}