Sony's PlayStation revolutionised the videogame industry. It wasn't the first home console, but it brought gaming to the masses in a way few other systems at the time managed to do. Now, more than 25 years after its initial release there are over 10,000 games spanning Sony's home and handheld consoles, and PlayStation leads the way in console exclusives. With so many experiences and genres to choose from, it can be daunting. But fear not! We've compiled 100 unmissable titles that no PlayStation fan's library should be without. Some titles will challenge you and test your wits, others provide simple escapism. Some will make you laugh, others may make you cry - but each experience will be unforgettable. Inside you'll also find behind-the-scenes features from the archives of Retro Gamer, EDGE and GamesRadar, giving you insider info on the creation of some of PlayStation's finest games, most enduring franchises and iconic characters.

This book serves as an introduction to the level design process in Unreal Engine 4. By working with a number of different components within the Unreal Editor, readers will learn to create levels using BSPs, create custom materials, create custom Blueprints complete with events, import objects, create particle effects, create sound effects and combine them to create a complete playable game level. The book is designed to work step by step at the beginning of each chapter, then allow the reader to complete similar tasks on their own to show an understanding of the content. A companion website with project files and additional information is included.

The collected essays in this volume focus on the presentation, representation and interpretation of ancient violence - from war to slavery, rape and murder - in the modern visual and performing arts, with special attention to videogames and dance as well as the more usual media of film, literature and theatre. Violence, fury and the dread that they provoke are factors that appear frequently in the ancient sources. The dark side of antiquity, so distant from the ideal of purity and harmony that the classical heritage until recently usually called forth, has repeatedly struck the imagination of artists, writers and scholars across ages and cultures. A global assembly of contributors, from Europe to Brazil and from the US to New Zealand, consider historical and mythical violence in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus and the 2010 TV series of the same name, in Ridley Scott's Gladiator, in the work of Lars von Trier, and in Soviet ballet and the choreography of Martha Graham and Anita Berber. Representations of Roman warfare appear in videogames such as Ryse: Son of Rome and Total War, as well as recent comics, and examples from both these media are analysed in the volume. Finally, interviews with two artists offer insight into the ways in which practitioners understand and engage with the complex reception of these themes.

How can video games challenge us to think more deeply about our reality, faith, and community? Since the advent of video games in the 1960s, they have become the common experience of everyone from Gen-X to the Millennial and post-Millennial generations. While many of today's clergy, parishioners, and theologians grew up gaming, the church's stance regarding video games is one of, at best, bemusement. This book takes seriously the idea that video games can challenge us to think more deeply about our reality, divinity, faith, and each other. It draws readers into a small, but growing, conversation about models of incarnation and what it means to distinguish between the virtual and the real. This book will introduce readers to concepts and questions from the perspective of a Christian systematic theologian who has been playing games since he was four years old, and who has been writing, speaking, and podcasting about this topic since 2010. It is an invitation into a relatively new conversation about divinity, humanity, and technology.

"Game Feel" exposes "feel" as a hidden language in game design that no one has fully articulated yet. The language could be compared to the building blocks of music (time signatures, chord progressions, verse) - no matter the instruments, style or time period - these building blocks come into play. Feel and sensation are similar building blocks where game design is concerned. They create the meta-sensation of involvement with a game.
The understanding of how game designers create feel, and affect feel are only partially understood by most in the field and tends to be overlooked as a method or course of study, yet a game's feel is central to a game's success. This book brings the subject of feel to light by consolidating existing theories into a cohesive book.
The book covers topics like the role of sound, ancillary indicators, the importance of metaphor, how people perceive things, and a brief history of feel in games.
The associated web site contains a playset with ready-made tools to design feel in games, six key components to creating virtual sensation. There's a play palette too, so the desiger can first experience the importance of that component by altering variables and feeling the results. The playset allows the reader to experience each of the sensations described in the book, and then allows them to apply them to their own projects. Creating game feel without having to program, essentially. The final version of the playset will have enough flexibility that the reader will be able to use it as a companion to the exercises in the book, working through each one to create the feel described.
--Swink demystifies this crucial, fundamental, and unexplored aspect ofgame design with case studies, fully interactive examples
--Interviews with industry luminaries and in-depth examination of many classic games from a fresh angle.
--What draws players in? Makes them addicted to game play? Feel is the key element that is so central to game design. Finally a book that covers the topic in an in-depth, practical way, with interactive exercises.
--Website: Fully playable interactive playset with ready-made tools for game and feel design, six key components to creating virtual sensation, and a play palette - so that designers can first experience the sensations before applying to own projects.

Based on 48 interviews and years of research, Game of X v.1: Xbox tells the many stories of Microsoft's unlikely entry into the game console business. In addition to the personal insights of the key players in the story, Game of X includes many previously unreleased documents that show what was going on behind the scenes. This is the story of Xbox and Xbox Live. Key Features Based on 48 interviews and years of research, Game of X v.1: Xbox tells the many stories of Microsoft's unlikely entry into the game console business. In addition to the personal insights of the key players in the story, Game of X includes many previously unreleased documents that show what was going on behind the scenes. This is the story of Xbox and Xbox Live.

This volume will convince readers that the swift ascent of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons to worldwide popularity in the 1970s and 1980s is "the most exciting event in popular culture since the invention of the motion picture." Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy presents twenty-one chapters by different writers, all D&D aficionados but with starkly different insights and points of view. It will be appreciated by thoughtful fans of the game, including both those in their thirties, forties, and fifties who have rediscovered the pastime they loved as teenagers and the new teenage and college-student D&D players who have grown up with gaming via computer and console games and are now turning to D&D as a richer, fuller gaming experience. The book is divided into three parts. The first, "Heroic Tier: The Ethical Dungeon-Crawler," explores what D&D has to teach us about ethics and about how results from the philosophical study of morality can enrich and transform the game itself. Authors argue that it's okay to play evil characters, criticize the traditional and new systems of moral alignment, and (from the perspective of those who love the game) tackle head-on the recurring worries about whether the game has problems with gender and racial stereotypes. Readers of Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy will become better players, better thinkers, better dungeon-masters, and better people. Part II, "Paragon Tier: Planes of Existence," arouses a new sense of wonder about both the real world and the collaborative world game players create. Authors look at such metaphysical questions as what separates magic from science, how we express the inexpressible through collaborative storytelling, and what the objects that populate Dungeons and Dragons worlds can teach us about the equally fantastic objects that surround us in the real world. The third part, "Epic Tier: Leveling Up," is at the crossroads of philosophy and the exciting new field of Game Studies. The writers investigate what makes a game a game, whether D&D players are artists producing works of art, whether D&D (as one of its inventors claimed) could operate entirely without rules, how we can overcome the philosophical divide between game and story, and what types of minds take part in D&D.

Get up and running with Unity with the help of expert guidance for addressing the performance issues encountered in Unity development Key Features Discover solutions to common problems faced by .NET developers while creating games in Unity Explore tips, tricks, best practices, and advanced Unity coding techniques for creating impressive games Understand how to program with C# code using Unity's built-in modules and add engaging effects Book DescriptionUnderstand what makes Unity the world's most widely used real-time 3D development platform and explore its powerful features for creating 3D and 2D games, as well as the Unity game engine and the Microsoft Game Dev, including the Microsoft Azure Cloud and Microsoft Azure PlayFab services, to create games. You will start by getting acquainted with the Unity editor and the basic concepts of Unity script programming with C#. You'll then learn how to use C# code to work with Unity's built-in modules, such as UI, animation, physics, video, and audio, and understand how to develop a game with Unity and C#. As you progress through the chapters, you'll cover advanced topics such as the math involved in computer graphics and how to create a custom render pipeline in Unity with the new Scriptable Render Pipeline, all while optimizing performance in Unity. Along the way, you'll be introduced to Microsoft Game Dev, Azure services, and Azure PlayFab, and using the Unity3D PlayFab SDK to access the PlayFab API. By the end of this Unity book, you'll have become familiar with the Unity engine and be ready to develop your own games while also addressing the performance issues that you could encounter in the development process. What you will learn Get to grips with using the Unity Editor Use C# scripts to work with Unity's built-in modules such as UI, animation, physics, video, and audio Create a custom render pipeline in Unity Engine with the latest Scriptable Render Pipeline Write high-performance multithreaded code with the latest DOTS in Unity Discover the Azure PlayFab Client library for C# in Unity Understand how the asset management and serialization system within Unity really works Explore some of the most commonly used profiler tools in Unity development Who this book is forThe book is for developers with intermediate .NET and C# programming experience who are interested in learning game development with Unity. Basic experience in C# programming is assumed.