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Arcade Perfect book cover
Arcade Perfect
How Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat, and Other Coin-Op Classics Invaded the Living Room
2019
First Published
4.17
Average Rating
708
Number of Pages

Before personal computers and game consoles, video arcades hosted cutting-edge software consumers couldn’t play anywhere else. As companies like Atari, Commodore, and Nintendo disrupted the status quo, publishers charged their developers with an impossible task: Cram the world’s most successful coin-op games into microchips with a fraction of the computing power of arcade hardware. From the first Pong machine through the dystopian raceways of San Francisco Rush 2049, Arcade Perfect: How Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat, and Other Coin-Op Classics Invaded the Living Room takes readers on an unprecedented behind-the-scenes tour of the decline of arcades and the rise of the multibillion-dollar home games industry. • Discover how more than 15 coin-op classics made the jump from cabinet to cartridge including Ms. Pac-Man, Street Fighter II, NBA Jam, Terminator 2, and more. • Based on research and interviews with dozens of programmers, artists, and designers. • Delve into the guts of the Atari 2600, Sega Genesis, Super NES, ZX Spectrum, and other platforms to find out how they stacked up against arcade hardware. • Read bonus interviews with John Tobias (Mortal Kombat), Ed Logg (Gauntlet, Asteroids), ex-GamePro editor Dan “Elektro” Amrich, and more.

Avg Rating
4.17
Number of Ratings
42
5 STARS
38%
4 STARS
43%
3 STARS
17%
2 STARS
2%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads

Author

David Craddock
David Craddock
Author · 18 books

David L. Craddock lives with his wife in Ohio. He is the bestselling author of Stay Awhile and Listen : How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire - Book I, and Heritage : Book One of the Gairden Chronicles, an epic fantasy series for young adults. Please follow along with him on his website/blog at DavidLCraddock.com .

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