Earlier this year Ashcraft emailed me to ask if I would write one of the forewards for his upcoming book on Japanese arcades. I jumped at the opportunity, mostly because it gave me a chance to get my hands on the book's galley. I'm a huge fan of Ash's writing and was dying to see how it read in book form.

Turns out it reads really well.

I've never been a huge fan of books about video games or gaming culture, mostly because most of them seem to forget about the people and instead focus on the technology. Not so with Arcade Mania! The Turbo-Charged World of Japan's Game Centres. In it, Ash walks you through a typical Japanese arcade game type by game type. But instead of focusing on the games he talks to the people to whom they matter most. From Japan's UFO Catcher Queen, to Street Fighter champion Daigo "The Beast" Umehara, to Shump champions and DDR dancers, Ash manages to put a face to every game and give us a glimpse into what makes people so fascinated with them.

My foreward for the book on the jump.

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Early reviews are in for Force Unleashed (the game), and at this (early!) stage things aren't looking as good as Lucasarts would have hoped. If that scoring trend continues, the game will sell a few copies (if only for the branding), yeah, but it won't set the world on fire like the company were probably banking on. Ah well. Least the book's doing well! Force Unleashed the novel topped the New York Times best-sellers list for hardcover fiction over the weekend. So, are Star Wars novels taken more seriously by their creators than Star Wars games? Or are SW book lovers just suckers? Who knows! Could be all of the above.

Star Wars Book Tops NY Times Bestsellers List [GameDaily]

Horrible Histories is a series of best selling edumacational books that do their best to make learning history fun by focusing on all the most gory, blood-curdling details.

Historical strategy specialists Slitherine — who, confusingly, have nothing to do with that other best selling children's book series — have signed a deal with Scholastic books to create a series of games based on the books and bring them to the PC, Nintendo Wii and DS.

The books lean heavily towards British and European history (well, we have so much more of it) with titles like The Rotten Romans and The Terrible Tudors but former colonies haven't been forgotten with titles such as Revolting Revolutionaries and Westward Wow.

SLITHERINE ANNOUNCES HISTORY WITH ALL THE NASTY BITS LEFT IN [Slitherine]

Billed as a work that "puts video games on the philosophical map as a serious area of study", The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy is seeking to ask, and answer, the burning questions surrounding the Zelda series. Does Link have a will, or do gamers project their wills onto him? Can Hyrule be seen as an ideal society? How does time function? Is Zelda art? All terribly vague, all terribly pretentious, all making this sound less like an interesting book on the series and more like a bad first-year philosophy term paper. Since we're on the topic of a Zelda book, however, if a publisher feels like releasing a large, expensive, coffee table book of the series' concept art (complete with notes from artists and game designers), we may be a little more receptive.

The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy [Amazon, via Go Nintendo]

Malcolm Ryan is putting together a most interesting list of game design-related books — except these are the ones that are flying under the radar as it were. Ryan describes these 'secret books' as "books that are not explicitly written about games, but which any game designer who reads them just knows that they are really about games." As part of this, Ryan will be reviewing a book a week on a variety of narrative and game-related topics (even if the connection isn't immediately apparent). In the 'secret book' category, he's got two examples: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud and A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander.

There's not much yet, but if Ryan can stick to the book-a-week premise, I think there will be a nice and very accessible collection of reviews and thoughts on a wide variety of books. It's one of those things I've added to my feeds and just hope it doesn't peter out.

The Secret Books of Game Design [Words on Play via Grand Text Auto]

It's totally done. Like done done. Dubbed Arcade Mania, the book's about Japanese arcades. Here's the info: Organised as a guided tour of a typical Japanese game centre, Arcade Mania is divided into nine chapters, each of which deals with a different kind of game, starting with the UFO catchers and print club machines at the entrance and continuing through rhythm games, fighting games, shooting games, retro games, gambling games, card-based games, and only-in-Japan games.

Arcade Mania isn't a history book, but packs lots of history in it — from Post War era mechanical games to the late 70s Space Invaders craze to the modern day. Tons of players, developers and random schoolgirls were interviewed while writing the book. And tons and tons of hands-on "research" was done at Japanese arcades throughout the country. We were able to get Crecente and arcade guru Kevin Williams to pen bang up forwards, which was very cool.

Why a book about Japanese arcades? Why now? Well, there's never been a book quite like this in English on Japanese arcades. And with Street Fighter IV out in game centres here and The King of Fighters XII coming out, it seemed pertinent! If I was going to ever write a book on Japanese arcades, now was the time.

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Gamers eagerly awaiting the chance to chop off a werewolf's head in the middle of an annihilated New York City will be getting their chance next month, as Gamecock Media Group announces a September 30th release date for Spark Unlimited's fantasy horror shooter. Along with the release date comes news of the pre-order bonus, an attractive Legendary art book, complete with a DVD filled with trailers, behind the scenes looks, and general eye candy.

Even more exciting that the art book, Spark Unlimited is also releasing a 96 page graphic novel detailing Deckard's fight against the Black Order, written by none other than Legendary comic book writer Mark Waid. See what I did there? It's a double meaning. Accentuated with a capital letter. Is the weekend here yet? Look for the graphic novel to hit around the same time as the game. Look for the box art after the jump!

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How very odd. Back in January we reported that Steven L. Kent, author of the Clone series and The Ultimate History Of Video Games would be penning a series of novels based on Gears of War, but now Del Rey has announced an entirely different sort of clone author for the series. Karen Traviss, who wrote the excellent Star Wars: Republic Commando series of novels. No offence to Mr. Kent, but my excitement level just kicked up a notch.

"Playing Gears of War is a kick-arse experience," said Del Rey editor Keith Clayton, "And the Gears of War books should remain true to the spirit of the game. I'm happy to announce that the marriage of Karen Traviss and chainsaw bayonets is a match made in heaven--or hell, if you happen to be a Locust drone."

The first novel, Gears of War: The Battle Of Aspho Fields will go on sale October 28th, exploring the relationship between Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. Let's just hope there's no kissing involved. Hit the jump for more info.

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Doubtless you've by now heard of the book entitled Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Video Games, yes? It surely sounds like the kind of novel you all would want to get up in arms about, but relax, the authors, Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, found that violent games don't make kids psychopaths, but merely allow them to experiment with dangerous behaviour in a context that can be healthful (a position I myself tend to take in my editorials).

Of course, any position either overtly against or in defence of gaming is likely to be controversial right now, and GamePolitics has been documenting the argument between University of Michigan professor Brad Bushman and the book's authors. Bushman published an article in the Detroit Free Press essentially disputing Kutner and Olson's findings:

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We now learn that the upcoming sixth Halo novel, Halo: The Cole Protocol will also publish simultaneously with an audiobook, so you can explode your head by listening to the Halo story while playing Halo. What a world.

As we recently reported, the book will apparently deal with an "unexplored conflict" in the war against the Covenant, will reveal the location of the Spartan Grey Team, and is penned by Crystal Rain author Tobias S. Buckell for a spring release.

Full details after the jump.

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