Devotion comes in many flavors, and different holy books are a good fit for different folks. Christians have the Bible; Nintendo fan boys have Game Over: Press Start To Continue. This densely-packed repository of Nintendo history chronicles everything you'd ever want to know (and probably a hell of a lot more) about the gaming goliath – from the very early days of Hanafuda cards and Nintendo seedier moments to the 16-bit ear and beyond. If you sleep with your old-school Game Boy still tucked away under your pillow at night or have a secret shrine to Shigeru Miyamoto, then this is the book for you.

Since the advent of the videogame, Japan has been a mecca for gaming and technological innovation. While the home console market has made arcades less popular hangouts for gamers in the United States than they were decades ago, the coin-op fires are still burning bright across the pond. Kotaku writer Brian Ashcraft immersed himself in the flashy world of Japanese arcade culture, and Arcade Mania highlights some of the scenes craziest and coolest facets. This book is full of colorful pictures and splashy write-ups that offer a fun take on Japan's game centers.

Though they're often left out of the spotlight, computers are the world's oldest videogame platform. Before the days of home consoles, early computers let players explore epic fantasy worlds on the screen instead of pen and paper. Dungeons and Dreamers digs deeply into computer nerd culture and profiles the visionaries who paved the way for the PC games of today. Ultima fans, D&D heads, and anyone who likes battling orcs and goblins in dank pixelated catacombs will get a kick out of this in-depth read.

Aside from the fact that it's heavy enough to double as a melee weapon, this thick coffee table book is overflowing with interviews, stories, factoids, screen shots, and box art scans from the earliest documented videogames on up to the present. It's easy to open up to a random page and simply get lost in the often amusing and informative stories profiling gaming trends, behind-the-scenes developer histories, and other videogame phenomena from years past. Or you can always read the massive thing cover-to-cover to get a crash course in videogame history. Either way, it's a win-win situation.

By Nathan Meunier
CCC Freelance Writer

*The views expressed within this article are solely the opinion of the author and do not express the views held by Cheat Code Central.*