Only one way.

This is a gritty story; faith that submerges into hellish existence and where it all implodes. Joy is a naive girl, curiously lured in by forbidden temptations. Being enticed, she is vividly engulfed, entrenched by foolish desires. Crystal meth and twisted love are pushing Joy past her limits of sanity. A world encapsulated in torment, deceptively isolated, she is hopelessly lost. Shackled in heavy set chains, held as a prisoner past the rickety gates comes deprivation in the pit. Embers will ravage her soul for eternal damnation if she does not escape. With no one on her side, but a Savior who she turned her back on all those years ago. It will take the power of death to make her rise again; for you can't be revived, unless you are already dead. An ambitious true story; "You are just one little piece, of something so much greater, than you could ever imagine."

The definitive behind-the-scenes history of video games’ explosion into the twenty-first century and the war for industry power “A zippy read through a truly deep research job. You won’t want to put this one down.”—Eddie Adlum, publisher, RePlay Magazine As video games evolve, only the fittest companies survive. Making a blockbuster once cost millions of dollars; now it can cost hundreds of millions, but with a $160 billion market worldwide, the biggest players are willing to bet the bank. Steven L. Kent has been playing video games since Pong and writing about the industry since the Nintendo Entertainment System. In volume 1 of The Ultimate History of Video Games, he chronicled the industry’s first thirty years. In volume 2, he narrates gaming’s entrance into the twenty-first century, as Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft battle to capture the global market. The home console boom of the ’90s turned hobby companies like Nintendo and Sega into Hollywood-studio-sized business titans. But by the end of the decade, they would face new, more powerful competitors. In boardrooms on both sides of the Pacific, engineers and executives began, with enormous budgets and total secrecy, to plan the next evolution of home consoles. The PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Sega Dreamcast all made radically different bets on what gamers would want. And then, to the shock of the world, Bill Gates announced the development of the one console to beat them all—even if Microsoft had to burn a few billion dollars to do it. In this book, you will learn about • the cutthroat environment at Microsoft as rival teams created console systems • the day the head of Sega of America told the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog to “f**k off” • how “lateral thinking with withered technology” put Nintendo back on top • and much more! Gripping and comprehensive, The Ultimate History of Video Games: Volume 2 explores the origins of modern consoles and of the franchises—from Grand Theft Auto and Halo to Call of Duty and Guitar Hero—that would define gaming in the new millennium.

Life is perfect for Julie Waters -- great husband, gorgeous hundred-year-old brick manse perched upon a broad precipice overlooking the open Atlantic off Cohasset, Massachusetts, friends, family ... and then she gets pregnant. Great husband Ken descends into a constant state of fretfulness, slugging down single malt Scotch and pacing about the manse that he and his first wife Regina restored just before the plane crash that took her and their only child Katrina. He sees Julie as Regina and all the sorrow that she wreaked upon him lives again. Beloved Katrina calls to him and he steps off the broad precipice to build sandcastles with her on the beach below, but Julie snags his shirt. Bouncing off the rocky outcrop, he clutches a candy-colored clown that glows worse than the great flames masticating the manse. That's only the beginning. One person knows Katrina is still alive while family secrets and a candy-colored clown endanger mankind. Emotions run high as love and determination lead Ken and Julie to a terrorist training camp for children and Katrina.

Video games open portals to fantastical worlds where imaginative play and enchantment prevail. These virtual settings afford us considerable freedom to act out with relative impunity. Or do they? Sound Play explores the aesthetic, ethical, and sociopolitical stakes of people's creative engagements with gaming's audio phenomena-from sonorous violence to synthesized operas, from democratic music-making to vocal sexual harassment. William Cheng shows how video games empower their designers, composers, players, critics, and scholars to tinker (often transgressively) with practices and discourses of music, noise, speech, and silence. Faced with collisions between utopian and alarmist stereotypes of video games, Sound Play synthesizes insights across musicology, sociology, anthropology, communications, literary theory, philosophy, and additional disciplines. With case studies spanning Final Fantasy VI, Silent Hill, Fallout 3, The Lord of the Rings Online, and Team Fortress 2, this book insists that what we do in there-in the safe, sound spaces of games-can ultimately teach us a great deal about who we are and what we value (musically, culturally, humanly) out here. Foreword by Richard Leppert Video Games Live cover image printed with permission from Tommy Tallarico

Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play is a celebration of female accomplishments in the video game industry, ranging from high-level executives to programmers to cosplayers. This insightful and celebratory book highlights women who helped to establish the industry, women who disrupted it, women who fight to diversify it, and young women who will someday lead it. Featuring household names and unsung heroes, each individual profiled is a pioneer in their own right. Key features in this book include: *100 Professionals of Play: Interviews and Special Features with 100 diverse and prominent women highlighting their impact on the gaming industry in the fields of design, programming, animation, marketing, voiceover, and many more. *Pro Tips: Practical and anecdotal advice from industry professionals for young adults working toward a career in the video game industry. *Essays: Short essays covering various topics affecting women in gaming related careers, including "Difficult Women: The Importance of Female Characters Who Go Beyond Being Strong," "NPC: On Being Unseen in the Game Dev Community," and "Motherhood and Gaming: How Motherhood Can Help Rather Than Hinder a Career." *"A Day in the Life of" Features: An inside look at a typical day in the gaming industry across several vocations, including a streamer, a voice actor, and many more.