Now Playing: The Guide to 1980s and ’90s Movie Games Edited by Kurt Kalata

PRE-ORDERS CLOSE ON SUNDAY, JULY 13, 2025, AT 11:59 PM EASTERN TIME.

The modern movie blockbuster was born in the late 1970s with films like Jaws, Alien, and Star Wars. If you grew up during the ’80s or ’90s, odds are you've rented or purchased a game based on your favorite movie only for it to turn out to be junk. This is a book about those games.

Now Playing probably won't change your mind about any of them! But the Hardcore Gaming 101 collectively played and documented more than 900 games to create this comprehensive survey. Some of those games were good, but many were absolutely dire! This is a look into what makes them interesting, whether for their historical importance, their obscurity, or the inventive ways in which they attempted to translate one medium into another.

With detailed, hands-on write-ups on every game we could find based on a vintage film property—from best-sellers based on global blockbusters to forgotten oddities for esoteric machines—Now Playing is the definitive treatise on a slice of gaming that most people take for granted... despite its ubiquity.