Dtoid’s Got Talent
I don’t have to tell you guys this, but I will anyway: Destructoid has the best community on the internet. Over the ten-plus years I’ve been around and five-plus I’ve been on staff, I’ve made friends, colleagues, met several community members from far and wide, and even met my wife — all thanks to the power of community.
So when a community member gets involved in the industry, it’s our civic duty to highlight their achievements and shill their wares on the site! After all, you get what you give.
Eagle-eyed readers will recall darrenhupke’s first project, compiling a sweet coffee table book filled with screenshots from all Sony-published titles on the PlayStation 1. How do I know it’s sweet? Duh, I have a copy! Not content to just publish one PS1 compendium, creator Darren Hupke is back at it with another book highlighting all Capcom-published games on Sony’s first little beast of a console.
Capcom’s PlayStation: A Chronological Visual Retrospective features over 45 games, 275 pages, and 750 screenshots similar to the first project, now complete with a little writeup and/or trip down memory lane for each game. Included are all-time classics such as Resident Evil (with the book covering all three versions released on PSX), Mega Man Legends, and Dino Crisis, but also some lesser-known titles such as Street Fighter: The Movie (which was Capcom’s first PSX release!) and Freestyle Boardin’ ’99. If Capcom dropped it on the PlayStation, Darren is here to pick it up.
When asked about the project, Hupke said, “I decided to do this project based on a follow-up from my last project. I’m a huge PlayStation fan and nostalgia nerd for this stuff from my childhood and if I’m being honest, I’m doing this for myself! I want this book on my shelf so I can thumb through it and remember and reflect on all these games I loved years ago. I know others will love it, too, but it didn’t exist and since no one else was going to do it this way I decided to do it myself! Looking back at a complete set of games from specific publishers in chronological order is ridiculously niche and nerdy, but it’s rad.”
The most impressive part of all of this is the work that went into it. Instead of relying on ancient press screens, scans from magazines, or random internet searches, Hupke pulled each and every screenshot manually.
“I wanted to keep the ‘visual’ part of the book as the driving reason to dive in to it. So the screenshots are all a majority of the page real estate and each game has a minimum of 16 screenshots, one of which is a giant double page spread. For technology reasons I emulated the games and captured thousands of screens shots mapping a snapshot button to my controller. I’d play through most games as much as I could and use community saves to find key moments and late game scenes, secrets and bonus content, as well.”
If you’re interested in this Capcom book, or just here to support your fellow Dtoider, check out the book’s Kickstarter page. Lord knows I will.
[Disclaimer: The author supported the creator’s first book, but has not yet backed this particular work.]
