When you stop and think about it, the Game Boy Advance is perhaps the last gaming platform that was truly built for 2D gaming, first and foremost.

By the time Nintendo's million-selling handheld arrived on the market in 2001, we were already a few years into 3D being the norm for home video games, and by the time its successor, the DS, arrived in 2004, there was a definite shift to 3D in the world of portable consoles, too.

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Once upon a time, if you were truly serious about playing only the finest wrestling games, you simply had to own an N64.

This was mainly due to the fact that AKI Corporation (known as syn Sophia these days) was involved in crafting some of the most beloved examples of the genre for Nintendo's 64-bit console – games which, even by modern standards, remain infectiously playable and stunningly entertaining.

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It's hard to effectively communicate in words the remarkable impact WipEout had on the world of video games when it launched alongside the PlayStation in the West in 1995.

From its iconic box artwork to its groundbreaking music and cutting-edge visuals, it was, alongside Ridge Racer, the game which illustrated the massive stride games were taking; little wonder, then, that it spawned a successful series that is close to the hearts of many 40-something gamers.

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Revolution Software has had its fair share of ups and downs over the past 35 years or so, from experiencing success with the Broken Sword series of adventure games to dealing with unreasonable publishers, project cancellations, and devastating layoffs.

Many of these highs and lows have been documented in the past in interviews with the press, but none of them have ever been told in quite so much detail as within the pages of Revolution: The Quest For Game Development — a new book from the Revolution co-founder Tony Warriner (with help from the Alternative Magazine Online founder and editor Martin Mulrooney).

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Founded in the '80s by Ian Anderson and Nick Phillips, The Designers Republic will be most famous to gamers for its amazing branding and iconography work on the WipEout series, but, as a design agency, its influence and impact goes way beyond that franchise.

The 512-page A To Z Of The Designers Republic aims to demonstrate that history, showcasing the firm's vast body of design work for a wide range of clients, including The Manchester School of Art, Gatecrasher, Aphex Twin, Moloko, Nike and Pop Will Eat Itself. An expanded reprint of a previous edition which now fetches crazy prices online, this timely update reminds us of just how important The Designers Republic has been when it comes to shaping the visual landscape of so many creative industries.

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For those lucky enough to have experienced its meteoric rise first-hand, the PC Engine remains an iconic console. The first system to truly challenge Nintendo's stranglehold on the Japanese market in the 1980s, it boasted some of the most impressive games of its time, including authentic arcade ports of titles such as R-Type, Splatterhouse and even Sega's OutRun – and its arrival in Japanese stores in 1987 heralded a new era of brilliance in the realm of domestic gaming.

Augmented throughout its impressive lifespan by a series of hardware add-ons (including the first CD-ROM drive for a home console), the PC Engine was still going strong by the time the Saturn and PlayStation arrived at the close of 1994, its power boosted by an 'Arcade Card' which allowed even more impressive ports of leading coin-ops, such as Fatal Fury Special and Art of Fighting.

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It's hard to think of a video game that gripped the world in quite the same way as Capcom's Street Fighter II.

Sure, there are titles which have sold more copies since then, but this one-on-one fighter seemed to capture the attention of the entire globe at one point, not only ensnaring players with its deep gameplay and colourful characters but also spawning albums, movies, TV shows and comics – all in a relatively short period of time. It can also be credited with giving the ailing arcade industry a much-needed shot in the arm, just as home console technology was catching up in terms of raw power. It then became the kind of game that could make or break home systems, with Nintendo gaining a brief advantage over rival Sega thanks to the SNES getting the first domestic port.

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"It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the imagery is almost exclusively masturbatory," wrote the Evening Standard's Mark Steyn in 1992, after GamesMaster had been on the air for a fortnight. "GamesMaster does nothing to make you revise that opinion, although it tinges it with self-contempt: after all, the only thing dumber than pointing your throbbing joystick at Sonic the Hedgehog for hours on end is watching someone else do it through a TV set." It's fair to say that some quarters of the British media didn't 'get' the show, but that didn't matter back then; GamesMaster felt like it was for us, not them.

It might not have quite the same resonance for people outside of the United Kingdom, but the name 'GamesMaster' carries considerable weight on these shores. The TV show, helmed by Scottish presenter Dominik Diamond (apart from one season, where future Hollywood director Dexter Fletcher took over) was the first of its kind; a televisual event that actually took video games seriously and made them look cool and edgy. GamesMaster rode the '90s zeitgeist in the same way that a surfer crests a wave; Diamond's devilishly creative double-entendres (this was broadcast before the watershed, lest we forget) became progressively less subtle with each series as the show fully embraced the 'lads' culture that took over the country around this decade. If you're old enough to have lived through it, GamesMaster will no doubt bring back many happy memories.

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To anyone who didn't experience them firsthand, it's hard to accurately convey the mesmerising power of amusement arcades in the '80s and '90s. A furious storm of light, sound and smell (the latter not always pleasant, we should add), your typical arcade was dominated by flashing screens and packed, jostling bodies. This was raw 'social' gaming before online play came long and connected the entire globe; your mettle was tested against friends and complete strangers, with victory and defeat playing out in a very public arena.

However, for a certain period of arcade gaming's 'golden years', the biggest attraction was not the spectacle of beating all comers at your favourite one-on-one fighter, but stepping into one of Sega's many 'Taikan' arcade machines. Taikan stands for 'body sensation' and was Sega's answer to restoring some excitement in the otherwise uniform world of arcade cabinets.

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A few years ago, British journalist and author John Szczepaniak launched a Kickstarter campaign with a grand vision – to document the memories of some of Japan's most influential yet underappreciated games developers.

The result was an extensive three-volume series (and accompanying DVD) which, in our opinion, is essential reading for anyone even the slightest bit interested in the crazy world of Japanese game development. However, by Szczepaniak's own admission, sales of each book were less than expected and despite hitting his initial Kickstarter goal, he had to use some of his own money to finish the trilogy.

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Despite the video gaming world's obsession with offering "cool" experiences such as shooting bad guys, driving fast cars and slaying monstrous dragons, the hobby had a very unfashionable reputation with the mainstream media prior to the start of the '90s. Gamers were seen as spotty, socially awkward kids who huddled around their home computers for hours on end, and developers weren't really held in any higher esteem. This image was perpetuated by the success of people like the Darling siblings and the Oliver Twins, who, like so many British developers of the period, learned to program in their bedrooms. While many industry historians will claim that it wasn't until Sony arrived in the middle of the '90s with its PlayStation brand that gaming became hip and credible, others will point to the birth of a particular British software house as the moment it all changed for the better.

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The term "labour of love" is often bandied around in media circles, usually relating to a personally important project by an artist writer, and while it's possibly overused in some cases, it most certainly applies to John Szczepaniak's quest to chart the hitherto unseen history of the Japanese game development community.

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Back in the early '90s Sega and Nintendo were hostile enemies, and this rivalry trickled down to the people who played their products. Anyone old enough to have experienced this period will no doubt recall the heated playground debates about which console was best, and the splintered friendships caused by something as random as which games machine someone's parents decided to get them for Christmas. With hindsight it was madness, but even today this blind brand loyalty exists, with Sony and Microsoft fans arguing until they are blue in the face about resolutions and frame rates. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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When journalist and novelist John Szczepaniak launched his Kickstarter campaign back in 2013 to record the hitherto undocumented story of Japan's game development community, there were a few raised eyebrows around the web. His funding goal was a lofty one, and the task seemed almost herculean in scope — he planned to travel to Japan and spend a few months driving around — interpreter and photographer in tow — speaking to some of the biggest names in the field of Japanese games creation. However, the £50,000 Kickstarter goal was duly met (and surpassed by £20,000), and Szczepaniak began his epic journey into what many still regard as the homeland of classic console development.

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