The Art of Game Worlds

As with other reviews here, I purchased this book as a coffee table book, and as inspiration for my own game art. In that respect, this book is great. It contains character and object designs, sketches, screenshots etc, but mostly renders of gorgeous game worlds and settings from a great many games. Further to this, although lacking in technical information (try 'Japanese game graphics' for a more technical book), the artists and level developers have provided some great information on *why* the specific art direction was chosen, and the ideas and philosophy behind the art, and various associated elements such as mood, lighting and camera.

I was expecting just that, a coffee table book with minimal insights on the techniques and thoughts behind the images, but not so. This is a decent book for just browsing through gorgeous images from games or the concept art behind them, but for a practising artist, it is probably more interesting to get nuggets of wisdom from the artists responsible. Don't expect any tutorials, wireframes, WIP shots and the like, but none the less there is interesting information in those interviews, which might just teach you a few new tricks or give you a few ideas for your own work. It did me.