Official Video Game Guides & Art Books

[DomsBeard]

I bought a hardback limited edition of The Art Of Dead Space a couple of years ago but left it sealed till this week. Probably the best one I have seen so far.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Dead-Space ... dead+space

Mine is a green cover along the lines of Dead Spaces 2 box art

This thread has reminded me to order that Street Fighter one

[KSubzero1000]

Dark Souls 3 Design Works is out, you know the deal.

[Suits]

Wasn't really too sure where to post this....

So I finally framed and hung my original 1993 Metroid Game Boy poster that I used to have as a child, sadly not this exact one but the one that I used to stare at as a child and wonder what on Earth it was all about and how grown up it looked.

I seem to think it came from a game I bought and was inside it but I'm not sure now the more I think about.

I've had this one for a few years now, after a friend who owns a Retro game shop put me in touch with a similar shop owner in Kent, who had a stack of old game posters and sorted me out. For scale its an odd size, about A2 ish I'd say.

Look at this thing, its stunning.

[Flabyo]

There was a period in the late 80s where our local games shop would hand out loads of the promo posters they got from the publishers if you joined their membership club (effectively a loyalty card scheme).

I had loads up in my bedroom as a kid, so many of the Bob Wakelin painted Ocean software covers as a1 posters.

All gone, they were rolled up in my parents attic, and I assume skipped when they sold the house.

[KSubzero1000]

Say Nick, would you happen to have the GameCube Anthology coffee table book by Mathieu Manent that came out a few years ago? A friend recently gave it to me as a gift and I'm really impressed by its manufacturing quality and comprehensive history of basically everything related to the GC. All the games, special editions, console and controller variants with some really nice flavor text to go with it. I think that'd be right up your alley (if you don't already own it).

[Suits]

Say Nick, would you happen to have the GameCube Anthology coffee table book by Mathieu Manent that came out a few years ago? A friend recently gave it to me as a gift and I'm really impressed by its manufacturing quality and comprehensive history of basically everything related to the GC. All the games, special editions, console and controller variants with some really nice flavor text to go with it. I think that'd be right up your alley (if you don't already own it).

I’ve not mate, no.

I have the N64 one he did and like you say, it’s great for listing all the variants, editions and funny little bits and pieces hardware wise.

I think by the time the Gamecube book was coming out, I’d slowed my book buying as my wife was getting the hump with me taking up her bookshelf space.

Mildly related I suppose, but I recently sold off 286 of my Gamecube games that I had in the loft.

I’ve kept about 100, all the first party titles and the ones I love but sold the rest to someone going for a full PAL set. It pretty much completes his set as I had a most of the rare(bad) games that are expensive and hard to track down.

[Simonsloth]

I’ve kept about 100, all the first party titles and the ones I love but sold the rest to someone going for a full PAL set. It pretty much completes his set as I had a most of the rare(bad) games that are expensive and hard to track down.

Rare games aren’t that bad

[Suits]

Rare games aren’t that bad

Awful games, awful fans, awful at flying a Broadsword in Halo.

[Simonsloth]

[Suits]

Yes, it’s called a Broadsword .

[raisinbman]

I've always been into art books more than guides, but in a sense, reading thru this thread has unlocked some core memories, lol. More into childhood, collector's editions provided a way to jump into the game before even being able to play it. Whether because I was at a friend's house afterschool waiting to be picked up, in a car being dragged along to various chores, I couldn't always actually play the game yet, but I could leaf thru and see the art: weapons I could expect, characters I was going to hate or fall in love with, locations I'd see. Even before that, I remember leafing through the manuals, as maybe I didn't have batteries in my game boy color. They provided glimpses into the game I would dive into later, especially if it was a WOW expansion where the server would be down, and files would need to be installed en masse anyway.

Probably the biggest surprise about art books and collector's editions has been that what's given to you is only a drop in the bucket. I know there's more comprehensive works, usually released afterward that come with a big price tag, but in addition, I remember being nostalgic about WOW and discovering the soundtrack i was given was only a fraction of what's usually 24 hours if not more. Of course, in our modern world, there's definitely just a constant stream of information and goodies, so it almost seems foolhardy to try and collect it all.

At one point I was thinking about leaving the country, and would've had to dump my art books. A twist of fate brought those books into my classroom, and suddenly, out of my classroom and back to my apartment again.

[Truk_Kurt]

In lockdown, one of the crazy things I embarked upon was going on ebay and facebook marketplace to start collecting guides and art books for my favourite games providing they were a good price. Built up a nice little collection although it was a bit of a pain to move them when I moved house last year!

I got guides The Orange Box, Skyward Sword, all the 3D GTA games expect GTA3 and then the Art books for Deus Ex Human Revolution, Gran Turismo 4, The Arkham games and the Naughty Dog games.