Hot Tips for the Coolest Nintendo Games

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Hot Tips for the Coolest Nintendo Games

Consumer Guide - Hot Tips for the Coolest Nintendo Games - Paperback - USA.jpg

Paperback - USA - 1st edition.

Author Consumer Guide
Published 1990-??-??
Type Non-fiction, Strategy guide
Genre Video Game
Themes Video games
Age Group Children

Hot Tips for the Coolest Nintendo Games, later re-titled Winning at Nintendo: Hot Tips for the Coolest Games, is an unlicensed video game strategy guide written for Consumer Guide and published in 1990. It contains hints for 23 games released for the Nintendo Entertainment System or Game Boy. The games featured in the book include:

Personal

Own?I own one of the versions.
Read?I read the version I own.
Finished1990.

In order to encourage me to read, my mother would frequently buy me books through my school's monthly Scholastic book catalog. Every time I saw a video game themed book, it was always at the top of my list to buy, which is how I got this one. This book served as great advertising for the games within because, by making me familiar with them, I was more apt to buy or rent them. I ended up buying Wrath of the Black Manta because of this book, and rented A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance. However, as I played the various games, I discovered that most of the hints were not very helpful at all.

Review

Overall:

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Good

  • The book serves as a nice way to introduce young readers to a variety of games, and most of the titles they cover in the book are worth playing.
  • There are well-over 200 screenshots, something that was hard to come by in 1990.
  • For games with passwords, several are included which will help you skip to later levels, and there are several codes for extra lives and tricks for finding bonuses.

Bad

  • Lacking any licensing, the illustrations are all generic and many of them are uninspired (bullet holes, explosions, clouds) or inaccurate.
  • For most of the games, the book only covers the first 20 minutes or so of game play. This isn't very helpful since most of what they write about for each game is no different than the manual and what they would quickly pickup on their own.
  • There are a few misspellings and typos.

Ugly

  • The vast majority of the "hot tips" are basic knowledge you'd get from the manual like, "100 coins gives Mario a free life." Some of them are even wrong, for example, they confuse Bebop with Rocksteady in TMNT.

Media

Covers

Book

Links

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