| In 1987 Nintendo released The Official Nintendo Player's Guide, the company's first official game hint and tip publication. The guide, weighing in at 162 pages, features extensive maps and tips for ninety of the most then-popular Nintendo Entertainment System games and features brief blurbs of all 160 games that had been released up until that point. Note that this book is unrelated to the Nintendo Player's Guide series of strategy guides despite the similar names.
The guide itself is organized by the old "series" method of labeling Nintendo games. You remember the days when each game box had a small colored logo with the words "Adventure Series" or "Arcade Series", right? The guide covers them all...
In addition to the games mentioned above, the guide also maps out popular games such as...
The last final two pages of the guide list upcoming games for the NES, such as Dragon Warrior and Contra (My goodness, were we ever that young?). This book predates Nintendo Power and was available in bookstores and magazine stands as well as being a pack-in bonus with the NES itself in the mid 1980s, although today it is long out of print and is probably only available at online auctions and garage sales. It's more valuable today as a rare collector's item than as a game tip resource, although even as a collector's item it isn't worth much. Personally I find it an interesting conversation piece.
* The presence of this game in the book confuses me. Wasn't Zelda II released in 1988? This book is dated 1987.
References:
I have the book right here. | 
