As the holiday season approaches, celebrating the holidays turns to focus on the gift of giving. Planning what to get people is often one of the hardest thing to do. It brings to question how much you really know your relatives and friends as you search the shelves for the perfect present to give them. Good news is, if you are a gamer or have a gamer in the family, then here are a few of the best stocking stuffers to get!
With all the different kinds of books, movies, and games out there - often trying to imitate each other - there are some series that are just popular no matter how you look at them. Game pricing is reaching higher and higher, the next place to look is in the books. Companion books, game story novels, guides, and even art books are all amazing additions to anybodies collection. Here are some of my recommendations:
For The True Zelda Fan
Most gamers who enjoy a good RPG are going to be interested in the Zelda series. Starting back on the NES and still launching new titles, like Breath of the Wild, on the Switch, what more could they need?
Check out The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia to have an official history of the land of Hyrule. This book from Nintendo and Dark Horse will be the complete guide and timeline for all the events that have taken place throughout the Zelda series. It can help fans bridge the gap between the plot holes that plague them.
I also suggest The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts with this as they get fully illustrated and detailed descriptions of all the different creatures, locations, gear, and more that can be found within Hyrule. This combination of books would be an RPG dream come true!
For The Pokemon Trainers
Starting back from when I was a kid myself, Pokemon has been a growing franchise with games on almost every Nintendo console and has even brought millions of players to start roaming the actual world in hopes of catching these "pocket monsters," as they were originally called, in the real world with Pokemon GO.
However, as the series continued more and more Pokemon were "discovered" and now there are over 800 of them! To help your families Pokemon Trainer become a true Pokemon Master, they would need the Pokemon Deluxe Essential Handbook. This book will provide the need-to-know stats and facts for over 700 Pokemon, which is more than enough to know how to build the perfect team and find their new favorites.
For The World of Warcraft Traveler
The lore behind the massive World of Warcraft MMORPG is almost as massive as the game is itself. There are hundreds of quests to be completed in-game, it may be hard for players to keep track of all the stories and going-on's in the game world.
Luckily, there have been multiple books published that correlate with the World of Warcraft lore. In fact, there are so many WoW companion books, I couldn't even list off them all without taking up a whole paragraph on its own! The whole list of World of Warcraft books can be found rather easily and from there you can easily guide your way to purchasing one, or ten, of these titles.
For The Diablo Destroyer
Blizzard didn't only set up the World of Warcraft community with a book series that went along with the stories within the game, but Diablo as well. You can find the same, actually even bigger, list of Diablo books and easily purchase multiples of lore that will answer many questions left in-game. These books even dive deeper into sections of the games lore that the game passes over and can be appreciated by anybody who tried to actually follow the story told through the quests.
For The Video Game Enthusiast
Many gamers find themselves having to defend the necessity of video games and how the good outweighs the bad that comes from the game industry. While this is an argument that is obviously unnecessary, because games are life for most of us, there are books made to assist in reasoning.
Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell is one of the latest choices worth recommending as he defends the entirety of the game industry from the mislabel of being "mindless entertainment." Seriously, "mindless" is the most inappropriately misused term when referring to games.
There is also the discussions of console wars still going on, today usually being between Xbox and Playstation with the Switch forcing its way into the conversation, that had to of had a start somewhere. Console Wars by Blake Harris is a good title to pick up for anybody who would like to know of how Sega took on Nintendo to be the first ever console war and how it changed the industry.
Even after listing off all of these titles and suggestions, it is still but a glimpse into the literature world of the game industry. Companion books, guide books, art books, coloring books, all kinds of books are available out there for people to purchase and read the lore of a video game. I would even say that if you don't understand somebodies passion for a video game, and you are not a gamer yourself, then it would help you understand their excitement by reading the lore behind some of the most played titles on a gamers list.
If you have read any game books yourself, I would love to know: What's your favorite companion or game related book have you read so far?
