Versus Books Strategy Guides Help Wanted

[RichD]

I am currently working on a database of Strategy Guides. One list I would like to complete is the guides put out by Versus Books. It appears that the company has recently justed disappeared off the face of the Earth.

Here is my current list. I am looking for the Volume numbers that i am missing and any corrections. All help is appreciated.

Game/ Vol/ System(s)
Baldur's Gate II - Throne of Bhaal 27 PC
Baldur's Gate II- Shadow of Amn 15 PC
Counter-Strike NONE PC
Devil May Cry 33 PS2
Digimon World 3 39 PS1
Dino Crisis 07 PS1
Donkey Kong 64 10 N64
Ecco the Dolphin 14 DC
Eternal Darkness 42 GC
Evolution Worlds 49 GC
Final Fantasy VII 02 PS1
Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec 28 PS2
Grandia II 35 PS2
Grandia II 21 DC
Grandia Xtreme 44 PS2
Half Life 32 PS2
Legend of Zelda - Oracle of Ages & Seasons 25 GBC
Legend of Zelda : Occarina of Time 06 N64 (Regular and Collector's Edition)
Legend of Zelda, The :Majora's Mask 17 N64
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring 48 PS2,XBOX,PC
Luigi's Mansion 31 GC
Massive Online Gaming V1 PC,PS2
Maximo 36 PS2
Metal Gear Solid 05 PS1
Metroid Prime 52 GC
NBA 2K3 46 PS2
Neverwinter Nights Adventure Guide 40 PC
Neverwinter Nights World Builder Guide 41 PC
Perfect Dark 13 N64
Phantasy Star Online 23 DC
Phantasy Star Online 50 GC,XB
Pokemon Crystal 29 GBC
Pokemon Gold & Silver Adventure Guide 16 GBC
Pokemon Gold & Silver Collector's Edition 22 GBC
Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow 08 GB
Pokemon Stadium 2 24 N64
Pokemon Trading Card Game 18 GBC
Resident Evil 2 Perfect Guide (Unauthorized) 04 PS1
Resident Evil 3 Nemesis 09 PS1
Ridge Racer V 19 PS2
Shenmue 20 DC
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle / Sonic Advance 37 GC,GBA
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast 38 PC
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast 51 PC,GC,XB
Starfox Adventures 45 GC
Street Fighter Alpha 2 01 SNES,GEN
Super Mario Advance 26 GBA
Super Mario Sunshine 43 GC
Tekken Tag Tournament 11 PS2
Tekken 3 03 Arcade
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 30 PC
Wild Arms 2 12 PS1
Wild Arms 3 47 PS2

I know that Counter-Strike has no volume number and is probably the last book released. Street Fighter Alpha 2 was their first book and has no number. I have numbered it assuming that is what they were counting. The Online guide was not part of their regular numbering.

Please forgive the presentation of this list as I still can not figure out how to get a post to preserve the spacing that shows up on notepad, if that is at all possible.

[MarkMan]

I have an almost complete collection of versus books, after I check my box(somewhere in my room) of strategy guides I will post the #s for you. :)

[RichD]

Thank You, I appreciate all help. Here is a list in volume number order that I know of.

Vol Game

01 Street Fighter Alpha 2
02 Final Fantasy VII
03 Tekken 3 (Arcade) (unconfirmed)
04 Resident Evil 2 Perfect Guide (Unauthorized)
05 Metal Gear Solid
06 Legend of Zelda : Occarina of Time (regular and collector's edition)
07 Dino Crisis
08 Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow
09 Resident Evil 3 Nemesis
10 Donkey Kong 64
11 Tekken Tag Tournament
12 Wild Arms 2
13 Perfect Dark
14 Ecco the Dolphin
15 Baldur's Gate II- Shadow of Amn
16 Pokemon Gold & Silver Adventure Guide
17 Legend of Zelda, The :Majora's Mask
18 Pokemon Trading Card Game
19 Ridge Racer V
20 Shenmue
21 Grandia II (DC)
22 Pokemon Gold & Silver Collector's Edition
23 Phantasy star Online (DC)
24 Pokemon Stadium 2
25 Legend of Zelda - Oracle of Ages & Oracle of Seasons
26 Super Mario Advance
27 Baldur's Gate II - Throne of Bhaal
28 Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec
29 Pokemon Crystal
30 Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon
31 Luigi's Mansion
32 Half Life
33 Devil May Cry
34 ?___possibly Rayman 3 as advertised in Vol 35
35 Grandia II (PS2)
36 Maximo
37 Sonic Adventure 2 Battle / Sonic Advance
38 Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (PC)
39 Digimon World 3
40 Neverwinter Nights Adventure Guide
41 Neverwinter Nights World Builder Guide
42 Eternal Darkness
43 Super Mario Sunshine
44 Grandia Xtreme
45 Starfox Adventures
46 NBA 2K3
47 Wild Arms 3
48 Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (PS2,XBOX,PC) (Printed, not released, most copies destroyed)
49 Evolution Worlds
50 Phantasy Star Online (GC,XB)
51 Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (PC,GC,XB)
52 Metroid Prime
NONE Counter-Strike
V1 Massive Online Gaming

[RichD]

Edited the two above lists: Grandia II for PS2 is volume 35.

[tynstar]

Wild Arms 3 is book # 47

[RichD]

Many Thanks for the information.

Edited the two lists above:
Added Wild Arms 3 volume 47.
Added Final Fantasy VII. Anyone here own this guide?

[D_N_G]

I have the FFVII guide, do you need something from it?

[RichD]

I have the FFVII guide, do you need something from it?

The Versus Books guide for this game is hard to come by compared to the guides put out by other companies. If you have the Versus Books version, I would like for you to look at the bottom of the spine and let me know what the volume number is. Also if it is not too much trouble I would like to know the copywrite date/ publishing date. (1997?) And it would be a big help if you looked at the back of the guide and let me know if there is any guides advertised that are not in my lists above.

I would be very grateful, This particular guide seems to be hard to get ,therefore getting information on it hard.

[RichD]

edited the two lists above: Maximo is volume 36

[RichD]

edited the two lists above: added Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast for PC, GC and Xbox volume 51.

Can anyone confirm there was an earlier release for PC as Volume 38.

[D_N_G]

Rich, i have to dig the book out of my closet, Ill try to get to it this weekend.

[RichD]

No big hurry, I was just hoping some people could just glance over at their bookshelve and see the info that is only on the spine of the books. I probably need to post a notice on the main board because a lot of people do not even look at this particular forum.

I have found lists of the gamefan and millenium books strategy guides on the millartime website. I will probably working on those and the Sandwich Island lists pretty soon.

[sisko]

Shenmue is 20
PSO is 23

[RichD]

Thank You Sisko

edited the above 2 lists:

Shenmue is volume 20
Phantasy Star Online (DC) is volume 23

[EndlessChris]

I have the Street Fighter Alpha 2, one of the best strategy guides I've ever seen.

[sisko]

Ocarina of Time is #6

[RichD]

Again, Many Thanks Sisco.

Edited above two lists. Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time is volume 06

[EndlessChris]

I just picked up the FFVII guide for 25 cents. It's all ripped and torn but man... 25 cents.

[sisko]

I just picked up the FFVII guide for 25 cents. It's all ripped and torn but man... 25 cents.

Read the thread...RichD needs to know the volume number on it....

[EndlessChris]

I looked for it but even the spine is ripped to hell. Sorry dude.

[dreams]

I know this probably doesn't help much, but I found a scan of the cover of the FFVII guide. It doesn't include the spine unfortunately.

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff7/propaganda/ffcovlg.jpg

Also, I'm not sure if this is an official guide that should make the list, but I found some limited information on a "Super Mario 64 Survival Guide" that was published by Versus Books (although it's not shown on the cover that I can see).

http://www.classicgaming.com/tmk/mania/mags.shtml (in the Other Mags Section)

[RichD]

Dreams: Thank You for the links. The cover is similar to vol 5 metal gear solid, therefore ff7 is probably 2 or 3

The Super Mario 64 survival guide is actually put out by Sandwich Island Publishing. They did other books in the "survival guide" series.

EndlessChris: Please check around page 2. See if the page that says Staff: Versus books and check if the volume is listed there. Also please check if somewhwhere around there it says : Copywrite 199_ Empire 21 Publishing, Inc. If you find this, let me know what the year is. And last, please let me know if there are any advertisements for other guides in the back of the book. My vol 5 MGS (1998) lists 4 guides : FF7, Tekken 3, RE 2 and MGS. That there shows me I am also missing Tekken 3 in my list. since I know RE2 is vol 4 and MGS is vol 5, and I know what vol6-10 are, FF7 and Tekken 3 are either vol 2 or 3. I just need to figure out one of them.

Sisko: Anyone who wants to talk strategy guides or has a question is OK with me in this thread. I am even interested if /how many of the older Versus guides still have their poster still in them.

[ManekiNeko]

Whoa, whoa, back up the phone and hold the horses a second. There's a Grandia II strategy guide written specifically for the Dreamcast? I just have the PS2 version of the guide. Are there any differences between the two? Am I going to read about hidden locations in the Playstation 2 version that simply don't exist in the Dreamcast game?

JR

[RichD]

I have physically sited both versions of the Versus Grandia II strategy guides but do not own either at this time, so I can not tell you what any differences are in them. They were released about one year apart (2000 and 2001). (Also I don't have either versions of the game.)

According to reviews for the PS2 version, They just ported the dreamcast version over with a slight improvement in the graphics and added cutscenes. Therefore the strategy guides should be very similiar. I suppose they put out a new PS2 version because they did not put a large quantity for the DC version and there would be a lot more copies of the PS2 game available. I do know the cover was changed to match the PS2 version art.

Anyone else have any input?

[EndlessChris]

the first few pages are missing, so again, no dice. The guides offered in the back are Street Fighter Alpha 2, Tekken 3 and Final Fantasy VII. Also mentioned is a "Coming Soon," Versus Magazine.

[RichD]

Thank You for checking. This does confirm FF7 is vol 2 or 3. Maybe someone else has FF7 or Tekken 3 and can check them. Maybe I will have to get the UPCs to help figure things out.

[RichD]

edited the two lists. Added Tekken 3 (arcade)

[dreams]

FFVII is 2.

I looked up one that was being sold on ebay and asked the seller what number was on the spine. :D

I feel kind of guilty though. The auction is a BIN only with a BIN of $130. X_x He probably thinks now that someone is interested in buying it for that much.

[nesman85]

tekken tag tournament is #18
pokemon trading card game is #11

[Wisekraker]

I dug mine out and FFVII is volume 2 Copyright 1997 Empire 21 Publishing, Inc.
The Ad in the back is for Tekken3 and for Street Fighter Alpha 2 and the order form has space for only those 3 games. On the back however is an ad for the Versus video game strategy magazine comming soon in 1998??? I don't remember a magazine. Was there ever one or did they just stick to making guides?

Looking at the ad in the back again it says "Also still available" for the Streegt Fighter Alpha 2 so I think it's safe to assume that it was volume 1 considering this ad is in volume 2 :wink 2:

[RichD]

edited the two lists:

Final Fantasy is volume 2
Tekken 3 is volume 3 (unconfirmed)
Tekken Tag Tournament is volume 11
Pokemon Trading Card Game is volume 18

That leaves the remaining few questions:

What is volume 34 ?
Can anyone confirm volume 38 is Star Wars Jedi Knight 2 Jedi Outcast for the PC ?
What is volume 48 ?

dreams: Thank You for the info on Final Fantasy Vii. I do not feel right in checking on an auction lot I was not going to bid on, but it was nice of the person to check.

nesman85: Thank you for info on vol 11 and 18.

wisekraker: Thank you for the info from Final Fantasy VII. I was pretty sure the Street Fighter book was volume 1 because it has a forward in it stating this was the first book from this then new company.

[dreams]

dreams: Thank You for the info on Final Fantasy Vii. I do not feel right in checking on an auction lot I was not going to bid on, but it was nice of the person to check.

No worries. I ended up having a nice conversation with the gentleman and I was able to answer some of his questions as well, so it was a nice win-win situation.

EDIT:

Courtesy of the wayback machine (http://web.archive.org), I'm pretty sure Tekken Tag is indeed #3.

Also, digging through the archives, unfortunately there's not a lot of information still there. I found a page where they had cover scans of coming soon books but unfortunately the images didn't load. Looking at the properties of the pictures, I determined that two of them were Mario Advance (scheduled release date 06/11/01) and GT3 (scheduled release date 06/15/01). The first one with a release date of 06/07/01 has a title of "tobcover.gif." I'm not sure what that one was supposed to be. Same thing with the last one. It has a release date of September 2001 and is called RLHCover.gif." I don't know if that helps at all. It seems like one of them may be in the right time period to be #34.

I do believe however that I know what #48 may be. I think it is Lord of the Rings as indicated by this (http://web.archive.org/web/20030211103816/www.versusbooks.com/coming/) page. Looks like it fits.

As a side note, it looks like they were planning on doing (maybe they did, I'm not sure) Dark Cloud 2, The Getaway, and Condition Zero as well.

[RichD]

ManekiNeko: (and anyone else interested) The two strategy guides for Grandia II are about 98.5% identical. They have the following differences:

Covers have different pictures, back cover identical except background color same as front color.

The copywrite info was changed inside front cover.

On page 102, the DCversion starts with ads, in the PS2 version pg 102 has a character sketch.

The advertisements in back were different

All other pages including table of contents and all but the sketch on page 102 were identical with the same exact words and pictures and exactly layed out the same. I do not know what the posters are, but I can guess they were the same as the cover.

[RichD]

Dreams: Thank you for the tips. I have a copy of the versus page showing "all" the guides they released before the site went down. It did not list the early volumes and had the gaps I am trying to fill now.

Super Mario Advance is volume 26 and GT3 is volume 28. About 80%+ of the guides I have sited in the last 3 years and I am trying to fill in the last holes. Some guides are very rarely mentioned anywhere on the net.

Here is the following educated guesses:

Volume 34 is probably Rayman 3 (advertised in vol 35)

Volume 48 is probably Lord of the Rings as mentioned on their website. Due to it being near the end (vol 52) it may have been delayed and then not released.

Those last 3 guides mentioned in their coming soon were not released as far as I can tell. When the Counter Strike guide came out, I think a different publishing company name was in it. I will check on this as it is still available at Gamestop. Also some older Versus guides have shown up at Gamestop with a $6.99 sticker on them. This leads me to believe that the warehouse of guides is being dumped. These dumped guides are also showing up at many web stores that sell strategy guides.

[dreams]

Ok, it was bothering me not knowing what those two mystery books were so I did some research.

TOB is most likely Baldur's Gate II - Throne of Bhaal. It's already on the list so nothing new there.

RLH really intrigued me. I did a search for "video game RLH" and I turned up a PS2 game called Run Like Hell : Hunt or Be Hunted. I'm fairly positive this is what the guide was supposed to be on. Whether it was ever released is a different story. So there's another option for #34.

[tylerwillis]

I thought I might start a subcollection of these, so I'm bumping the topic to find out if anyone knows for sure what 34 and 48 are.

[tylerwillis]

From an eBay auction (http://cgi.ebay.com/LOTR-The-Fellowship-of-the-Ring-Versus-Book-VOL-48_W0QQitemZ8248206686QQcategoryZ62053QQrdZ1QQcmdZ ViewItem), #48 is LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring


LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FOLLOWSHIP OF THE RING STRATEGY GUIDE BY VERSUS BOOKS AND IS IN EXCELLENT CONDITION HAS POSTER INTACT. THIS ONE IS TRULY AN ODDITY AND EXTREMELY RARE THIS GUIDE WAS PRINTED BUT NEVER RELEASED THEY WERE ALL DESTROYED EXCEPT FOR A HANDFULL OF THEM. IF YOU CHECK THE ISBN NUMBER IN THIS GUIDE IT IS NOW BEING USED FOR ANOTHER VERSUS GUIDE MASSIVE ONLINE GAMING VOL.1. I HAVE TAKEN A PICTURE OF THE ISBN IN THIS GUIDE AND YOU CAN LOOK IT UP FOR YOURSELF.I OBTAINED THIS GUIDE FROM SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY WORKED IN THE FACTORY THAT MADE THE GUIDES AND HE TOLD ME THEY HAD TO DESTOY THEM ALL BECAUSE OF COPYRIGHT ISSUES. HE GOT OUT A TOTAL OF 15 COPIES SO YOU DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS ON HOW RARE THIS GUIDE IS.I AM SELLING ALL OF MY VERSUS BOOK STRATEGY GUIDES AND I HAVE ALL OF THEM EXCEPT 3 OF THEM THERE ARE 52 IN ALL SO IF YOU COLLECT VERSUS BOOKS HERE IS YOUR CHANCE TO GET ALL OF THEM.

So, yeah, assuming the guy is correct, it'll be almost impossible to find this one. Going to send an email and see if he knows what #34 is.

[mdk]

Hope this isn't consider hi-jacking but I have a few Versus guides for sale or trade in my thread here : http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=76386

[mdk]

I just noticed something while digging through my books. It seems that there is a regular and a collectors edition version of Volume 6 (Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time). I'm not sure if this was mentioned anywhere in this thread. Here is a pic. The one on the right is the collectors edition.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a376/madk/DSC00523.jpg

[RichD]

First, a big thank you to all past and present who have helped with the list.

I have updated the alphabetical and vol number lists.

added vol 48 Lord of the Rings:Fellowship of the Ring
added info to Zelda Ocarina of two different editions.
Under vol 34 I put that it is possibly Rayman 3 based on advertisement in vol 35.

Question: What is the difference in the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time editions?

[mdk]

The only differance is that the collectors version contains a few posters. The actual content of the guide is the same. The only way I noticed is because the spine is printed differently. I noticed this as they were on my shelf and pulled them down and snapped the pics. The collectors one also says 'Collectors Edition' under Versus Books and says 'Two Free Giant Posters Inside!' on the right.