1 comments about Alundra 2 Official Strategy Guide (Official Guide).

1. At first glance, it looks like a fairly comprehensive guide. But once you sit down and try to play through the game with it, it's flaws (and there are many) really begin to show. As Alundra 2 is a fairly linear title, there was a concentrated effort on providing a walkthrough of all the game's dungeons, rather than fill up pages with diagrams of towns and plot spoilers. This is a strong point of any strategy guide, this one in particular. However, being that a majority of the game is puzzle solving, a text based approach is simply not effective most of the time. The book mentions the puzzles to you, and merely says "solve the puzzle and the door will open" (or something to that effect) 50% of the time. This doesn't help players who can't figure out how to do this on their own (that's why they purchased the guide!). The few screenshots that accompany the generously margined pages are quite blurry, and thus do not help the player achieve any sense of orientation. And more often than not, these "screen shots" are placed 4 or 5 paragraphs after the solution (if there is one) is mentioned! Sometimes I had to flip back a page just to see what the caption was talking about. All of the major areas (and some of the minor ones) are mapped out in the back of the guide, but in such a small scale that it's impossible to make out anything from them, save where one room leads in to another. Every aspect of one game area was locked onto one or two pages (i.e., the first town, which has 2 areas, takes up one page, while one of the larger dungeons, with over 25 areas, also takes up one page--get the picture?). These maps are additonally incompletely labeled; you'll find no mention or pointing out of the powerful items, or half of the game's secrets for that matter. Mini-games are mentioned, but not in any bit of detail save where to find them. And forget about finding the puzzle pieces, special rings, and trading items. The only ones mentioned in the walkthrough are things I guarantee this author found; no effort was made to make this part of the book complete, and that was quite frustrating. The only other thing I consider a strong point to this book would be the enemy compendium and boss guide. Not that any of the game's creatures were that challenging, but an effort was made here to give the player as much information about the enemies as possible--this is as should be. But having this one piece doesn't make the guide outstanding. You're better off with an online FAQ to get you through the tougher puzzles and to help you locate the game's secrets.

3 comments about Tricks of the Doom Programming Gurus/Book and Cd.

1. Tricks of the DOOM Programming Gurus is an excellent book due to the fact it is easy to follow and *all* lessons are required to do otherwise the end WAD will not be complete (unlike some other how-to computer books) Pictures, Diagrams and tables are included to help the reader understand the various elements in Doom. An excellent feature of this book is that when you finish reading it you will be fully qualified to make excellent WAD files without ever needing to refer back to the book, and its another point of its easy-to-understand feature. Overall, the book is an excellent work and good. However, its only let-down is that Doom gets out-of-date very quickly with more modern games, and it doesnt teach you much for the future; however, this is of no fault of the authors.



2. Now that Doom has become 3d with all these new ports (DosDoom, Zdoom, DoomGL) people really want to learn how to edit levels, quickly and beutifully. This explains step by step. A very good book! I'd suggest it to anyone that wants to male there own Doom levels!



3. i got this book waaaayy back when it first came out and it has been a companion for me for editing doom which i still do as a hobby today. doom has to be the easiest game to edit on the planet and the possibilities are endless. this book is huge first off and theres a reason why. it gives you step by step instructions on level editing, graphics editing and miscellaneous editing to make your own custom doom. every chapter explains how to use the editors and also surprisingly tells how they work and how they can work for you. theres also another book that came out which is newer, 3-D alcemey however you spell it which is a continuation of this book. i recemmend this book to anyone with barely any computer programming knowledge who wants to make their own game out of doom.

1 comments about Sid Meier's Pirates! (Prima Official Game Guide).

1. There is nothing wrong with this book. It is well done, covers a lot of ground, and explains a few details and tricks that you might now know otherwise.
   
   However, the game itself is not that complicated. I would argue that there is not much of a reason to buy a strategy guide for a game this straightforward. It is a bit of a shame, because this book isn't bad (perhaps even better than a 4-star review would suggest), but there just isn't much need for it.

3 comments about .hack Part 2: Mutation Official Strategy Guide.

1. This guide is horrible! Okay, the walkthrough is decent, but who needs a walkthrough for this game? Seriously... this game is very straightforward. The best reason to get a guide for it is for weapon, item, and monster lists. This book is very incomplete. While there are at least a hundred new weapons and pieces of armor, this book only lists about fifteen. The monster lists are also very bad, many monsters are missing, and for the ones that ARE listed, the items they drop are not. Bradygames posted updated weapon/armor lists on their website, but they are still missing all of the rare weapons in the game as well as the monster info. A very rushed book, not worth your cash. You're better off just finding a FAQ online.



2. Given that .hack//MUTATION is a fairly linear game of only moderate complexity, writing a strategy guide must be a special challenge. Many publishers would give into the temptation to fill the guide with great numbers of screen shots and side stories in an effort to make a collectors item out of what would otherwise be a thin effort. For some reason, BradyGames rarely gives into that temptation, and this guide is a classic example of providing all the needed information without burying it in glitz.

   They provide a straightforward and complete walkthrough, plenty of information on side quests, and all the usual weapon and monster details. Maps are provided where needed, and, yes, there still is room for plenty of screen shots. They are especially good at detailing the moves necessary to deal with the game's deadly bosses. And grunty races as well - although nothing could save me from my inept reflexes.

   I am not sure if a guide is necessary for playing .hack//MUTATION, but if you like them as I do, you will find that this guide delivers everything it should in useful form. There are two more of these still to come in the series though, so you may want to wait until you are legitimately stumped.




3. I have not recieved this product yet, therefore I cannot review it yet.

No comments about Mega Man X Command Mission(tm) Official Strategy Guide (Bradygames Take Your Games Further).

5 comments about Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire Official Trainer's Guide.

1. I bought this guide and found that everything in it is exactly what I could have figured out on my own. No PokeDex and nothing about breeding pokemon except one lousy sentence. This guide is horrible! Buy a Prima or Nintendo guide instead if you want helpful information. This book is a dud...



2. I have all three Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire guides out there - prima's, nintendo's, and (shudders) brady's.
   
   Bradygames' strategy guides either are downright awesome or downright bad, and this guide is answer B. This was the first of the three PR&S guides that I bought. I went home, played the game with the help of this guide, and without leaving Littleroot Town, went out to EBGames the next day and bought the Prima guide.
   
   Bradygames includes a decent walkthrough of the game with detailed info, but that's about it. The guide has a list - just a basic list - of all the Pokemon, but forces you to buy a whole other $15 book to get info on the other Pokemon. May I note that in both Prima and Nintendo's guides, they include just as full Pokedexes but in the same guide? Yeah, that was a huge downside of the Bradygames' guide. Also, the walkthrough really could have been more detailed now that I think about it. After I compared the three guides, Nintendo had the best walkthrough, Prima came in second, and guess who came in last.
   
   I'm getting tired of listing endless bad things about Brady's Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire guide, so I'll just say:
   BUY NINTENDO OR PRIMA'S GUIDE...'nuff said!



3. Too many mistakes! Do not buy it no matter what! NEVER EVER BUY IT. I recomend the Nintendo Power or Prima.



4. BUY THIS! THIS IS THE BEST GUIDE EVER! IT HAS EVERYTHING!
   IT EVEN HAS LOTS OF THINGS! THE NINTENDOPOWER IS BOOBOO!



5. This is the best guide ever. It does not have a Snotedex. 'Tendo and Primer have a Snotedex though.
   
   This says "Sabdshrew," which means "No mistakes." The sandy waterfalls, Tendo calls slippery slopes. Rock Crush. Tendo says Rock "Smash." "Smash" is a word for two-year-olds!
   
   This is a big strategy guide. It'get you past everything. If you get Tendo or Prime, start over. You MUST 'gree with me!
   
   Get this. If you don't, then you will get stuck.
   
   Without a guide, you do great too. Buy this, you year-old!
   I am Crabbiest! See ya next time on the Bad Word-No Show!

5 comments about Baten Kaitos(tm) Official Strategy Guide (Baten Kaitos).

1. I always buy game guides for role playing since I am the type that likes to get everything in a game.Brady game guides are the most accurate. I have found them to be more so than the Nintendo Guides.Prima being the worst. One of the Nintendo guides I had purchased had so many errors in it that I called the company and had to make many notes in my copy.You will not be disappointed with this guide. It will help you to get everything and do things in the correct order.However the game itself can be played without a guide. I did that until I got my copy. If you speak to all the people in the game, more than once, you can find your way around.



2. I always have confidence in Brady's guides. I don't even buy Prima guides anymore after the really bad experience with the Legend of Dragoon Guide and the full of spoiler Aidyn of Chronicle Guide. Brady Guides don't usually give out any spoiler and quite comprehensive (well they had a pretty bad spoiler for the Beyond Good and Evil guide, though I still find it very useful apart from that).
   
   The Baten Kaitos guide was a little bit of disappointment though. I am not saying that there are heaps of flaws or whatsoever, it is just that things were not really that well organised.
   
   The guide as all the basic things that you need: what you need to do and all the side quests that you can do. Nonetheless, the arrangement of materials could be greatly improved. The story walkthrough is good, but the side quests are quite disorganised in a way that you would risk losing out things that you need to complete your side quests. One of them being the Museum side quest in Mira. Should the guide mentioned when you first get it to keep it for a much later initiated side quest, I would have kept it instead of throwing it away for other side quests (some of them demand a lot of blank magnus spaces if you want to avoid back tracking). It would be good for Brady's to actually build a side quest section with all the references marked inside the main story walkthrough. Readers could then have a choice of whether they want to do the side quests or keep stuff for the side quests at all.
   
   Also there is a boss battle that Kalas was forced into but the guide didn't mention it. It only said get yourself prepared. But if you prepared the wrong character, you are stuff. They manged to do it for the one where Gibari was forced into the battle, but wonder why the Kalas one was missed out.
   
   The boss stragegies and enemy strategies are good, but just in the text. So just read the text instead of reading the elemental + and - because there are a lot of flaws. Weak to light could be -80 in one enemy but marked as +80 in another. So leaving you wondering what they are trying to do. A think a better consistency check is really needed in this guide.
   
   Also the monster list doesn't tell you what usual or most frequent useful items are dropped by the monsters. With a game that involves collection of a lot of cards, I think this is an essential issue that needs to be addressed. Prices of items in the shops are steep so the best way to build up cards is by defeating monster. However, readers won't have a clue what to fight to get what. I need to make the notes myself. This is disappointing for that part was quite detail in the FF VIII guide by Brady's.
   
   The most useful parts of the guide were the experience point vs level chart and the way the teach you to take photos to earn the most money (the only way to be rich in the game).
   
   In all, if you just want a guide to get through the game quickly, this is a definite choice. If you are a person who wants to do everything, this might not be as promising as other Brady's guides.



3. so far, baten kaitos is my favorite nintendo game and the guide really helps, it gives you all the details, good boss fighting techniques, and a full list of magnus but there are some flaws in it. like for one, in one part they mess up on were a very powerful magnus is and i also can't find how you get the pendulum blast for gibari, i searched the entire book but no luck. all in alla good guide



4. Brady usually does a passable job with their guides for RPGs, but this one is an extreme exception. I can understand and forgive the occasional typo, but this guide seems to be littered with them. It's incredibly annoying to look up boss strategy and see "+80%" damage for "dark" attacks, only to execute a big "dark" attack and see "-80%" on the screen. This transposing of positive and negative effects seems to happen on every 4th boss listing.
   
   The guide itself is also poorly laid out, with the columns walk-through text broken with photos and and running roughshod around distracting side quest text bubbles. Whoever was in charge of page layout should probably try harder next time.
   
   In addition, the charts, lists and directories in the rear of the guide, usually some of the most imporant parts are laid out awkwardly. Sometimes broken up in a illogical manner, sometimes page after page of items, with no breaks and not in alphabetical order. Try finding the entry for "Spicy Curry Magnus" when it's not ordered by healing magnus, nor in alphabetical order!
   
   Overall the guide has helped me complete the odd confusing RPG side quest (which I swear are being designed more and more these days to require a 3rd party guide like this, the game publisher must get a cut). However, if I had known before buying how little it would really help and how much it would sometimes even hurt, I would have passed on it.



5. Thankfully I got this strategy guide from the library, or I would have wasted good money. While the walkthrough is decent the quests are not well organized. A lot of the game is real time dependent and no warning is give. For one quest you need an item that take fifteen real hours to develop yet the book gives you no warning. The worst part is the short cut description of enemy weaknesses. A warning that an enemy is -50% towards light will either mean it is 50% weak toward that element or that elament is only worth fifty percent damage on that enemy. The text description of strengths and weaknesses is much more accurate, but by no means perfect. For one boss one area said it was 100% weak towards dark while just below it said 100% weak towards light. That information is kind of important. Do not waste your money on this book unless your obsessive about miscellanious quests.

5 comments about Street Fighter? Anniversary Collection Official Strategy Guide (Bradygames Take Your Games Further).

1. The Street Fighter Anniversary Collection Official Startegy Guide is a very good, it goes well with the game. Very well actually. There is alot of useful information is this guide about both of the games present in The Street Fighter Anniversary Collection. The guide list every character present in both Hyper Street Fighter and Street Fighter 3 Third Strike, plus it also lists every move in each mode in Hyper Street Fighter for each character and it also lists every move for each character in Third Strike with a brief description of each move and frame data of each move. It also lists some strategys for each character and bad match ups for each character. And as an extra treat it comes with the Third Strike soundtrack. This is definitly worth reading. FINAL ATOMIC BUSTER!!



2. I got the guide in the mail today. Just upon flipping through it quickly, it is definetly a good guide. So before I criticize it at all: If you want to learn to play SF3: Third Strike, this is a great guide, and is the best way, [...]so it's worth it without a doubt.
   
   Anyway, so when you actually use the guide, and try to use it to get better with a character, you may run into some problems. First off, there are definetly some mistakes. From looking at the Oro page, some of the descriptions don't match the actual move, as in just a typo, printing error..but still could confuse a newbie.
   
   Also, the thing that REALLY annoys me about the guide is how it labels each move of a character. For an example of what I mean, everyone knows Ryu's special moves: Hadou-Ken, Shoryuken, and the whirlwind kick. But have you ever heard of...Sakotsu Wari? Me neither. But apparently, Sakotsu Wari is F+MP, Ryu's overhead punch. Now, that would be fine, but it is definetly NOT fine when the guide says to use Sakotsu Wari when the opponent is crouching, and I have no idea WTF Sakotsu Wari is, so I have to flip back to the moves index, only to find out that I would have understood them 100% if they had just said F+MP, which they said previously in the guide anyway. That applies to all of the characters.
   
   My last beef is the so called "matchups". It seems for most characters, the matchups are total bull****. For example, Q's good matchup is...Twelve? Uh, okay. Twelve sucks. Everyone's good against Twelve. Let's look at Twelve matchups. Twelve's good matchup is...CHUN-LI? I don't think so. I think most scrub Chun-Li's would beat the [...] out of any Twelve. But the guide's reason for this is that Chun-Li has no standard anti-air...uh..so what? He's frickin Twelve. He sucks.
   
   ANYWAY, those aside, this is a really awesome guide. What surprised me is that it even goes into advanced tactics like Makoto's Kara-Karakusa/her Abare Tosanami combos. With that said, some combos and tactics are noticeably missing, like Makoto's 100% stun combo, Kara-Oroshi/Fukiage, etc., but that's alright.
   
   Overall, I'd say this is something that people who want to get into 3rd Strike should pick up, because it has up-to-date tactics, and most of the combos and info you're going to need when you want to learn a character, and an easy-to-read and easy-to-find page for each one. Plus, it comes with the 3rd Strike soundtrack. That alone is worth the 10 (LESS!) dollars that this'll cost you.



3. It's really simple: if you own and actively play 3rd Strike, and have any will or drive to be a competitive player, then you really should own this. Frame data, matchup information -- all the good stuff that you should want and should expect to see in a GOOD fighting game strategy guide is included here. This is not your old-school, garbage Mortal Kombat guide that you bought on a whim while browsing the bookstore: this is real information provided by real, top competitive USA players of the game. Do yourself a favor and pick this up.



4. Didn't tell me much that i didn't already know. It's not a bad reference though.



5. I grew up playing SFII and later versions in arcades and pizza shops, so I'm more old school. However, when I transitioned to SFIII, I started to enjoy the controls and gameplay. I bought the guide for playing Third Strike on my PS2. The illustrations are great in this guide. Practice makes for a better player.

4 comments about Sid Meier's Civilization III: Advanced Strategies (PTW & GOTY) (Prima's Official Strategy Guide).

1. The Play the World Strategy Guide is nothing more than a printed version of the Civlopedia, which is included with the game. The "strategies", if we call them that, can be summed by saying: "win the game". The manual reminds players to keep the end objective of winning in mind, but provides zero guidance on how to get there. Anyone with a week of playing experience could probably right a more insightful look into the game.



2. I thought this book was pretty good. A lot of it is review (for me) but I did learn some other strategies and tricks. The tricks weren't as useful as I thought, but besides that, the book provides good information for beginners and veterans.



3. If you purchase the game and take your time, you can soon learn almost everything that is in this book. What is missed are special strategies and techniques, shortcuts, more than just the rote recitation of what you get with the game itself.

   I love CIV III despite the almost absurdly long times at the end. Especially fun are the huge games in which you are sometimes centuries meeting your nearest neighbor. The one thing I don't like about the game: It is nearly impossible to keep a city once it is captured as it almost always reverts back to its former status. Fix this bug!




4. missed are special strategies and techniques, shortcuts, more than just the rote recitation of what you get with the game itself.
   I love CIV III despite the almost absurdly long times at the end. Especially fun are the huge games in which you are sometimes centuries meeting your nearest neighbor. The most annoying facet is control of enemy territory. It is nearly impossible to keep a city once it is captured as it almost always reverts back to its former owners. Fix this bug!

No comments about Blade II Official Strategy Guide.