4 comments about Pac-Man World(tm) 3 Official Strategy Guide (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames)).

1. The Pac Man World 3 guide is a great way to get through the tough spots and to make sure you didn't miss anything. My only complaint with this product is that some of the screen shots are pretty small and hard to see much detail. But, I wouldn't hesitate to order another guide from Brady Games in the future.



2. This guidehas good text but poor graphics. It is however still useful.Hints within the game play are also very helpful.



3. I bought the game first and tried playing it on my own. While it was fun it is not like the pacman games I'm used to playing. It wasn't long before I got stuck, and that is when I purchased this guide. this is an excellent guide because it doesn't give you cheats, and ruien the game experience, but it dose walk you through what to do, where things are, and how to use the different features of the game. I have still not gotten to the end, but I'm enjoying myself now, instead of being frustrated.



4. My wife was trapped in the last stage of this game. She had finished it only with the information contained in this magazine.
   I think price is a little expensive, but if you want finish it, you should pay for it.

1 comments about Story and Simulations for Serious Games: Tales from the Trenches.

1. In this far-ranging investigation into narrative strategies and their applications for new interactive media, Iuppa and Borst offer several books in one. Foremost, they present a methodical guide to the use of story elements in videogame technologies, particularly as a means toward pedagogical goals ("serious games"). Also, they illustrate from various angles the mechanics of storymaking, how it can work from the creative standpoint as well as its benefits for engaging players on a more substantial level than they might experience in non-narrative games. And, not least, this book provokes us to consider the age-old human need for stories, which ultimately connect us to each other even as they educate and entertain us.
   
   The point of departure for the book is a series of case studies analyzing three projects that Hollywood creative teams, including the authors, developed for the United States Military in its training programs for various crisis situations. From there, subsequent sections branch out to cover all the inherent components of such virtual reality type of training, whatever the domain. In so doing, the discussion keeps an eye toward the most effective ways of involving participants, and seeks always how best to control a given simulation in meeting the desired pedagogical results while allowing for maximum freedom of choice in playing the game.
   
   Throughout, Iuppa and Borst master a wealth of technical details and prove well-informed about the latest software and hardware innovations that the prospective serious game developer might wish to draw on. And yet, despite very specific aims, their discussion is not weighed down by practical concerns. They manage to remind us, in spite of all, why writers will always be necessary: who else has so well learned somehow to keep nimble their narrative reflexes, to subvert expectations, to keep us guessing?

No comments about Clandestiny: The Official Strategy Guide (Secrets of the Games Series.).

4 comments about The Video Game Theory Reader.

1. The Video Game Theory Reader begins not with a bold statement or manifesto for interpreting video games but in a far more grounded manner with a foreword from Warren Robinett who is widely regarded with having revolutionised gameplay in 1978 with his design for the Atari 2600 Adventure game. Robinett opens with an obvious but inescapable question about the acceptability of video games: 'It is hard to say what ranks lower on the artistic food chain than video games. Comic books? TV sit-coms? X-rated films? These ratlike vermin at the bottom scurry to avoid the thunderous footfalls of the towering behemoths of the art world.' (vii-viii). Robinett argues that most new art forms require an 'enabling technology'-cinema had the motion picture camera-and now video games have the affordable home PC (preceded somewhat by dedicated gaming systems like the Atari, which seem to have come full circle with new console Nintendo, Playstation and Microsoft's Xbox systems). With the technology firmly entrenched and a large body of work (the games) available for analysis, it's time for the critics and theorists to pay attention. As video games become increasingly complex and, more to the point, socially entrenched, the humble video game has become a worthy subject for critical analysis and a new cultural studies field is emerging. Moreover, the fact that in the US, UK and Australia video games sales outstrip the box office takings for first release films indicates that video games are playing an increasingly substantial role in our leisure hours and social interactions. While editors Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron may be overstating the case somewhat in claiming that 'the video game has recently become the hottest and most volatile field of study within new media theory' (1) , this collection certainly goes a long way to ensuring that video game analysis will have firm critical footholds.
   
   Wolf and Perron's excellent introduction goes a long way to illustrating that the field of video game study and theory does have both a lineage and its own proto-canon of important texts. As well as sketching the history of video game design and analysis, Wolf and Perron highlight four key elements of video games which distinguish them from the amorphous umbrella of new media: graphics, the changeable display almost always on a pixel-comprised screen; interface, the all-important connection between the game and player, which usually includes the graphics, but also speakers, microphones, keypads, joysticks, as well as onscreen elements such as sliders and menus; player activity, 'the heart of the video game experience' (15) and key to video game design; and algorithm, the program and procedures which must be to some extent unique for each different game.
   
   Walter Holland, Henry Jenkins and Kurt Squire's first chapter 'Theory by Design' looks at the feedback loop between design, play and theory in the realm of 'edutainment'-educationally oriented games-and uses four case studies to illustrate how designing games-to-teach involves utilising, critiquing and extending video game theory. Wolf's own article in the collection looks at the role of abstraction in video games. He traces abstraction from a technological necessity, due to the processing and graphics power of the earliest game devices, to an exploratory artistic potential for current games which almost all now tend toward representational techniques and the digital holy-grail of photorealism. Alison McMahan's 'Immersion, Engagement, and Presence' then looks at methods for analysing 3-D video games as opposed to their 2-D predecessors, focusing on degrees of presence and immersion in different games and game types, including a useful case study of Myst III: Exile. Miroslaw Filiciak's 'Hyperidentities: Postmodern Identity Patterns in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games' (MMORPGs) looks at the phenomena of MMORPGs where hundreds or thousands of game users participate in a shared virtual environment and argues that MMORPGs actualise postmodern ideas of self more so than any other medium. Filiciak's chapter, while ambitious, tends to get stuck in explicating various postmodern theories of self rather than the specifics of MMORPG gameplay, making this the weakest chapter of the collection. By contrast, Bob Rehak's 'Playing at Being: Psychoanalysis and the Avatar' intertwines a rich knowledge and appreciation for the historical spectrum of video games with an equally broad knowledge of psychoanalysis and film theory to produce a provocative chapter which explores how the video game avatar operates from a mediated mirror stage through to far more nuanced and subtle notions of identity. Torben Grodal's chapter 'Stories for Eye, Ear, and Muscles: Video Games, Media, and Embodied Experiences' starts from the premise that video games are primarily 'different realisations of real-life activities' (129) and makes the argument that the best critical tools for engaging with video games are thus drawn from cognitive psychology. Maintaining a focus on embodiment, Martti Lahti's 'As We Become Machines: Corporealised Pleasures in Video Games' examines the oft-touted idea that video games and cyberspace fetishise a 'meatless' disembodied view of subjectivity. In contrast, Lahti argues that the technologies of video games complicate corporeal responses in a number of ways, not so much erasing the body as reincorporating it in a cybernetic system which to some extent actually re-emphasises the material body for game players. Mia Consalvo's 'Hot Dates and Fairy-Tale Romances: Studying Sexuality in Video Games' also delineates how video games can complicate aspects of identity, but this chapter focuses specifically on sexuality. Consalvo conducts tight focused readings of Final Fantasy 9 and The Sims, exploring the ways sexuality is portrayed, the potential for non-heterosexual readings and activity, with the latter especially interesting in Consalvo's examination of the massively popular The Sims. Markku Eskelinen and Ragnhild Tronstad 'Video Games and Configurative Performances' add performative perspectives from theatre and drama studies, highlighting the role of pleasure in reading video games. Gonzalo Frasca's chapter 'Simulation versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology' follows in which Frasca outlines ludology-the study of video games not anchored to analyses of narrative-and shows how useful Espen Aarseth's ideas of cybernetic texts are in studying video games as simulations rather than representations. The following two chapters by Bernard Perron and Chris Crawford both focus on interactivity and narrative, the former from a more theoretical viewpoint and the latter more technical. The final chapter, Patrick Grogan's 'Gametime: History, Narrative, and Temporality in Combat Flight Simulator 2' examines similarities between gametime, gameplay and recent feature films, such as Pearl Harbour, and concludes that gametime is inherently ergodic; temporality is dictated by the episodic experiences of the game itself.
   
   As this brief overview illustrates, the chapters in The Video Game Theory Reader range across a huge spectrum of academic disciplines, from new media studies to cognitive psychology to literary analysis and gender studies. Most of the articles are extremely well written, making firm arguments for the importance of analysing video games in contemporary society, and providing many theoretical tools with which future work can be performed. Video game analysis and ludology may be a newly emerging field, but The Video Game Theory Reader guarantees that it's a field which will have considerable theoretical groundings and provide important insight into contemporary popular culture.



2. This book is an introduction to a nascent field within new media studies: video game theory, or ludology. As such, many of the essays contained herein are trying to get a grasp on what constitutes video game studies, period. Some of the questions broached are as follows:
   
   What would constitute a formal analysis of a video game?
   What features do all video games share (what can we classify as a video game, anyhow?)
   Which approaches are best for the analysis of video games: semiotics, psychoanalysis, cinema studies, cognitive psychology?
   
   This volume takes a few baby steps towards answering those questions. Gonzalo Frasca, for instance, makes the important argument that even the simplest games cannot be considered in mere narratological terms, but must be considered as a simulation. He then uses Roger Caillois's terms paidia and ludus to establish a tentative typology of video games.
   
   Other essays, such as Mia Consalvo's essay on the Sims and Final Fantasy IX, are more shallow and contribute little beyond a superficial plot analysis and trite comments about how radical it is that a guy can have a girl avatar (and vice-versa) in a video game.
   
   I found Patrick Crogan's essay on Combat Flight Simulator 2 and Pearl Harbor (the movie) especially insightful, as it drew some fascinating connections between Manuel De Landa, Paul Virilio, and the simulation representational ethos (as opposed to narrative).
   
   In conclusion, this is a really hit-or-miss collection, which is perhaps to be expected considering how marginal video game studies currently is within the academy. Nevertheless, it contains some valuable contributions to this inchoate field between its covers, which will certainly help to legitimate game studies in the future.



3. The social impact of video games as a new media has been my focus this semester at the University of Minnesota and this book has been my bible.
   
   The articles are not only informative and thought-provoking, but very interesting. As a long-time gamer, this was an opportunity for me to look differently at a medium I thought was purely for entertainment and really see the far reaching effect that video games have not only our media and consumer culture, but also on the individual's psyche and perception of the world around him/her.
   
   If you're a researcher or just a gamer looking for a fresh perspective on this medium, you need to buy this book.



4. this is not light reading. There aren't any aliens to blast, cities to conquer, or my favorite, zombies to re-kill. Instead, this is fairly scholarly tome. It puts theories about why we really love blasting, conquering and re-killing. Not to be taken lightly but well worth the effort to read the science, psychology, marketing, and art behind our games.

No comments about The art of Xenosaga Episode III Also sprach Zarathustra (Limited edition art book, III).

2 comments about Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas?: Oogie's Revenge Official Strategy Guide: Revenge Official Strategy Guide (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames)).

1. The book gives great descriptions and walkthorugh for the entire game. Plus gives character info for all that you run into,and descriptions for each costume Jack turns into. Bradygames brand is a good name in general.



2. I was very pleased with the results of my order. It had arrived in decent time and in great condition, an he price was really reasonable as well. I wanted to thank you for the great customer service and service that i had received.

2 comments about RPG Maker 2 (Prima's Official Strategy Guide).

1. The best thing about this guide is the pictures of every enemy, character, object, and texture that you can use. It really helps with planning your project out. The tutorials it provides are fairly helpful, and could save you the time of figuring out some of the steps yourself. The Fu-Ma walkthrough could be a bit better, as it doesn't show any maps. But you really don't need a walkthrough with the sample game anyway. If you're into RPGM 2 and want to make a quality game, you should buy this book right away.



2. i ordered this because i got the game for christmas and wasn't able to figure out how to create anything. so in getting this i have been able to understand how to do everything better. i highly reccomend this for anybody who hasn't played the first game.

No comments about Computer Games: Text, Narrative and Play.

4 comments about Star Fox Adventures Official Strategy Guide.

1. I didn't get mine until I was 86% finished with the Game.
   I really used it for the rest. It really saved me alot of internet time by looking at online guidebooks.Now I've beaten the final boss.



2. I liked this guide. It was clear and concise as most guides should be. I like the screens and how much time they spent getting you used to the game was an extra treat. They didn't jump right into the walkthrough which I was glad for. Also, the walkthrough was much more clearly organized and easy to read as compared to the other guides (I really didn't like the Nintendo Power guide for this game...).

   The maps are okay but not every map is 3-D like they say. This is absolutely no problem for me, but others might find it to be a problem. I liked that they took the actual map from the game. It made it much easier to navigate and find my way through the various worlds.

   I can't imagine much of anything wrong with this guide. All the puzzle solutions were there, secrets were mentioned, just about everything I'd expect from a strategy guide. Much better than some of the others out there. I think what went a little under explained were some of the Arwing Missions. But again, not much of a problem (there really isn't any "strategy" to getting through the Arwing missions).

   Overall, and easy to use guide that got me through the entire game with few problems. Making this an essential Star Fox guide to have. Not bad at all.




3. Strategy guides have always seemed to have a interesting effect to help people with video games. Nevertheless, third-party companies that make those guides for video games don't actually make them very well at all. For Star Fox Adventures, it has been one of the most surprising video games ever developed for the Nintendo Gamecube. However, the strategy guide Brady Games developed does have a lot of problems. The maps and details are really not detailed enough and quite misleading on certain courses. Another problem is that it doesn't display how to defeat the Star Fox menace, Andross. For so many, they are just better off passing this guide up, for the real deal by Nintendo.
   
   Overall: D-



4. I strive to finish a game and THEN buy the guide. This guide has pretty much everything you need to know. One major thing it's missing is strategy for the "final battle".
   
   I didn't need that much help with this game, but I'm sure this guide could help someone.

No comments about Fight Night Round 3 (Prima Official Game Guide).