3 comments about .hack Part 3: Outbreak Official Strategy Guide.

1. Sure, they added stuff like all the dvd keyword areas, and this time they got almost everything...

   but they still didn't add a weapons list again.




2. Generally, there's nothing to get particularly irritated about in a game guide, even this one. They fill out the story, provide maps and walkthroughs, catalogs of items, and explain the complicated bits if there are any. Many, like this guide come out pre-production of the US version of the game. Which means that small errors and differences are inevitable.

   So what irritated me about this particular 'Strategy Guide'. Actually, it was several things, but the most glaring omission is any attempt at a weapons list. That doesn't sound like much, but this game has weapons galore, and they are often vital to solving a particular confrontation. When a guide tells you to select a weapon with good fire spells, and you have to paw through an entire collection of twin blades, it can get on your nerves.

   This isn't what I would call a necessary guide - .hack//OUTBREAK is not a difficult game from the viewpoint of plot or monster slayage. If you play the game straight, you may miss some of the cooler weapons and armors and never get to beat the goblins, but you will win the game without anything unfathomable happening. In these circumstances a guide should amplify the experience, be something of a souvenir, and NOT forget to tell you some important things.

   This guide falls a bit short. Not fatally, but just enough to be an irritant. Think twice before imbibing.




3. A very useful and decent guide for the .Hack (dotHack) Outbreak (Part 3) game in the series. Useful if you are playing the game for the first time or going back through and trying to get to places and things that you may have missed the first time through. Has a section for walkthrough and stats on not only the characters in the game at this stage of the game, plus info and stats on weapons, armor, and enemies in the game.

4 comments about BloodRayne 2 Official Strategy Guide (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames)).

1. Great game. I had a blast playing it. Especially using the cheat modes. I mean how can you not like a half naked vampire, with six sexy outfits and some badass weaponry.



2. This is a great game for gamers that like gory games and jokes that are only funny in the game. BloodRayne 2 is alot better than the first one but to understand the 2nd one you must get the first BloodRayne.



3. Strategy Guide arrived in excellent quality and condition. Strategy Guide arrived in a very timely fashion.



4. I was stuck and now with the help of Amazon.com I've put a stake in my troubles with the game!!

1 comments about Game Boy #02: The Legend Of Zelda: Oracle Of Seasons (Game Boy).

1. My 7 year old son has enjoyed reading this book (and having it read to him) many times. We also find the game-playing tips very helpful as we work our way through Oracle of Seasons/GameBoy Advanced.
   
   It also includes some nice color pictures of the key characters... which is why I only give it 4 stars... wish there were more illustrations!
   
   Highly recommend this for any young reader who likes to determine his own storyline.

4 comments about Game Development Essentials: Video Game Art.

1. This is a great title by someone who really knows his stuff. Writing from actual games industry experience(something which most 3D/Design authors don't have) it's evident that he really knows his stuff, and the book clearly represents that.
   The title not only looks at the creative, but also the technical aspects of creating game content that is usable, and easily implementable, with essential techniques that will give you a very strong skillset. Highly recommended.



2. Todd Gantzler has put together a very comprehensive book for video game art with 3d Studio Max. He covers from the top to the bottom of creating scenes. From the basics of texture mapping, advanced placement with UVW unwrapping modifiers, procedural modeling, box modeling, the author covers all of the essentials.
   
   The most important aspects of this book are:
   1. Very in depth and detailed COLOR pictures (RARE in tutorial books)
   2. Tutorials are very relevant to the purpose of the book.
   a. Example: You actually model a spider, statue, a human, a sword and texture them all!
   3. Steps are taken to explain, then produce products. So you have a reason for the method demonstrated.
   4. * ALL LESSONS WORK!!!!
   
   In short, I highly recommend this book it has taught me a GREAT deal about the industry. There aren't many books that explain so SIMPLY yet cover so much.
   
   Anyone interested in intermediate modeling and texturing should purchase this book.
   
   It is for people who:
   1. Have a general knowledge of 3d Studio Max
   2. Want to develop thier intermediate modeling and texture skills further.
   
   Warning: This book does not teach animation.
   
   Please Todd Gantzler, produce another book on animation!!!!!



3. I could not help feeling that Todd intended this book to be used in the classroom. It is organized very well for a semester in "Game Art". The reader has a chance to do some basic texturing and modeling. The emphasis is on 3d Max 6 and no animation is covered. Personally, I wished less modeling was covered and more visual art and texturing was covered instead. Also, more character texturing. There is a character that you model at the end of the book, but it is just a robot-type without a face and no texturing is involved. However, it is difficult to cover so many topics in one text. You will also find that some of the web links to tools he used for texturing are out of date and broken. If you have the latest Max tools, these tools may not be compatible anyway. In summary, a good text but more on texturing and character texturing would have made it an excellent choice.



4. This book is great for teaching the basics of 3D modeling even if you know nothing at the start. It can be somewhat hard to find the buttons that the author is talking about in 3ds Max 8 but once you do everything follows along with the book perfectly.

5 comments about Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2: WW II Pacific Theater: Inside Moves (EU-Inside Moves).

1. Good graphics and concise writing are key to the quality of this book. The author's knowledge of flying and aerodynamics is obvious. He knows how to teach; his explanations are smart and clear. Excellent reference for anyone who wants to maximize their use of this game.



2. CFS2: WW II Pacific Theater is a very informative addition to CFS2. I recommend it highly. I have some experience with CFS2 and have studied the tactics and plane specs closely. I found CFS2: WWII Pacific Theater very informative. The author is a pilot and obviously has a great deal of knowledge and insight on the tactics he describes. I only wish chapter 7, Combat Maneuvers and Aerobatics, had more depth. Chapter 5, Takeoffs, Landings and Advanced Flying goes into great depth including several demonstrations of concepts that you can fly through. If the same depth had been given to the Combat Maneuvers chapter the book would have been unbelievable. As it stands the Overhead Attack and High Side Attack merit only one short paragraph. I find these two maneuvers of particular usefulness and the lack of analysis is a letdown.

   Another area where the book is somewhat a letdown is in "tweaking" CFS2. The book flatly states you can not fly AI aircraft. This simply is not true - you only have to make a minor modification to add these wonderful aircraft to your inventory. Still the author devotes a good deal of attention to these aircraft and if you choose to fly them you will find good advice in the book. I just wish the author had devoted some time to the tweaks in CFS2.

   If you play CFS2 you simply must have this book. Even with it's shortcomings it's well worth the price.




3. If you enjoy CFS2 or CFS3 this book is worthwhile. The reason I say CFS3 is because this book covers a lot of the basics of flight which can apply to CFS2, 3 or FS2004 for that matter.

   This book, along with the CFS2 manual, makes the game / sim wonderful. Without these two resources I would have been lost.




4. microsoft puts together a nice game in combat flight simulator fun to play and many options . the book is detailed and has a tremondous information but for ww flight simulators il 2 offers a lot more



5. This is my favorite Combat Flight Sim. Considering the graphics technology when this sim was introduced, it is excellent. Scenery is accurate. Aircraft are a little "fuzzy"looking. The ships and carriers need to look more realistic. Combat is fun. In the manual, advice on how to handle dogfights is given by fighter Ace Joe Foss and a few Japenese pilots of the time. Flying this sim enticed me to read Greg "Pappy" Boyingtons book, THE BLACK SHEEP. Carrier landings are challenging. It's a good sim, buy it.

1 comments about Audio for Games: Planning, Process, and Production (New Riders Games).

1. The author takes a pretty realistic & easy-to-understand approach to showing how audio works for games. A good "intro to game audio" book!

1 comments about Zelda: Wind Waker Player's Guide.

1. I give this Nintendo guide 4 stars only because it doesn't have an overworld fold-out map, which is customary to Zelda literature. ;)
   
   Anyhow, the guide is not completely clear or specific in a couple of locations and people always say: "The devil is in the details".
   Some details are not spelled out thoroughly and left me guessing a bit to find the solution to gameplay.
   Although I have experienced this same confusion in the past with other name brand guides as well ... It happens.
   
   What I do like about this guide is that it does include all pertinent info and screenshots to progress and master the game. It gives you all you need to enjoy the game, but doesn't spoil the adventure of it at the same time.
   I bought mine 12/12/06 for 20 bucks at a local gamers depot.
   
   How it compares to the Prima or Brady guide I have no idea, since I haven't seen their versions.
   Although having bought Prima guides in the past, I was happy with the info they had in them, but it seems they typically spoil more clues than an alzheimers patient playing Clue?.
   
   The thing that turned me away from the other two guides is the Ocarina of Time filler pages ... If I wanted a good OoT guide I would just buy one.
   I would rather have added pages filled with more spreads on the applicable game at hand: Wind Waker, but that's just me. ;)
   
   If I was to do over, I would buy this guide again.
   I can't give it 5 stars because I don't know how it compares to the other two guides available?
   Although I probably should since it meets all my criteria for a guide ... well, besides the lack of an overworld map. ;)

5 comments about Game Programming Gems 3 (Game Programming Gems Series).

1. The Game Programming Gems books are fat and full of good ideas. Unfortunately, these ideas are only really useful to beginning programmers; anyone who has programmed seriously for more than two years will know 90% of the material in the book series.
   The remaining 10% of the book is remarkably good, with innovative ideas on how to approach problems. But Charles River Media decided to lengthen the book with such trivialities as how to use the C++ Standard Library and using Direct3D. Most of the material in the GPG series is covered better, and in more depth in other books which don't have the word "game" in their title.



2. I've noticed several scathing reviews from folks who admit in the review that they aren't even game programmers. Am I missing something? How in the world could this book be at all useful or interesting to someone who admittedly has no interest in programming games? Unbelievable.

   For anyone specifically interested in actually using this book to develop games, you're going to get your money's worth.




3. If you are a software developer this series should be somewhat mandatory reading. While the focus is on games much of the material should be common knowledge for software engineers. I did however like all of the book because it really shows that these authors are "in the trenches" so to say. For the seasoned developer it may be somewhat a waste of time but I would be surprised if everyone did not take something away from this book. The low level compiler examples for instance, using Lex and Yacc was pretty interesting but it left me wanting more and I ended up researching it on the Internet.
   
   The first two books seem to pack more for the punch.



4. It's a little high-level, but it contains many useful ideas and uses of different algorithms for game programming.



5. I got his book for my husband, who is a programmer, and this one is his favorite of the series. He refers to it on a regular basis, and he says it has saved him valuable time. The graphics sections are especially usefull. A handy reference book for any programmer.

2 comments about Focus On Mod Programming in Quake III Arena (The Premier Press Game Development Series).

1. Don't let the size of this book fool you.
   ID put together an incredible program with Quake series,
   and this is THE book to read about it!
   Good Job.



2. The Book refers you to a web site for additional code; however, the web site does not contain any information about the book. This makes it difficult to follow the instruction.

4 comments about TIE Fighter: The Official Strategy Guide.

1. i, being a veteran of x-wing the game, think that this is an excelent guite to tie fighter. the game is better than x-wing because there are more ships and more shooting. the guide is the best cause i cheated with it



2. I bought this book after I had already beaten the game. I only bought it because I am a Star Wars collecter, I wouldn't normally have bought a game guide. I was reading through it, and to my surprise it was written basically in the form of a first person novel. I really enjoyed the fresh perspective of a civilian worker (Maarek Stele) on a Star Destroyer, and this book is well worth reading.



3. An excellent guide to an excellent game. Very detailed analysis of the mission strategy, craft data, weapons, tactics, aso. that may kill you (could have been a bit less though). An innovative idea that makes this book a bedside novel one is the short story that links each after action report (for each mission) to a plot with a lot of characters of acceptable depth, but narration and plot wise this short story lacks (as expected so this is not really a flaw). The problem here, again, is the damn colour. Please we need some, we are not colour blind. All pages in black and white is a bore to the eye for a STAR WARS epic game. It's the same mistake PRIMA did with other strategy guides of superb graphic space combat simulations (see my other reviews). All and all a very good book that guides only for the basic game (up to Campaign Seven), needs its supplyment (Balance of Power guide), offers bedside excitement and bores you to death with black and white pages (I'm not racist but...)



4. "We have seen the end of bad gaming, we will soon see the end of the rebellion." This game is a high strategy game with enough firepower to destroy a computer! Using digital sound and lighting, a 2-D and 3-D effect blend, and amazing controlled colors and handling, this has become one of the hottest games around.