5 comments about Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Official Strategy Guide.

1. This book was a great find. it showed me everything i needed to know step by step and had a great beastary.



2. This guide was for my daughter who plays the game. She has found the guide to be quite useful in the playing of the game and getting to know the different characters.



3. It's always nice to see a different approach to guide-making. This small booklet detail's nigh every nook and cranny of the game and gives informative(though not varied) approached to all form's of the game.
   
   All-In-All SMT guides are always well worth any amount of money spent.



4. I didn't expect it to be so tiny. The guide is about the size of the game case. But it came with everything i was looking for, answers to some of the obscure pop quiz questions, the correct responses when building social links. Worth the buy.



5. This is a good product , but be cautious , if you have Persona 3 FES ,this book is different. It will help but some of the game play has changed.

5 comments about Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Prima's Official Strategy Guide.

1. This book takes you step by step and the descriptions are clear. Although it may take a while to acutally complete the game while trying to read a player's guide at the same time, it does not take away from the excitement.

   And a big plus would be that this guide doesn't take away from the plot. BEWARE those that do!




2. Dear Zelda fans& lovers,
   This book is sure to help you on the 2nd level to getting the Goron Ruby.Soon I have this book to help me.
   P.S. This guide is the best!



3. This is a great companion to the game. It is descriptive and offers a number of strategies for certain situations. I noticed a couple of flaws in it, but nothing major. For example, in the back where it describes where to find all the gold skultulas, it usually has what you need to get it, what dungeon or town it is in, and where it is in the dungeon or town. However, one of them had the dungeons in one column, but what you need to use to get it in two coulmns, so I had no idea where to find it, even after searching. I think there is another flaw, but that is about it. They are very minor and don't take away the fact that this is a great guide!



4. This is a really good guide, I had a copy of this, but it was like five years old, and the pages fell out. But before, it was really a good guy, and it helped me out of a few tight spots. The one thing I think it could have is more puzzle-help. Especially the one in Forest Temlpe, the one where you have to move the crescent blocks. But, it might have had it, that pages has been missing in my copy for years. Overall, excellent. Highly recommended. Being a kid (-13) myself, I can say that most kids will find this easy to understand and comprehend, and the complete maps, listings, and charts are very clear!



5. Not being a "game" person, I must admit to having to struggle through the most simple of computer and other electronic type games. I simply could not have completed this one on my own. If this guide helped me, then I certainly feel it would be helpful to anyone! Ghe graphics in this book are excellent and the instructions are quite easy to follow. Recommened this one highly.

3 comments about Battlefield: Bad Company: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides).

1. After purchasing and loving the Shadowrun Prima guide, I was expecting the same great guide for Battlefield: Bad Company. However, I was very disappointed.
   
   The pages are not nice and glossy paperstock. They are thinner and feel more like a newspaper feels.
   
   There is way too much focus on single player. Over 100 pages are dedicated to the single player campaign. Only 10 pages about Multiplayer. There are top-down diagrams for single player maps, but none for multiplayer maps.
   
   After the in-depth treatment Prima gave to Shadowrun, I thought they would do the same for BF:BC. They did not.



2. 
   I agree with other review. Feels really cheap and quickly put together. The pictures are really small and the paper is cheap. I wanted to pick this up to get a good review of the multiplayer maps but there aren't any layouts like in the RB6 or the COD4 guide. They actually covered each map on just one page. They give you 1 by 1 inch pictures of a house or base and what can you do with it. There is not a reference point to match it to on a map. For two of the maps they had so little to say they fit both on one page.
   
   I looked at this in the store and decided to skip it.



3. This book was a disappointment and is very incomplete.
   
   Multiplayer problems:
   As stated earlier, no top views of the maps and a very limited look into the multiplayer area. Most of the info is from the videos included in the "Gold Edition" of the game.
   
   Stats:
   The weapon descriptions are the general rant with little info in how they perform in the game. The numbers do not include the handling stats and they do not have a table for easy comparison to help you choose what weapon is best. The specialist weapons have little info on how to use them correctly, especially the Snipers goggles witch I am still having problems with.
   
   Single player:
   The majority of this book is centered on the single player campaign. This is set up with short paragraphs scattered on a page to follow along the way the writers played the game. This largest disappointment with this is if you try to read and go you will miss some vital info. One example is I started a tough battle and then read I should have picked up the mortar designator two objectives previously which was not mentioned in the explanation that was two pages previously.
   
   This guide is similar to the layout of the Kameo guide. Which also blew? The problem with Prima guides is it seems to be a crap shoot. Half of the time the guides are well laid out and helpful. The other times they aren't. This is the only guide out there and it does have some info to help complete the game and find the collectables and such in the single player. It also included the point values for actions in the multiplayer.

2 comments about Multiplayer Gaming and Engine Coding for the Torque Game Engine.

1. This book grate start torque game engine programming. I like it. If you want to learn deeply Torque Game Engine you should buy this book.



2. Game programmers receive an in-depth, advanced guide to getting the most out of the Torque Game Engine, and comes from a long-time Torque programmer and trainer who knows his stuff. Discussions and descriptions of the components of the program teach how to make better games - and even how to modify the engine and source code itself. Computer libraries strong in gaming will know of Torque - and will value this important guide.

2 comments about First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game.

1. A great overview of the intersections of games, linear stories, and interactive artworks. This book almost inevitably leaves you with a richer perspective, because the range of articles (the uses of voice synthesizers to the Sims) makes it unlikely that you are familiar with all the terrain. The commentary discussions parallel to the main text give a feeling like chatting with your smart friends about some brilliant lecture you just saw. Thought provoking and fun.



2. What has particularly excited me is the opening chapter on "Cyberdrama"... it discusses approaches to story, game play and engagement in terms that echo what we are trying to achieve in Drama education. Throughout the book (and this is from preliminary browsing) there are discussions about narrative and simulation and disticntions being drawn bewteen perceptual positions of players ... the writers that have contributed to this book have a very clear sense of the notion of "role" and I am starting to think that this book may well serve as the basis for investigation into the role of technology in Drama ( and possibly other) education for the next few years. Other promising looking chapters include such discussions as "Moving Through Me as I move: A Paradigm for Interaction", "Unusual Positions: Embodied Interactions in Symbolic Spaces", "Narrative, Interactivity, Play and Games: Four Naughty Concepts in Need of Discipline", " Videogames of the Oppressed: Critical Thinking, Education, Tolerance and other Trivial Issues", "A Preliminary Poetics for Interactive Drama and Games"
   
   The authors contributing to this book are well known to anyone who's started looking into Drama and technology - Janet Murray , Espen Aarseth and Brenda Laurel are all there, alongside more familiar "drama' voices such as Richard Schechner...
   
   As a high school drama teacher, I have a keen interest in new media applications in Drama education - it seems that many of our number are still focussed totally on their Drama classrooms and while they have an interest in technology are not actually making much headway with developing knowledge in the area - this retards developing discussions when there isn't a common language and some basic concepts upon which to build our discussions and investigations...
   
   I think this book "First Person" is probably as good a starting point as is available at the moment. It provides a broad overview of the scope of "new media" interactions and there is definitely what I would call a "drama sensibility" contained within it.
   
   The other book I've just started looking into is Marie-Laure Ryan's "Narrative as Virtual Reality"
   
   Narrative As Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media
   
   What looks promising here is Chapter Nine: "Participatory Interactivity from Life Situations to Drama". I've yet to properly digest the chapter - I've been intrigued by some of the statements I've encountered, for instance "For interactivity to be reconciled with immersion, it must be stripped of any self-reflexive dimension"... I'm not sure that is exactly what we are trying to do with Drama (or any form of) education - we are generally trying to become aware of the symbolic forms we are engaging with... although in a Stanislavskian sense, it might just be that this ne dimension of building belief is somehow well placed in Drama... I tend to think the Brechtian requirement for distance might be better suited... but that can be a discussion for another day... for the time being we need to start to come to grips with some key concepts in the new paradigm we have the opportunity to define...
   
   Once again... as Drama people we know the need for social constructivist approaches... I'm hoping we can live that rather than just posit it....
   
   We are trying to establish a special interest group called DramaPlayShop.org... you're welcome to drop in!

5 comments about The Demon Soul (Warcraft: War of the Ancients, Book 2).

1. Loved the whole triology... even my girlfriend who hates WOW, read these and liked them, that is a rating by itself. A must if you like the genre.



2. This book is a little slower than the rest. It has a lot to offer on the mythos and back story of warcraft, but it is very slow for this genre of book.
   
   I almost didn't read the third book after reading this one. But you have to remember that this is the "second act" of a play. This is setting up the final conclusion you get in the third book.
   
   The third book brings a lot of closure to the story, and a lot more of the lore of warcraft. I enjoyed the three as a set. If you like the warcraft books, grind your way through this to get to the third book. Afterall, not all of the lvl 1-60 is fun either is it? You do have to grind from time to time. :)



3. This book continues on from the earlier book, The well of eternity, i was so wrapped up in the story of the first book this was not a let down at all. I weas turning page after page so unravel the story. i can admit some sections began to repeat themselves slightly but i did indeed finsh this book within a week.
   
   A fantastic read and continuation of the war of the ancients series.
   
   4/5



4. As the second volume of the trilogy, it is an excellent continuation of the history of Warcraft and explains a lot about why things are the way they are in the game. Highly recommended



5. This was the best trilogy I've ever read. I actually enjoyed these books more than I enjoyed LOTR. Got the first book with my collector's edition of World of Warcraft a long time ago and after reading that I had to buy the 2nd and third. If you like Warcraft at all, you will love these books. If you don't like Warcraft at all, you may still enjoy them.

5 comments about Official Nintendo Animal Crossing: Wild World Player's Guide.

1. I normally don't buy guides for the games that I play, because for me, part of the fun is figuring out what to do. I enjoy the surprise of what comes next, and knowing what lies around the corner just spoils it for me. However, there are a few games that I don't think guides can ruin, and one of those games is Animal Crossing (Wild World or the Gamecube version).
   
   While I still maintain that it's better to figure out things on your own, this guide does a good job of keeping many things secret. It intentionally leaves out some of the different items you can get in the game, and only shows you roughly 75 to 80% of them. It also doesn't show you how to get specific haircuts, instead showing you a small gallery of potential haircuts you can receive.
   
   I liked this guide, but I wanted to like it even more. It does a good job on the content it has, but ultimately falls short of it's full potential. I like the fact that it encourages you to find things out on your own, as I know far too many children that can't even play some games unless they have a guide for it. This guide is made for them.
   
   Unfortunately, I'm a 25 year-old Adult, and I bought this guide hoping to get complete lists of everything obtainable in the game, and I didn't get that. It has some nice pictures for what it does have, but as for me, I was able to get all the information I needed on the Internet.



2. Great guide, shows all the furniture pieces, bugs, fossils, fish and gyroids. Helpful hints too!!



3. Very valuable for the avid Animal Crossing fan!! Four of us in the family play the game and the guide is very helpful. A must have ;o)



4. My daughter had this guide and found it indespensible. Two of her friends were so excited about it when they saw it, that I bought two more copies to give to these freinds as birthday gifts. One gal read it cover to cover. The other two use it for reference. I was thanked over and over for getting it by one of the friends.



5. This was a very helpful book when I played Animal Crossing like non-stop. I found myself sitting down and reading it over and over again, I couldn't look at it enough! And I also knew what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it on the game thanks to this book! It was much help...a must have if you love Animal Crossing!

5 comments about Character Development and Storytelling for Games (Game Development Series).

1. I've known Lee Sheldon for several years. He is one of the most pleasant and knowledgeable people I've met in the game industry, so I was very much looking forward to this book. Suffice it to say that I wasn't disappointed.
   
   Writing for games has a lot in common with writing for other media (e.g., character and theme) and a lot that is unique to itself. Lee does an excellent job of covering both aspects - so much so that I would recommend this book to writers with absolutely no interest in interactive media. (I've read my share of writing books over the years, and this one stands at the top of the heap.)
   
   Of particular interest to me were chapters 3-6 on character and chapter 14 on modular storytelling, the most elegant way I've seen of organizing a linear experience into a non-linear structure. The book also does an excellent job of discussing storytelling in massively multiplayer games and provides extensive background material, much of which is intended to set up and justify Lee's modular storytelling model - rather more background than necessary, actually, since you should be sold on the need for something like modular storytelling long before he gets around to explaining it.
   
   The book's does have a few faults. For example, a couple of the later chapters feel out of place, and the text is dusted with a handful of puzzling and sometimes repeated typos (Eowen? Kalishnakov?) But these are of little consequence and should not detract from your enjoyment.
   
   Highly recommended.



2. I really enjoyed this book, and I think it's definitely worth considering if you're interested in how stories can be told in video games. I've bought plenty of books about video game design and storytelling. (I'm a programmer who's been making video games professionally for about 10 years -- I wish more people would include their personalbackground in their book reviews...) Some books on game design are written by people who obviously have more "static media" backgrounds like books or movies, and don't understand the fundamental problem of making a story in a situation where the audience has freedom to do what they want. Another problem that a lot of people don't understand is that people playing a video game don't necessarily WANT a story, in the sense that they are playing a video game because of the interactivity, and not to watch a 10 minute cutscene to learn some back story. If they wanted to watch a movie they'd pop in a DVD.
   
   I think the author really understands these difficulties. You want to make an emmersive worl, but you need to do it very quickly. So he talks about dialog, and how to convey as much information as possible in as few words as possible. He talks about how to get the player to sympathize with a chaacter, from the situation that characetr is in, to the design of the character art, to the words that the character says. All of the information is very practical, not like some books that leave you with a bunch of high-level nonsense that doesn't work in a real game. I really appreciated that he wasn't one of these "video games are mindless because they don't tell a story" type of guys. Or acting as if video games need to learn how to tell a story in order to "grow up" like movies or TV have. In a straight up action game or fighter, you don't need as much of a story as you do in a more adventure game. Playing a video game is a just a different experience, and the story has a different role, it's NOT the holy grail like some people think. Rather than trying to tell you how to convert video games into novels, he describe ways that you can inject story without taking away from the inetraction. I think he makes a good case that in almost any game, you can introduce just a bit of characetr depth and relationships, without stopping for a ten minute cutscene, and it adds value to the game.
   
   This author's background was originally in TV, but he also has considerable experience in video games. I felt like he has a good background to be writing the book, and was speaking from experience.
   
   The only negative comment about the book is that I found several of the chapters to be very similar. Like you'd be reading a chapter, and you'd think, "Hey, didn't I just read this exact same thing a few chapters ago?" Actually, you didn't, this chapter is covering a very slightly different topic. In other words, I think he could have consolidated a few chapters, which would have saved me some time. I suppose this makes it easier to jump around, since you don't rely on information from previous chapters. But I found it a little repetitive.
   
   All in all, a really good book for anybody interested in video game design or storytelling in general.



3. I am working on forming a game development studio, and our team is in the middle of producing our flagship title, an RPG entitled "Revolution's Dawn." I am the main writer of the script, and I just recently finished reading this book. Where I thought my duties as a writer were finished, I now see new openings to provide dialogue and sidequests to fill in the backstory, plot gaps, and other means of enrichment that I didn't see before. Because of having read this book, my team and I can now take this game and bring it into the realm of what we intended it to be-a vehicle for telling a story.
   
   While the title of the book is "Character Development and Storytelling for Games," the book really focuses more heavily on the latter. I was expecting the former, but by no means am I complaining! I have been able to break through blocks in my own role as a writer for this project.
   
   If you are looking for the "right" way to write your story, you won't find it here. What this book does instead is to open doors, and then let you decide whether to walk through them or not. And even then, you still have to choose for yourself what to do once you've walked through them. If you are looking for new openings in crafting your game _and_ writing your story(and synthesizing them both together), this is the book for you.



4. This book is excellent. Sheldon is witty and insightful and his book is a joy to read. I can't really think of anything negative to say, although I should perhaps mention that this book is pretty focused on RPGs and adventure games, since these are the genres which have traditionally relied most on story. Anyone interested in developing their understanding of storytelling in games should definitely pick this book up.



5. Cons: The book seemed slightly long for what it was, kept reusing the same semi-obscure examples from the writer's experience, and didn't always go in the directions I wanted it to go (for example more detail on world building, settings, or individual story scenes would have been appreciated).
   
   Pros: It didn't matter that it didn't go where I wanted it because it was still very entertaining and unexpectedly beneficial to follow the writer on his path. The book is solid from start to finish and doesn't have a false air of superiority about it; everything is very practical and friendly. Definitely a good read that rewards the effort.

5 comments about The Well of Eternity (WarCraft: War of the Ancients, Book 1).

1. It's the first warcraft book i read and its one of the best things i read(of course u have to like warcraft 1st XD)so i would recommend if u buy this book buy book 2 and 3 cuz you'll curse yourself when u get to the end of the first one :) good luck ppl



2. As usual all fantasy books begin with a bland fisrt chapter however after this point the story really takes off. I finished this book in record time considering im not usually an avid reader.
   
   If you are a fan of warcraft lore and want to know the background to the evolving characters of the warcraft universe. I suggest starting with this book. I tuned page after page night after night, great work by Knakk
   
   5/5



3. Ok, I have to admit it as much as I wanted to like this book considering the rave reviews I had heard and read hear on Amazon I did not like the story. I don't know if I just wasn't in the right mood or what. The quality of the writing is still there and that is usually enough for me but not this time. Can we break some new ground here or tell some new stories instead of telling an alternate version of a story that all diehard Warcraft people know? This probably has something to do with the fact that this book was written by the same guy who wrote Day of the Dragon a book I liked at first but didn't like quite so much on subsequent rereads.
   
   Overall-Read it if you are a dragon fan who wants to be confused about the overall war craft timeline. There was also a time when I would buy the rest of the trilogy and make an attempt to read the books out of loyalty to the franchise that is not going to happen with there books.



4. THis book is the first of a trilogy. I highly recommend that if you read this book, you commit to reading the other two. This gives an excellent historical view of how the World of Warcraft evolved over time and how relationships developed, both good and bad.



5. I am by all means not an "avid" reader but I must say that this is one of the best trilogies I have ever read. I am deployed right now and being a hardcore WoW player, I do not get to play the game out here, so the books very much compensate that.
   
   Reading the first 5 pages will get you hooked! Richard A. Knaak just delivers from start to finish. The characters are very unique and the way he describes the personality and the relationships between the characters is phenominal. I am very suprised to read that Richad A. Knaak steered in more of a Mature theme with this book, even describing in great detail how someone and/or how something died. Because you really don't see that much gore in the game.
   
   This series will have you hooked and will make you not want to put down the book until it's finished. It also answer questions like: How did Illidan become evil? Who is Rhonin? What were the great Dragons or "Aspects" like? What happened during the first "World War"? How did "Deathwing" come to be? Read the trilogy and it will answer all of your questions, and to top it off you will have more of a respect to the Warcraft storyline and appreciate the game alot more. Also you can visit some the characters in game!!!! Buy the whole Trilogy. You will not be dissapointed!

5 comments about Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (Expansion): Prima Official Game Guide.

1. This is very helpful and lets one expore more and find ways to beat difficult areas of the game.



2. The book is written very well and is in full color. If you have the Prima guide for the full Elder Scrolls IV it is written in the same fashion. I find it a must to have a guide for this game if you want to truely explore every inch! Buy it when you buy the expansion, you won't be sorry!



3. The Prima Guide is so complete. Has a sence of humor in scripting and is very detailed in what you should know and what you need to find out on your own... I got one for Dungeon seige, Elder Scrolls Oblivion and now Shivering Isles. It is a must have side kick!



4. I've using the Oblivion guide for the main game and it had helped me wonders. The information is accurate and bast. It includes details of all the missions including main and side missions plus a lot of additional information on maps and points of interest as well as books, spells and other goodies.
   
   If you are completist, buy the guide.



5. Book was in good condition and is very usefull for completing all tasks in the game.