1 comments about MYST Player's Guide (Bradygames).

1. If you are looking for a strategy guide for Myst, then this is the one to get. It's great, ead really simple to follow. I'd suggest this one over the others.

No comments about Breath of Fire II: Authorized Game Secrets (Secrets of the Games Series.).

No comments about Forza Motorsport (Prima Official Game Guide).

5 comments about The Sims (Prima's Official Strategy Guide).

1. We became addicted to the SIMS game as soon as we got it, and eventually knew we needed to learn to understand our little people a lot better.

   This book helped, but it isn't fantastic. Much of what you'll find in here you can find at the SIMS home page, and some you'll figure out by yourself, through trial-and-error. Some is common sense (before making any major change, SAVE your work so you can always go back).

   It offers some things, but omits others. For example, it gives a handy chart for skill levels needed to get promotions - what is missing is how to do what is hardest, develop and maintain friends, since having a lot of friends is both required for a lot of the SIMS to 'get ahead' AND is extremely difficult to do!

   Some of the cheats are OK, but the best ones you'll find through other sources.

   For SIMS beginners (perhaps as a gift for someone who just got the game), or those who can't get on-line, this would be helpful. For those who have been playing for awhile, or are on-line, this book would probably be a disappointment.




2. This is a really great strategy guide. whether you are just starting or even a pro you should get this book! It helped me become the sim champ I am today as well as offers a good laugh too.



3. This is a really great strategy guide. whether you are just starting or even a pro you should get this book! It helped me become the sim champ I am today as well as offers a good laugh too.



4. When I first started playing this game, I made a family of eight people. Two kids. I didn't know about fire alarms or cooking skills. Four people (my men) all died. Then the others wouldn't work because they were too depressed. They spent free time wallowing in self-pity, mourning over the tombstones, and getting stuck behind furniture (and I couldn't figure out how to get them out).
   I played the game for a year, figuring it out pretty basically, still not able to get past the rusted-up carpool car. I knew things got better for some people because I downloaded families that were rich and happy.
   That didn't last long - I just plain wasn't good at the game.
   Then, a light in the darkness, was this book! It was totally awesome! Whatever I needed help with was IN THERE. Now I've got happily married six-people families who are always happy! . Now I only trust maxis-mades, BTW.
   If you think you're an expert or not, everything really lies in this book.



5. If you are having trouble with the Sims then this book is for you. It tells you every little detail about the game as well as graphs and charts that specify what you need to do to succeed.

   The chapters are as follows...
   Cheats and Quick Start Tips
   Personality
   Mood and Motives
   Sim Autonomy
   Social Interations
   Careers and Skills
   Sim Economics 101
   Building
   Sim Objects
   Creating your own Stuff

   As you can see, it covers every little aspect of the Sim world. It will help to start your sim family in the right direction and what traits your sim will need to excel at his or her career.

   It is filled with pictures, beta-testers tips, and little hints/cheats that will no doubt improve your gaming experience.

2 comments about Quake III Arena: Prima's Official Strategy Guide.

1. so clear , ez to understand



2. This 'Official Strategy Guide' from Prima was jointly produced with id Software, the creators of the Quake game series - and the appearance and layout of the book meets the high standards you'd expect from an id product; it's glossy, full of diagrams and screenshots, and is a pleasure to read. If you're already a Q3A player, you'll probably be tempted to sit down and spend an entire afternoon reading this guide!

   The book contains a variety of material: a section on weapons (usefully describing their comparative benefits), a chapter on arena basics (including some useful tips on BFG/rocket jumping, air control and splash damage) and a guide to the built-in characters (interesting, but doesn't add much to your gameplay skills).

   After these diversions comes the main section of the book: a level-by-level guide to all the arenas provided with the original release of the game. These sections vary in size and detail in accordance with the complexity of the level covered - so the later arena levels tend to get more coverage. Each contains a diagram of the entire map seen from above - these are useful, but the diagrams are literal birds-eye views, so they include ceilings and roof bars (difficult to see through). Also, it's a bit hard to visualize the multi-floor levels from these diagrams. After the map diagrams is a guide to getting around the level in question - this is generally the most useful part, containing many tips and secrets that you'd be very unlikely to stumble across by yourself when playing the game.

   Without doubt, reading this book will make you a better Quake III player - though of course it's no substitute for indulging in hours of dedicated gameplay! The book isn't perfect - the screenshots are too small in most cases, the guide lacks an index, and the author makes no mention of the actual map file names (eg 'Q3DM17' for 'The Longest Yard') or the Q3A console syntax. Still, these are small complaints.

   A last word: As id continue to bring out Q3A point releases, they add levels (eg the recent new Space CTF map) - obviously the book won't keep up with these. Also, when you enter the world of custom player-designed maps you'll probably miss the helpful advice that Prima's guide can provide! Anyway, with the 'mission pack' Team Arena due for release some time soon, I'm sure we'll be seeing a follow-up guide from the publishers.

5 comments about Game Character Design Complete: Using 3ds Max 8 and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

1. Just like all the other books from this publisher the tutorials are badly written with many holes in the descriptions. After much frustration I have started to use the tutorials in Help, which have proved much easier to understand.



2. This book is bad. The character built wastes so many polygons that using their technique you will easily create a character with four time the amount of polygons of that of a regular game character and with a quarter of the detail. All this book can do is create bad habbits and you would be much better off not giving this a second thought. Every thing taught here can pretty much be found in any other 3Ds Max book and with much better and less confusing detail. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY OR TIME HERE



3. This book does what it says it does: It explains you how to model a character, how to texture it and how to animate it using the character studio plugin. I would have left the word "Complete" from the title. There are other aspects of character design for example the use of normal maps that aren't discussed in this book. You should take a look at the website of Ben Mathis to get more information about character design for computergames.
   
   [...]



4. I really wanted to like this book. Maybe my expectations were too high, but this book to me is far from the complete character design. It's more of a quick overview. The whole book seems to be written in a let's-get-it-over-with attitude. You can find much better character tutorials online (I did). On top of that, I find the character rather dull looking, especially since he was supposed to be the main character in a game and not just another NPC. The modelling part of the book may be hard to follow for a noob (but that may be true with any written tutorials on modelling. Modelling video tutorials are much easier to follow), the rigging and skinning part is rather confusing and poorly explained, laying UVs too (very little tweeking is done, which is essential in order to have textures without stratching), animation is limited to a few basic moves and the Photoshop part is rather basic (again, this supposed to be the main character, so the textures should reflect that). So all and all, this book is not worth buying, it brings nothing that was not explained in a much better way by someone else - be it an author of another book or an author of an online tutorial.



5. Low poly modeling is certainly a technique that warrants discussion. Unfortunately, this book glazes over many of the important steps that readers want/need to know in taking the process from start to finish. Some of the techniques shown prove valuable, but the overall coverage of the subject left me wanting for more. There was too much 'hey...how'd you do that?' and not enough 'here's how you do that'. Far too many steps left out. If money's tight...I'd probably keep looking.

1 comments about Conquering Zelda: The Unauthorized Guide.

1. This book is sure to satisfy the legions of Zelda fans. Although only the first two Zelda games are covered, many will agree that those two are the very best versions. Full of hints and tricks, readers will breeze through the game in no time. If you don't want complete spoilers, the guide can still help readers in who have trouble in specific areas. Finally, if you have already mastered the game, the book is still a great read and going through the game again, using the guide, will show you new things that were probably missed the first time.

   Lots of fun with one of the best games ever.

No comments about Gambling and Gaming Addictions in Adolescence (Parent, Adolescent and Child Training Skills).

No comments about Electronic Gaming Monthly, July 2008 Issue.

No comments about Sonic 3 Official Play Guide (Secrets of the Games).