5 comments about Star Ocean: The Second Story -- Prima's Official Strategy Guide.

1. I had no idea how big this game was until I got this book. This is a very good guide, easy to understand and follow. Colorful maps and detailed item location. My only problem with this is in a few part (typically the ruins) the maps were a tiny bit hard to follow. A+++



2. I used to own the game and this guide. You'll have to severely nit-pick this guide to find anything missing/incorrect. The only mistake I found was that a sword that Claude can make was omitted. I'll let you try and see if you can find out which one. You'll find better swords though, so don't worry about it. Completionists will still get it easy enough.

   With all the things you can do in Star Ocean 2, I thought this guide would be full of holes. It wasn't. Prima did a job on this guide that far surpasses any work they have done before and since this game's release. I doubt that they or their competitors will ever surpass this kind of thurough research and quality.




3. Prima unleashed probably one of the most voyeristic walkthroughs out there. Very little is held back, letting you in on almost every item, Public Action, town, major secret, boss stat, relationship factor and the most imporant one: how to pickpocket.

   Okay, I'm joking on that last one, but to be honest, this is one of the best ones I've seen despite a few not-so-obvious spelling errors and a few (minor) mistaken facts. But other than that it is jam-packed and a worthy addition to your gaming needs. Too bad that the quality is only hindered by the flimsy material they used to make it, which really holds it back from a perfect score.

   Prima, this is how every guide of yours should be.




4. The prima strategy guide is a must have for anyone who wants to pursue different endings for Star Ocean: The Second Story. I highly recommand for video gamers to play and beat the game first before they buy a strategy guide.



5. This is, by far, the best guide you can have while playing Star Ocean. This guide is full of great tips and information that will help with every aspect of the game. There are detailed information on all the characters, monsters, weapons, Private Actions and much more.
   
   If you're like me and don't like to go online looking for some help and want something that you can thumb through, this is the guide to get.

No comments about Haze: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides) (Prima Official Game Guides).

No comments about Game Development Essentials: Game Level Design.

5 comments about Digimon World: Prima's Official Strategy Guide.

1. You've watched the cartoon, collected the card game and now Prima Games lets you view the game in it's entirty as you play. Like Pokemon and Monster Rancher, DIGIMON incorporates kids very fascinations with Monsters in to a Role Playing Genre. This Strategy Guide helps you with those tough to get Champion and Ultimate DIGIMON. All Items are listed in detail and how to recieve special items. It takes the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How out of playing. So if you like Pokemon, Monster Rancher, and/or RPGs then buy this book. Oh yeah the Game too.



2. I bought the game just for a little laugh at Bandai's Pokemon imitation. It turned out to be a whole lot more than I expected! I am definitly bought buy the strategy guide! You get to raise your own cute (or weird!)Digimon.



3. really nothing much to say except that the guide was not helpful in helping me play the game.



4. at first when i got this guide it was very helpful. now it confuses me. i'm stuck in the game and i can't do anything about it... i'd give it no stars at all if i could. so buy a different brand of guide.



5. The Maps Tell You Exactally Where To Go
   The Charts Are Awsome And Clear With Great Information.
   The Downside Is The Beastiary....The Information Is Squished And The Three Top Secret Digimon Are Hard To Get...The Information On Recruiting Is Well Described And In Order

3 comments about Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties Official Strategy Guide (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames)) (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames)).

1. Good overview and strong strategy guide of this latest expansion to Age of Empires III. Overall game play strategy for each of the 3 Asian nations as well as for each scenario in campaign mode.



2. This is the worst strategy book I have ever seen. I can't understand why a company like Ensemble Studios/Microsoft approved this book by BradyGames.
   
   I have read every book since Age of Empires II and strategy guides for several other games. This is the worst I have ever seen.
   
   Multiplayer strategy
   It basically contains one short page with multiplayer strategy. Advice like: "Share your resources with your teammates to make them build whatever they need." Is that supposed to be helpful? How about some tips regarding, booming, rushing, turteling, special strategies, etc. There in NOTHING in this book regarding these important issues.
   
   Strategy on different maps
   Age of Empires III, The Asian Dynasties includes 36 maps (including the ones from AoE3 and The War Chief expansion). This guide has a very short strategy for 27 of them! Most strategies for these maps are only one sentence long! Where is the description for the rest of the maps? (Andes, Auraucania, California, Upper Himalayas, Northwest Territory, Orinoco, Ozarks, Painted Desert and Plymouth)
   
   Civilizations
   This book have basically unit tables for the three new civilizations and for the reference tables for the Europeans too. Where is the reference for the Aztecs, Iroquois and the Sioux? There in no reference to the natives either. Actually they are not even mentioned. There is no strategy in this book for any civilization!
   
   Overall
   This book include 174 pages. It is basically divided this way:
   7 pages of basic game information
   73 pages of unit tables for the three new Civilizations
   31 pages of "Walkthrough" single player campaigns
   3 pages of information regarding single player skirmishes. No strategy.
   1 page multiplayer strategy
   7 pages with poor maps strategies containing 1-2 sentences for each 27 maps
   46 pages with European unit tables
   1 page with single player 11 cheat codes
   3 pages covering the Scenario Editor
   
   Conclusion
   How can they call this "Official Strategy Guide - Age of Empires The Asian Dynasties"? It contains basically lots of unit tables and "walkthrough" single player campaigns. There in only a few pages with poor strategy included. I will NOT recommend this book to anyone else than those who need a "Walkthrough" single player campaigns.



3. You can get most of the same information from the internet and the official website under forums. Barely mentions MultiPlayer. The walk-thru of the 3 new civs was informative but nothing I did not know from just playing a few times. Some of the numbers were not correct.

2 comments about EverQuest II: Desert of Flame (Prima Official Game Guide).

1. I got this book a while back, shortly after the "Desert of Flames" expansion was released, and was very pleased with it. This book has many maps, quest walk throughs and lots of general info on the game. With the newest expansion "Kingdom of Sky", SOE made many very huge changes in the game, including dropping lots of quests, character advancement revamp, spell names changes and many other things that almost render this book useless. It's still usefull for some very basic game hints but a newer updated book is needed.



2. If you've ever been at a loss as to what to do next you'll love this guide. Detailed and informative, you'll be zipping through quests and zones in no time. Very useful.

5 comments about Jak II Official Strategy Guide.

1. this book helped me out a bunch, I am a 16 year old game freak who started out with a super nintendo and beat every game in the first 3 weeks or so , but still couldn't beat some of the missions on jak 2 cause they were too damn hard. the book helped alot , it tells you were all of the precurser orbs are and give a detailed description of each and every mission(...) .



2. a must have if you have the game. its impossible to win the game and find everything without it.



3. I like the excitement of trying to get through each level. I have JAKandDaxter,JAKII,JAK3. I never owned a playstation before . I bought one this year. I like flying,racing,and driving.



4. This was a gift for my son. When he read it, it really helped him with the strategies of the game that he has home. The book
   does help the children get through the game itself. With the help of the book, my son has already finished the entire game. He is now helping his friend who just received the game as a gift.



5. Jak 2 is a great game and it helps to have a guide to make sure you are doing it right. This guide is very helpful and gives tons of helpful hints, a must buy right along with the game.

1 comments about XBOX 360 Handbook: The Official User's Guide (Prima Official Game Guide).

1. This Handbook For the Xbox 360 is a must, it has everything you need to know about setting up your Xbox 360 and how everything works. If your are
   thinking about getting a Xbox 360 , be sure and get The Official Users Guide. It will help you get the most out of your system. this was a great buy for me as are all the things I buy on Ebay.

5 comments about Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life.

1. I enjoyed this book, mostly. Within its scattershot set of chapters about Japanese games in general, there's a fascinating, albeit sketchy, history of Nintendo that contained many small revelations for me, despite that I've been playing video games incessantly since 1987 or so. But the rest of the material was less compelling for me. The chapter about music games and music in games actively frustrated me--it gave only a brief survey of either topic, and seemed to spend most of its words on a tedious, obsessive examination of Final Fantasy albums. A chapter about Akihabara, Japan's premier consumer electronics marketplace, pushed the trivia-to-insight ratio similarly high. In his effort to treat video games as if they deserve the attention of artists, Kohler concentrates too much on material that is only interesting to fans.
   
   Still, on the whole I'm glad I read this book, and I hope Kohler's stated desire to encourage further such works is satisfied; there is clearly much more to say.



2. other people have commented thoroughly about the generalities of this book, and i by-and-large agree. i'd like to add, however, that some of the most interesting parts of this book are the omissions.
   
   for example, they author segues straight from talking about Ninja Gaiden to NOJ/NOA's localization process and standards for content. he mentions that religious iconography, drug use, etc, are all prohibited from being portrayed in Nintendo software, and the list of prohibited content includes cigarette smoking.
   
   the author fails to note the irony, however, that in the aforementioned game there's a bad guy leaning against a light post smoking a cigarette he throws aside before dashing at you. i can only assume it slipped past the censors without them catching it, but my friends and i had noticed it years ago and marvelled that it had been made it through the review process intact.
   
   it's these kinds of things that make me feel like this book is a good general source, but anything deeper than a surface look at the topics covered would require some additional reading/sources.
   
   there are quite a few nuggets of interesting trivia in here - more than enough to make a gamer smile (dragon quest being legally prohibited in Japan from selling on any day except Sunday or a holiday, for example). my copy was a gift; i can attest that it makes a fine one.



3. History in the eye of the beholder
   
   The boot has very useful information for video game collectors and researchers who are looking for information related to mostly Nintendo oriented lore. I stress its for game collectors and researchers vice enthusiasts. Enthusiasts are looking to be entertained as well as informed and this book does very little entertaining. I found my self reading parts of the book over the course of several months. It just wasn't the page-turner that some other visual treats like "High Score" were. All in all it was worth 13 bucks, however I liken it too a History book on the 20th Century, with key events missing like World War II! Sega is not even mentioned as a footnote! Phantasy Star, Shining Force and several other important events in Gaming History never even captured the interest of the author, and it painfully shows here. Three Stars.



4. This is a good book about japanese videogames and their impact in the western world. The problem, and I agree with the other reviewers, is that the focus deals only with the mainstream and most popular games like Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy. Sure it talks about Dragon Quest(relatively unknown in America until recently) and ICO, but still left many open holes.
   
   But if you forget this flaw, it's really a great and satisfying reading, and the author constructs the text very well. Worth your time. It's a four star book, but I'll give four and half stars (five in Amazon) because it's a good and very little explored theme.



5. This book was an excellent read. Kohler does a terrific job of showing the culture links video games have created between Japan and the Western world. It also shows the stark cultural contrasts. It made me reflect on how much Japanese culture I've been exposed to without knowing it.

5 comments about The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Prima's Official Strategy Guide.

1. When I first got this book, I was very disappointed. It made alot of picture errors, where they paste the picture in the wrong place. They made things more complicated than before. I was stuck in Stone Tower for 3 months because I couldn't figure out how to flip it upside down. I have only one word; IT STINKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



2. When i bought this guide i had already finshed the game and found most of the secrets i bought it because i wanted to find out where the last couple of masks were. When i opened the book i was amazed at how detailed it was i got all the masks including the adult mask and i found out where are lot more secrets are... A MUST HAVE FOR ANY ZELDA FAN



3. First off, DO NOT BUY THIS!! This book may help you get the masks, but not only are there mistakes in the book (as to where the fairys are) but the directions are confusing. Buy the official guide from Nintendo. Prima's player guide gives confusing directions and is a pain to decipher, I had to collect all the fairys from one of the temples because the book missed the location of one of the fairys. Using the guide to help me complete the water temple was a pain! It gave confusing directions by telling you to go North or South, East or West, and that is very difficult especially when you are located in a temple. I suggest that you buy the Nintendo guide instead of this. Nintendo gives specific directions (such as leave through the red door, etc) and is detailed with accurate maps and such. Don't buy this guide, it doesn't help you very much, and you may as well try to complete the game without the help of this book at all its so confusing and badly written.



4. This is a great strategy guide to buy if you are new to the Zelda world, and decided to buy Majora's Mask. That's me. This book is really great!!!! It tells you how to get the Couples Mask, which is the hardest to get, and a whole MESS of other things.

   One thing though: don't use it as a walkthrough, because then you just killed the replay value of Majora's Mask a little. I should know: I did use it as a walkthrough.




5. This is the only Prima book that I have that is unhelpful. The game is already hard. Why couldn't they give more detail and put things in order.
   
   The masks, pieces of heart, ans everything else are not in order the way you're suppose to get them in the game.
   
   Conclusion: The Brady Games guide is much more helpful than this [...].