Review: Prima Strategy guide

cjdevito · #1 (**permalink**) 08-29-2002, 11:20 AM

Picked this up last night, too.... EB had a special where if you bought the guide with the game, you got the Bonus disk and a 20% discount.

Anyway, unlike all the other Infinity engine game guides, this one is by Prima and not Versus. Sad to say, the quality isn't nearly as good.

1. It's entirely black and white. Not a major issue in itself, but when compared to the guides for other IE games it's visually unappealing.
2. No item list, at all.
3. Maps are labelled, but poorly. No map labels for where items are, for example.
4. Inaccuracies. My quick read-through of the character gen section turned up several. Tieflings and aasimar not allowed to be monks, half orcs not allowed to be something-or-other, and similiar.

The book would be useful for it's maps and from some hints scattered throughout for dialogue choices, but otherwise doesn't seem to have much utility.

fable · #2 (**permalink**) 08-29-2002, 11:51 AM

Oh, it's really very bad, no question. They don't even have an in-depth discussion of the various classes, along with recommendations. And the kind of recommendations they make for spells are so tentative and generalized that you know the writers were BSing without product handy.

HighLordDave · #3 (**permalink**) 08-29-2002, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by cjdevito
Anyway, unlike all the other Infinity engine game guides, this one is by Prima and not Versus. Sad to say, the quality isn't nearly as good.

This is surprising considering the the strategy guide for the first IWD, published by Sybex, was pretty good.

Hippy Lettuce · #4 (**permalink**) 08-30-2002, 10:44 PM

The publishers are expecting you to already know 3rd edition rules and how they pertain to character creation and developement...

I like buying the strategy guides for my games... Alot of them have an interesting way of telling the story of the game... This guide does not. I lookied at it today, and was very dissapointed, for the above mentioned reasons... No item list... Little info on character developement... Straight area clearing info without a way to just browse the info just for basic hints...

Hell, NWN has a good guide, not to detailed about everything to find... The originall IW guide was good, alot of info to peruse without having to follow word for word if you did not want to...

Guides are good for after playing the game the first time... Great guides help you find all the extra/hidden items without stating exactly where they are...

fable · #5 (**permalink**) 08-31-2002, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hippy Lettuce
The publishers are expecting you to already know 3rd edition rules and how they pertain to character creation and developement...

Not so. The NWN strategy guide gave a few pages to each class in its 3E form, along with discussions of the good and bad. Besides, these manuals as a rule don't assume knowledge; if they did, they certainly wouldn't have gone ahead and written up that tedious list of spells you could get in the manual, along with a one line summary of when it's most effective that a 5-year-old could have developed.

Doc · #6 (**permalink**) 09-01-2002, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hippy Lettuce

Guides are good for after playing the game the first time... Great guides help you find all the extra/hidden items without stating exactly where they are... [/b]

Not sure I agree with hippy. Let's see, 20-bucks for a strategy guide. It'd damn-well better not leave anything out since I paid $50 to $60 for the game. You buy a strategy guide for one reason - because you want to make sure you didn't miss anything. That means thorough walkthroughs, maps, dialog options, and lists. If they're going to charge half to a third of the price of the game for these books I don't want the same stuff I can find posted on the internet for free.