I’d just like to say that Prima sucks. This most disease-ridden filth of the video games guide world deserve to be taken out back and shot simultasneously with Samus Aran and Megaman’s arm-mounted blasters. If there were a villain more pathetic on the scale of villainy than , with more failed plots than the combined idiocy of Ganon, Dr. Robotnik, Bowser, and the random villain that always shows at the end of Fiunal Fantasy Games which you’ve never seen before (excepting 5 and 6).
Its poorly-organized collection of ramblings, rarely though out, and inevitably dead set on one specific strategy to the excl8sion of all others, including many much better, have created a rotting stench of evil from the various game stores across America. Sadly, it is also like Liquid Snake from Metal Gear: no matter how many times you blow away that mofo, he just keeps coming back!
They SUCK.
Most of them are written in order to come out at the same time as the game, which gives the authors virtually no time to really get into the game. They used to have some really detailed strat guides with lots of cool info. Now… they’re just window dressing.
Fortunately, we have the awesome power of Bradygames to lead us to divine glory!
Bradygames, which is like Kefka’s laugh, Sephiroth’s bishounen hair, Darth Vader’s voice, the scheming mind of Magneto, and the body of greek deity (choose your own).
Seriously, though, Prima always does this. They take a way-too-early prebuild, half-heartedly play it, and then punt something out the door. Inevitably, it comes with major informations missing and secrets completely unmentioned.
I’m sure Bradygames gets it wrong too sometimes, but I haven’t had nearly the same level of problems with their products. Indeed, I’m very impressed at how thorough they manage to be, and sometimes wonder if they get lists of items and stuff from the developer.
Not only do they suck for your average game, but think about all the MMORPGs that they’ve started putting out guides for. You know, online, dynamic games that get regular updates, changes, and expansions? Yes, I’d love to spend $20 on something that’ll be obsolete next week when the next big patch comes out.
Prima has an ‘eGuide’ for Guild Wars, which supposedly is kept up to date, but the only reason to buy a strategy guide is to have a pretty hard copy. There’s far more current fansites out there for online games that are perfectly free and just as informative.
(Admittedly, the Bradygames guide for FFXI was really useful. But still. It’s the principle of the thing.)
I have to agree with two exceptions. The guide they put out for C&C Red Alert and the one for Descent II. But then again, these guys didn’t work on the development of the game, so they can’t know everything. (On the other hand, it seems that they do leave some things out which are very, very, very relavent.)
What bouv said. The guides and other articles are written by real gamers, who do it purely for the love of the game. A lot of the guides are better than professional hardcopy game guides. Some of them, it must be said, are written by enthusiastic teens who need to work on their language skills, but at least they’re trying to help other gamers.
My moderator strategy guide tells me to move this to Cafe Society. Supposedly, if I move it just right, I’ll access a secret level where everyone’s username is replaced by their naked picture. Let’s find out…
Oh, it was intuitive…and I played the other two games as well. However, I like to get information on unit types and such…I just like that kind of trivia. And the Prima guide was a pretty good read IMO. The only other games I’ve ever bought Prima guides for (that I can think of off the top of my head) were the Prima guide for the DaoC expansion, the EQ guide and I think a guild for some other single player game who’s name escapes me atm. I didn’t find the guides THAT bad to be honest…but then I don’t exactly have a lot of them.
Oh…and no, I haven’t downloaded the total realism pack for TWR. I’m not even sure what that is to be honest. Is it a player made campaign or something? If you have a link, would appreciate as I still like the game (though I just bought Imperial Glory and going to give that a shot this weekend :)).
Here’s the website for RTR. It’s a very good mod, IMO, replaces lots of unit types, uses better skins for the soldiers, sets it so that there’s only one Roman faction, etc…
It does, however, overwrite the original campaign options, but I think it’s a better campaign.
And yeah, I can grok looking over a hint guide to read all about the units and such, that’s just good fun.
