This week I’m taking a trip back to earlier this decade when the PlayStation 2 released, and not too far behind it came the release of Final Fantasy X. Despite personal opinions about the game, one cannot ignore how much it opened everyone’s eyes to what the new PlayStation could do graphics-wise, and really, few few other PS2 games pushed its capabilities to the limits like Squaresoft did. The cover of the guide–which conveniently matches the boxart for the game–while not that creative, splashes the gorgeous graphics on a larger scale and screams out to everyone to not ignore this game. It’s just so darn pretty.
Wednesday’s Strategy Guide Cover of the Week: Assassin’s Creed 2
It may seem hypocritical of me to pick the cover of Assassin’s Creed 2 as the cover of the week this week since I really didn’t care for the guide itself, but its cover is outstanding. It captures Ezio’s signature stance that the boxart exemplified, but it’s more vibrant and the larger cover makes it easier to catch all of Ezio’s little details: every fold of his armor, his arrogant smirk, and just how heavily armed he really is.
It’s hard to see from the scan, but the white background is lined with traces from the Animus synchronization (or desynchronization), effectively bringing both Desmond’s past life as Ezio and his present life chained to the Animus to the forefront. To further enhance the synch or desynch of the Animus, the background people have been blurred out and then colored blood red.
So many aspects of the game have all been brought together with this cover, making it one of my favorites.
Wednesday’s Strategy Guide Cover of the Week: Bayonetta E-Guide
While looking for a fantastic strategy guide cover to debut on Wednesday’s Cover of the Week, I stumbled upon a free E-guide for Bayonetta on BradyGames‘ site. I have no idea when this e-guide showed up, but it simply fascinates me.
I’m not sure if anyone remembers, but BradyGames was supposed to put out a physical guide for Bayonetta. Not sure what happened (and it’s none of my business, really) but the publisher canceled the guide. So now there’s this e-guide (Bayonetta part one, Bayonetta part two) that looks like it’s exactly what their original, printed guide was supposed to be. I mean, have you ever seen an e-guide (aside from BradyGames’ and Prima Games’ e-guides) that looks like this? And for free??
I think I am going to have to do a comparison between this guide and FuturePress’ just to see 1) which is better (obviously) and 2) wonder at what we could have had in America.