Confession Time: I’m Seriously Considering Buying a Wii U (and it’s Prima Games’ Fault)

June 13, 2013 By Keri Honea Leave a Comment

Yesterday I was perusing both Amazon.com and GameStop for any announcements of strategy guides for Xbox One and PS4 games. As I said in my post yesterday, this will greatly affect which next-gen console I will purchase first. Of course I found nothing in my search, but I stumbled across a couple of GameStop listings that piqued my interest:

Like I said yesterday, I have to have 3 games for a new console/handheld to warrant a purchase. One reason why I don’t have a Wii U is because I’m not that into first-party Nintendo games. Sure, Zelda will always have a soft spot in my heart even though I’ve never finished a console game, but I’m not into Mario, Pikmin, Smash Bros., Pokemon, etc. However, the fact that Bayonetta 2 will be a Wii U exclusive has always tugged at my heartstrings. I want to play that game when it releases like you wouldn’t believe, but there’s no way I’ll buy a console just for that one game. Then I sampled The Wonderful 101 at PAX East, and I fell in love. That’s 2. Looks like Wind Waker HD is going to be my 3.

It’s honestly ridiculous for me to even consider that game. I still own it for GameCube, and I still own the GameCube. I meant to finish it, but I got distracted with something else, and when I tried to pick it up again, I was too far removed to really remember how to play. I’ve always known I would have to start over. So now they’re releasing an HD version of it, it looks gorgeous, AND Prima Games is coming out with a strategy guide for it.

I’ve tried to talk my way out of this. Surely I don’t want to go down the Wii rabbit hole again, just to sell the console again a couple of years later. But then I started to think of Gabe, how he has played Mario Kart on the Wii at his daycare and how he always asks about getting it at home. Even if I don’t play the Wii U a lot, Gabe most likely will. I could introduce him to Mario games, the games I was horrible at but still played when I was young. He may love platformers even if I hate them. Plus, I know he’d love LEGO Undercover City.

In other words, the time for resisting the Wii U is over.

And it’s all Prima Games’ fault.

Prima Games Announces Legendary Skyrim Strategy Guide

May 16, 2013 By Keri Honea Leave a Comment

In case you missed out on the first Collector’s Edition strategy guide for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Prima Games has a new CE that will blow your Skyrim-loving mind away. They call it the “Legendary Edition,” and it looks to be massive to legendary proportions indeed.

This updated edition now includes ALL of the Skyrim DLC, which has boosted this beast to over 1,100 pages. Prima has even created both a paperback edition and a CE, the latter of which includes a stylish hard cover, ribbon bookmarks, and a panoramic poster.

From Prima’s Facebook page, they boast that it’s “time to reinforce your bookshelf.” I’m quite certain if I introduced this beast to my strategy guide bookshelf, it will burst into tears unless I relegate it to the bottom shelf. And even then, I might need to add extra support to the floor, since my guides are kept upstairs.

I haven’t ventured into Skyrim yet, even though I own the game, as I’ve been afraid to. This book only reinforces my fear.

The Legendary Edition of the Skyrim strategy guide will be available on June 4, 2013.

Injustice: Gods Among Us Strategy Guide Review

May 10, 2013 By Chris Nitz 1 Comment

Injustice: Gods Among Us is not the first time gamers take on the role of some of their favorite DC Comics heroes and villains. However, this game is a bit darker thanks to its comic book source material and the story leading up to the game. While the game itself is a rock solid fighter, theInjustice: Gods Among Us strategy guide from Prima does need a few patches to help balance it out.

The first few pages are full of game mechanic basics. Anyone familiar with the Mortal Kombat series will feel right at home. There are some good nuggets of info pertaining to character types and each of the stage transitions. It also helps shed some light on how the wager system works and what interactive stage props make for good ancillary weapons. Give this section a few moments of time before digging into that favorite hero.

The bulk of the guide goes to each playable character. There is a brief intro along with what that character will do with various stage props. Following that is a description of their super move, character power, and a handy screen capture of their power meter. This is a prime location for some backstory on why said hero/villain is playing a role in this new universe, but sadly, that goes to the imagination.

How can I use this while some kid is kicking the crap out of me

From here, things kind of fall apart. The strategy guide doesn’t list out every move, but instead opts to choose what they feel are the best moves from the arsenal. This same idea carries over into the combos. Accompanying the moves and combos is a brief set of frame-by-frame screenshots of the move/combo in action.

Each character receives a strategy section that helps new players understand their favorite fighter. While the strategies covered here are more a star

ting point, rather than an overall how-to, I found them useful in getting through the single player campaign with little to no issues while providing me some ground to start my multiplayer training. The idea here is to take those strategies into the training room and develop them into a fighting style that works for you.

At the end, there are some combo breakdowns, but I found these hard to quickly glance at in the heat of battle. Instead of some sort of easy button-to-button breakdown, they are all spelled out in long strings of text. It is easier to just bring up the in-game moves list and look through the combos there.

But what if I know what is best?

Following the character section is the single player campaign and S.T.A.R. Labs areas. The S.T.A.R. Labs portion is nothing more than a big checklist as all it provides is a synopsis of each goal and the three tasks for obtaining three stars. The single-player campaign is not much better, but at least each fight comes with a tip to help players from being caught off guard by some of the harder battles. These two sections feel more like fluff. The archives after these two portions will aid in unlocking that super cool 1960’s costume!

The last few pages totally stoked my fires. Anyone that knows me knows that I like art sections and this guide did not fail me there. There is some gorgeous game art to enjoy, so take the time to appreciate what the artists are capable of producing. For anyone who is reading the Injustice comic books, you will find a special comic tucked away at the very end. I still find myself thumbing through this area and enjoying the crap out of it.

I want to note that Prima realizes that fighting games go through changes and they appear to address that with a website that will contain updates to this guide. At the time of this writing, there was nothing there, so time will tell how well this strategy works out. What would really rock with this website is if they would include some pro-tips and tricks. Just a thought, Prima!

Oh yes I do!

This is not the best fighting strategy guide to grace my desk, but it is not the worst guide to come across it either. Almost all the info on the pages is found somewhere in the game, and the combos are a bit rough to read through. Diehard fans will find the Injustice: Gods Among Us strategy guide a nice piece to add to their book collections, and anyone completely new to fighting games will find it rather valuable. Veterans, however, might want to just skip this on by.

SGR Rating 3/5

Author: Sam Bishop, Carl White, Emmanuel Brito, Bill Menoutis
Publisher: Prima Games
Editions Available: Hardcover
Acquired via Publisher

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon Strategy Guide Review

May 7, 2013 By Nicholas Michetti 2 Comments

Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon is unique for a Nintendo game, in so far as it maybe being the closest thing to a point-and-click adventure title that they’ve ever created. Point-and-click adventure games, though, involve discovery, puzzle solving, and finding secrets. Because of those gameplay elements, I haven’t always been the best at those types of games, so I can very much understand how much some gamers (maybe younger gamers in particular) may need a strategy guide for some assistance with a game of this kind. Prima has a Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon strategy guide though, that will be able to direct gamers through every mission in the game with next to no problems.

Dark Moon isn’t a complex puzzle game or anything–after all, it is a game in a Nintendo franchise–and it seems to have been designed with quite a lot of accessibility in mind, so the game doesn’t have any real puzzles per se. However, that doesn’t mean that the game doesn’t have any occasional moments where it might not be completely clear as to what the player should do next. For those moments and finding just about every secret the game has to offer, Prima’s strategy guide is amazing. The guide doesn’t only point out what players should do, it also directs them on a route through each mission that involves accomplishing all of the various mission goals, discovering hidden gems, and finding Boos as easily as possible. If there are easier or more expedient routes through the game’s missions that involve doing everything possible in a single playthrough, I honestly can’t imagine them.

Gamers who may be having problems with combat will be greatly helped by the strategy guide as well, especially later in the game when the strongest ghosts begin to emerge. The guide goes into as much as detail as possible, letting players know when they’re most likely to encounter which ghosts and also how and when to engage them. The notifications on when group ghost captures may be possible can be especially useful, as group captures can slice combat times into a fraction of what they’d be if the player had pursued individual captures. Speaking of combat, I slightly disagree with the guide’s occasional advice to capture Greenies (the most harmless ghosts) last, as I had tended to have major capture attempts interrupted by them from time to time. However, I also found instances where that advice was correct as well.

The multiplayer section of the guide is designated to just a few pages, which is apropos, since the multiplayer in Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon is very straightforward, with few significant variations. The guide’s advice is as helpful as it can be and offers as many tips as it can, which will certainly be a welcome heads-up to players jumping into multiplayer for the first time or first few times. However, the multiplayer is so easy to grasp that with any kind of regular play, players will quickly learn how mostly everything functions. The guide does cover as much of multiplayer as possible, though, and the advice on some elements that the player might not know how to address at first glance (curses, for one) is welcome.

The layout of Prima’s strategy guide is very easy to navigate, with good-sized screenshots to let players know where they’re supposed to be or what they’re supposed to be doing. Gems, Boos, and general cautionary advice are contained in medium-sized call-out boxes that flow well with the layout of the guide. Big text indicates when the guide’s directions are shifting focus (i.e. from “Find the Poltergust 5000” to “Find the Strobulb”), so the text just isn’t sprawling down the page with directions. The guide has a fun, colorful design and bits of concept art are integrated nicely throughout some of the pages, instead of being gathered into a section in the back of guide. The guide’s design matches the fun/tiny bit scary mood of the game with appropriate bright and dark colors (i.e. green, purple, black, blue, and red) as well.

The guide does have a few minor trouble spots, though. Despite being mostly comprehensive, the guide had an odd few moments where it didn’t mention treasure that was available. For instance, the guide doesn’t mention that a stack of cash sits at the top of the West Garden area of the Haunted Tower and is available for players to collect for at least three missions. Another instance is the drill in The Old Clockworks, which can be vacuumed for coins for at least one or two missions. A strange instance also came up where the guide lists a mini-game in the Roundhouse Brawl mission as being available in the door of the northeast corner of the Canyon Narrows, but I was unable to find it there. Mentioning these errors is certainly nitpicking at an otherwise near-perfect guide, but they stood out because of the guide’s generally very high level of accuracy.

Curiously, while the guide doesn’t list the criteria or any general guidelines for gaining three-star ranks (the maximum rank) on missions, it does mention the factors that weigh in on how they’re graded. I’m not sure if the ranking information was available, as I occasionally found that some missions that I thought I had performed badly on were graded better than I expected and vice versa. (Maybe the game uses some variables to generate the grade?) However, I did generally find that following the guide’s advice and going through missions at a somewhat moderate pace had generally rewarded me with a two-star ranking, sometimes three.

The Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon strategy guide from Prima is absolutely worth picking up, especially for those who might need help. The guide really doesn’t leave any stone unturned for the most part and is as clear and direct as possible with its instructions. From missions to boss fights to combat, the guide is just fantastic at directing players towards the fastest and easiest paths in the game. Plus, the guide’s advice is simple and straightforward, making it accessible to a wide number of players across age groups. Prima’s guide is able to help any Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon player accomplish just about everything they’ll need to in the game and anyone in need of help from the guide definitely will not regret buying one.

SGR Rating: 4.5/5

Author: Nick von Esmarch
Publisher: Prima Games
Editions Available: Paperback
Acquired via Publisher

SimCity Strategy Guide Review

April 9, 2013 By Blake Grundman Leave a Comment

Those who are familiar with the most recent entry in Maxis’ storied SimCity franchise are probably just as familiar with its catastrophically terrible launch. Honestly, the only way you couldn’t know about the controversy was if you didn’t have an internet connection. But then again, you wouldn’t be playing SimCity either, right? Regardless of the politics of the matter, at the core of the conflict sits a game that is extremely complex and entirely redesigned from the ground, up. So what could better compliment the reboot of the brand than a SimCity strategy guide? Let’s just hope that the book fares better than its subject matter at culling the rage of PC gaming curmudgeons.

Sometimes it is hard to tread the thin line between being a strategy guide and a glorified manual that the player has to pay for in a bookstore. In many respects, the SimCity strategy guide tends to have a bit of multiple personality disorder that precariously teeters in between the two very opposite ends of the spectrum. More often than not, item descriptions and specific details about elements in the world are torn word-for-word from the game itself. This might be somewhat unavoidable given the style of game it is trying to inform the reader about, but for Pete’s sake, the author should have made at least some attempt to pen original content. However, there are also whole dedicated strategy sections at the head of every city element sub-category such as roads, utilities, zoning, city services, mass transit, etc. Does the yin and yang manage to balance itself out? Probably not. But honestly, it would be hard to suggest solid play strategies to the player, without sounding a bit like a text box written by the game’s developers.

Actually, the developer Maxis’ aid in the creation of this book is very evident, both from a content perspective, as well as in the special features. For one, almost the entire introduction to the game and mechanics walkthroughs were penned by folks who actually designed the game’s core systems and interactions. Also, while it does seem like there is quite a bit of repeated information from within the title’s tool tips, at the end of each city element’s section there is a call-out featuring another member of the development team. In these areas the developer discusses pertinent hints, as well as topics about the items/landmarks being broken down in that specific part of the text. This was a nice touch that somewhat personalizes what could otherwise be viewed as semi-redundant data.

All of that said, there is a fair amount of explanation in each of these areas, talking about why certain landmarks are important to construct and how they can influence the rest of the city’s fragile ecosystem. It is far from the end-all, be-all, but it definitely provides a good jumping off point for those who are not familiar with how cohesively the entire city interacts with itself. The problem is that these extra detailed sections tend to be rather intermittent, depending upon what the writer deemed to be the most critical. There are far too many cases where whole chucks or page are left with vacant white space, accompanied by a literal copy and paste of text descriptions and statistical information straight from within the game itself.

Scattered throughout the text are the usual “Tip” sections that can be found in most current game guides. Though they might not always provide the most practical information, there usually tends to be some nugget embedded within that will tend to be very useful to even power players. Things like knowing to place different forms of mass transit within two hundred steps of each other, because the Sims are not willing to walk any further to make transfers are great clues that may not reach out and smack the player, but could drastically play a role in how one were to lay out a city. While not all suggestions are quite as useful as something like that, (and heck, it may even been something that is brought to the attention of the player by the game itself over time) getting the jump on this kind of information can help build a more thoughtful and appealing cityscape.

Another important section to pay special attention to is the “Disasters” portion of the guide. It may not be overly large, but anyone who has ever played a SimCity title knows how crippling these events can be, if not handled properly. This area outlines both what to expect when one of these disasters occur as well as what can be done to either brace/prevent the least amount of impact or how to recover in the aftermath. Achievement whores also take note, because all of the possible achievements that can be earned from surviving any particular onslaught are listed at the end of this section. Actually this holds true for pretty much every key section in the book, as well as listed in the “quick reference” at the end of the tome.

There are two main drawbacks from using a guide that is this closely tied to the developer. For one, most of the text about specific game elements tends to be borrowed from the source code, which has been mentioned ad nauseam earlier on. Secondly, with all of the sections written by members of the Maxis team, it is hard to distinguish between what is legitimately helpful information and what is PR-filtered fluff, that provides very little benefit for the lay user. With both of those criticisms in mind, what probably stands out the most is that this is a guide that is very much targeted at new SimCity players. Those that have had experience with prior iterations in the series will be able to learn about some of the newer nuances, but in most circumstances the text is regurgitating common sense.

One last unsettling note about the book is that at the beginning of every new section, there is a call-out in the bottom left corner of the page, reminding the reader to redeem their code for the digital guide. Thankfully this is included at no extra cost, with the purchase of the print guide. Given the nature of SimCity being an online-required game, it stands to reason that anything printed on the parchment could be rendered useless by a single update. Reasons like this tend to play more into the hand of electronic guides, and even though Prima already has one, why wasn’t this strategy guide electronic-only to begin with? At the end of the day it would seem that it would be the more logical and economical approach for all parties involved.

Prima’s official SimCity strategy guide manages to be competent enough to benefit the reader, yet not impressive enough to truly warrant a recommendation. Simply put, there are millions sites on the internet that provide far more up-to-date analysis and guidance, without the burden of a making space on your bookshelf for a mediocre work that often reads more like a curated press release than useful guidance. As is the case with most online centric games, readers may be better served turning to the forums.

SGR Rating: 2.5/5

Author: David Knight and Dorothy Bradshaw
Publisher: Prima Games
Editions available: Paperback and Kindle Edition
Acquired via Publisher

SGR Rating 3/5

SGR Rating: 4.5/5

SGR Rating: 2.5/5

Friends of SGR

Top Posts & Pages