Strategy Guides, Who does them right?

[Amund]

I love a good strategy guide. I rarely ever do need them, especially with gamefaqs just sitting there. However when I buy a strategy guide I want them to be organized, clean, and well easy to understand. Recently I bought Bradygame's strategy book with my Fable 3, for the gnome hunting and weapon stats. Then when I went through the damn thing it was messy, like Paris Hilton tried to do one. Messy uninformative and lacking in basic information. Not to mention the fact that the maps were barely readable. Then I started remember other strategy guides, like Piggyback's Final Fantasy XIII guide, it was beautifully done. Anyways, onto the point; in your experiences who does the better strategy guides, which company should I buy from?

 

[oplinger]

...way back when I gave a damn, Prima.

Now? ...Who cares. Do you read them on the toilet or something? >.> Everything you need to know is on the internet, in the form of gamefaqs, or a wiki for the entire game...

 

[MrJoyless]

Personally i like to have a real guide in hand, as i dont play PC and cant tab the whole time to look something up. I find it annoying to always browse the guides on my laptop/phone when i can just look it up caveman errrrr 1980s style.

Furthermore guides have ALL the info you need a few pages away, like weapon stats enemy stats etc and to run thru all that you'd have to hit a wiki page for every damn entry instead of just having it compiled right in front of you.

Finally some guides offer more than just walkthroughs which i still use from time to time on the internet, most offer descriptions, backgrounds, dev art, game history/storyline/timelines, and most of the gamefaqs and wikis are somewhat errrr....vanilla when it comes to this depth.

A REALLY good guide out there is the one for Alan Wake (reads like a goddamn book) I actually took the time to read the whole thing, tho at times it can get confusing trying to decipher it for actual gameplay.

 

[PunkRex]

Piggyback OINK, OINK!!!

Sorry me and my brother do every time we see an FF guilde.

 

[Gigathrash]

If it's a single player campaign game that won't get any large changes in the future, either from dev meddling or your modding, Prima tends to be pretty good. If you're looking at a guide for an evolving game, like an MMORPG, you should consider finding a wiki. I personally use GuildWiki, a wiki for Guild Wars, and it has articles on every aspect of the game, but also large overview tables to compare and contrast. A disadvantage of wikis is that they are only as good as their communities, and for a small game, often those communities will be one person with too much time on their hands. Lastly, wikis do ignore minor lore details most of the time, simply filing them under unimportant to the gameplay, therefore we can do it later, and never get to it. Also they read like, well, an encyclopedia. Don't go there for a fun interesting read, go there for the information. Unless you join the community and then you can find a whole new world of...(Prowiki rant removed for the sake of TL;DR.)

 

[getbonus]

Versus!

Well, did them right, anyway.

 

[Inconspicuous Trenchcoat]

I got the Left 4 Dead strategy guide along with the game as gifts. It gave me valuable tips such as: when a zombie is eating you, kill it. Remember, shooting a boomer near to yourself or teammates is bad. Yeah, it was a pointless waste of money. Most guides I've seen just give you obvious information like, "The boss will try to charge at you, try moving out of the way." I have a very low opinion of strategy guides, especially when online sources are better, even without shiny pictures.

As a side note: I still enjoy gaming magazines better than online articles, and it really bugs me that the mags are starting to look more like a webpage blog... they're different mediums! Don't make them look the same.

Guides I actually liked, but didn't really need: Earthbound (now that's a good strategy guide) and Donkey Kong Country (just for the content, didn't really help. The cheat codes were nice I guess). OH! Star Ocean: The Second Story's guide was pretty good.

 

[EmzOLV]

Then I started remember other strategy guides, like Piggyback's Final Fantasy XIII guide, it was beautifully done.

Oh that IS a beautiful guide. I flick through it when I'm bored with cutscenes. Absolutely loved it.

And I'm the same I have to have something in my hand but usually there is always bound to be one teeny weeny piece of information they don't tell you - and that's when the internet comes in so very useful!

Otherwise I think all the guides I own are Piggyback.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I only have a few, but Piggyback hasn't failed me once.

 

[Crises^]

final fantasy 10 guide was brilliant for item drops and bribes and stuff

 

[AcacianLeaves]

Doesn't PRIMA have kind of a monopoly on most games? I'm not really sure how the rights to make a guide work, but it always seems like the only ones I ever see are PRIMA.

Besides, I generally just go for GameFAQs. User created guides are always superior.

I've used BradyGames once or twice though, and they've always been shit.

 

[veloper]

people ars still buying guidebooks?

 

[x EvilErmine x]

Piggyback for me, i don't generally use them though. As has been mentioned the interwebs has all the answers you need...and you can't Ctrl-F a paper guide (Yes yes i know how to use an index, shut up lol)

I think i'm a little strange though coz if i do buy a guide then it's not because i want help with the game it's because i love the art style of the game...like the last one i got was the Final Fantasy XIII one by Piggyback. It's beautiful, and was designed in such a way as it looks like it was meant to come with the game.

~~~ Off Topic ~~~

Any one remember the old school manuals you got with PC games back in the day? What happened to them? Like i remember getting Wing Commander (I forget which number): Heart of the Tiger. That came in a box with a huge ass manual which had loads of back story as well as all the basic game play info, and a fold out thing with pictures of all the ships and there stats and weapons. Good times.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

DoubleJump for me, mainly due to their guides being geared more to power gaming, more than anything else.

 

[Amund]

I'd never understood the purpose of physical guides. Hell, even paying for them is alien to me. What with the internet and FAQs being so prevalent and accessible.

Its nice to just look something up in a book. Its more personal, less cold. As much as I love computers, books are so much warmer for me.

 

[Akihiko]

I don't really buy guides truth be told. However I bought the FInal Fantasy XIII CE guide out of a collector's urge, and as others have said, that was very nicely written. Especially the extra little bits at the end which gave some nice speculation.