Strategy Guides

[SAMAS]

Which one, if any is your favorite?

Right now, I have to go with the God of War guide. It not only gives you the normal stuff, like maps, and information on your enemies(even combo multipliers and how many orbs you get depending on how you kill them), but is full of art(Official models as well as concept art), has a lot of "Making of" information(much of it not also found in the features you unlock in the game!), and even mythological information on the Gods and Monsters seen/mentioned in the game.

Not only is this guide worth getting, it's worth getting even after you beat the game.

[Kuja]

The strategy guide for Conker's Bad Fur Day was utterly full of hilarious juvenile humor.

[Stark]

Spending money... to make my game investment worth less? Why would I do that? Dollar per hour ratios fall like a stone when you never get stuck.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

A bit of a tie. Nintendo Power's official Players Guide for Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past had awesome content that carried over pretty well from Nintendo of Japan's "Red" and "Green" guides for the Japanese version.

But I'm going to say that the best strategy guide I've ever seen was Versus Books' The Completely Unauthorized Final Fantasy VII Ultimate Guide, which is rather rare nowadays. It was based on a beta of the US version, so it still covered a couple of things that ended up getting removed (which they indicated might happen), but the most awesome thing about it was that it was somehow able to cover absolutely EVERYTHING in the game without spoiling one damn bit of the story.

That guide was simply amazing...

[Cal Wright]

Funny, I can't actually tell you what I find to be the best strategy guide, even though I have one for about 75% of my games. I know the ones for GTA:VC and SA are fucking sweet. Metroid Prime's and Zelda WW were really great too.

[RogueIce]

A bit of a tie. Nintendo Power's official Players Guide for Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past had awesome content.

But I'm going to say that the best strategy guide I've ever seen was Versus Books' The Completely Unauthorized Final Fantasy VII Ultimate Guide, which is rather rare nowadays. It was based on a beta of the US version, so it still covered a couple of things that ended up getting removed (which they indicated might happen), but the most awesome thing about it was that it was somehow able to cover absolutely EVERYTHING in the game without spoiling one damn bit of the story.

That guide was simply amazing...

Indeed it was. I also loved how they showed pictures of all the weapons. It's a small thing, but I liked it.

And, IMO, their map was way better than the official guide's map.

[Stofsk]

Spending money... to make my game investment worth less? Why would I do that? Dollar per hour ratios fall like a stone when you never get stuck.

The worse part is you can go over to GameFAQs and get all you need for free... I have several strategy guides: Warcraft 2 BNet edition, Starcraft and Starcraft Brood Wars... before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusions, they came as a part of the battlechest product.

The only strategy guide I actually bought was the Master of Orion 3 guide. I hoped it would tell me how to PLAY the game, not so much win it. It, like the game it was guiding, turned out to be shit. Fuck MOO3. What a shit game.

[Stark]

Poor MoO3... Remember the starship combat? Ugh.

[Stofsk]

Poor MoO3... Remember the starship combat? Ugh.

MOO3 had space combat? I must have missed that.

Not surprising, since I lost my first game because the New Orions elected themselves Supreme Masters of the Universe - I wasn't even a member of the Senate!

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Heh. My most favorite strategy guide is none other than Gunship 2000 Strategy Guide by Bob Guerra (Prima Publishing). Excellent strategy explanations aside, there's also samples of each theatre mission being told by the writer's perspective as if he's a really Air Cavalry pilot. And of course, there's an exclusive interview with Jim Day; the creator of the game. As well as an "easter eggs" section.

[Petrosjko]

Poor MoO3... Remember the starship combat? Ugh.

MOO3 had space combat? I must have missed that.

Not surprising, since I lost my first game because the New Orions elected themselves Supreme Masters of the Universe - I wasn't even a member of the Senate!

The worst part being that it didn't allow you to reject the Senate election the way the previous games did, nor did it even warn you.

Second or third game, there I am bopping along as a Harvester, crushing all who oppose me. Hit the 'end turn' button and... WHAM, game over.

As upset as I got over KotoR II's fucking over, it was nothing to how pissed off MOO III made me. Because they damned well had the time and to spare to make a good game out of that.

[General Zod]

But I'm going to say that the best strategy guide I've ever seen was Versus Books' The Completely Unauthorized Final Fantasy VII Ultimate Guide, which is rather rare nowadays. It was based on a beta of the US version, so it still covered a couple of things that ended up getting removed (which they indicated might happen), but the most awesome thing about it was that it was somehow able to cover absolutely EVERYTHING in the game without spoiling one damn bit of the story.

That guide was simply amazing...

seconded. it actually had MAPS for the annoying section of the game where you had to climb up the ice mountain. and good ones. the official guide didn't have those.

[Cabwi Desco]

I like to read the KoTOR guidebooks for the character descriptions and Item Guides. I like to play through the game and put post-its throughout the things for every mistake they made, its fun to make light of their mistakes.