Curious if the Assassin’s Creed IV strategy guide will be as great as its predecessors? Here’s a bit of a sample of what you can expect when the paperback and Collector’s Edition releases next week.
Like the guides before, this one will guide users to 100% completion, which I assume means that it will provide tips for achieving that 100% synchronization as well as collecting everything, exploring everything, and unlocking all sidequests. The strategy guide, for both editions, also includes a two-sided map poster for the entire Caribbean.
The Collector’s Edition contains an additional 64 pages, including concept art, a full glossary of pirate phrases, and a history of the Golden Age of Piracy. If the latter is anything like the American history summary found in the Assassin’s Creed III strategy guide, this will be a delightful read. I’m a bit of a history nut, and I feel like I know a bit about the Revolutionary War, but I still greatly enjoyed reading the history summary in the strategy guide. I’m sure this will be similar.
Want to see what it looks like on the inside? It’s going to be absolutely beautiful.
May the text inside be as helpful as the layout and artwork is beautiful. The last few Assassin’s Creed strategy guides by Piggyback were quite stellar, so my hopes are high for this one as well.
BradyGames confirmed via their Facebook page that they are publishing a strategy guide for Call of Duty: Ghosts. This sounds like a no-brainer, but what has me personally intrigued is that this is the first strategy guide confirmed for ANY next-gen game by BradyGames. Thus far, the only confirmed strategy guide for a next-gen game has been for Assassin’s Creed IV by Piggyback, and I’m having a hard time considering ACIV to be a next-gen game. The same can be said for CoD to be sure, but since Ghosts was part of Microsoft’s Xbox One reveal, I only think of it as a next-gen game, even though it’s releasing for current-gen as well.
If it was not for this strategy guide, I would not have gotten far in the game at all, much less finished the game with a completed Sticker Museum. It held my hand in every way I needed it to, which was sadly quite a lot, due to my inexperience with Super Mario games.
Spec Ops: The Line wasn’t a particularly difficult game in that it didn’t require too much strategy to get through firefights, not unlike most other military shooters. The most I used it for firefight help was for tips on which gun to use in certain situations, such as the shotgun tip when that heavy seems to disappear and reappear closer to Walker in the mall. However, Spec Ops was not as much about being a shooter as it was telling a story and making the player feel like the worst person on the planet. The strategy guide was more important for outlining all of the choices Walker had to make, and it was thanks to the guide that I was able to make the non-obvious, non-stated third choices available.
The Witcher 2, by far, is the hardest video game I have ever played, even with the added-on tutorial for the Enhanced Edition. After taking over two hours just to get through the first scene in the game (not the first battle…don’t be mean), I had to knock the difficulty down to Easy, and even then, it was no picnic. The strategy guide made sure I came fully prepared to every situation with potions, traps, and spells, thus ensuring I only died once or twice in each battle instead of fifteen times. I have never had to bring so many specific items into every battle in any other game I played. Usually it’s bring a health potion, a bomb, maybe a specific weapon. In The Witcher 2, you need brown oil for your sword (now are you fighting a monster or a human? that affects which sword you coat), a potion for rejuvenating health at a faster rate, fire traps, a grapeseed bomb, and make sure you have learned a specific rune. Um, what?
As I said when I reviewed the Final Fantasy XIII-2 strategy guide, I was extremely hesitant about the contents of this guide. I was less than pleased with the Final Fantasy XIII strategy guide, and that really carried over to the guide’s sequel, whether that was fair or not. The strategy guide ended up, as you can guess, blowing my mind with how absolutely stellar it was. The strategy guide sat by my side, literally, during the 60+ hours I played the game. The strategies for boss fights were flawless, I had no problems completing all of the side quests and alternate endings, and I found all the collectibles (I cared about finding) with ease.
I swear, selecting the Mass Effect 3 strategy guide as the top strategy guide of 2012 isn’t some sly move to push my love and affection for Mass Effect. If you don’t believe me, go read my review of the Mass Effect 2 strategy guide, which was terrible. In fact, it was so bad, when I learned Prima Games was doing Mass Effect 3 strategy guide–which of course they were, since they work exclusively with EA–my heart sank as low as it did when I learned Piggyback was publishing the strategy guide for Final Fantasy XIII-2. Like that strategy guide, the strategy guide for Mass Effect 3 greatly exceeded all expectations. Not only did the strategy guide provide excellent strategies for surviving some intense battles–thank you, in particular, for the one-on-one battles with Reapers–but it highlighted how your decisions in previous games affected what decisions you could make in this game. It really showed how sometimes I didn’t make the best decision I could have, even in my Paragon route.