Anyone else really hate the trash that Prima passes off as strategy guides? I have no problem with well-written guides (VersusBooks and Bradygames are usually great), but Prima's content is utter junk.

I'm especially annoyed at their guides for Virtua Fighter 4 and Dead or Alive 3. I have both of the games, but after looking at the guides for said games in the store, I did not buy them. Neither of the guides for those games have any decent strategy (what's with the "versus-CPU" strategy? who cares about that in a fighting game?), and what's worse, the movelists in the game are terrible to read. The print is so tiny, you almost need a magnifying glass to read it. The movelists use non-standard notation - a simple "P" for punch or "K" for kick is all that's needed, instead of blackended-in circles! The notation is not even consistent with the in-game notation!

It really boggles my mind what kind of people Prima hires to write these guides. It's as if the authors didn't even play the game.

Still looking for a decent movelist for Dead or Alive 3.... argh. At least the VF4 manual has the complete movelist in it.

I bought the Prima Genma O. Guide becuase it looked decent but I also skipped the Prima DOA3 Guide because it looked like crap.

How do you have a guide with a list of 40+ moves for a character and not one photo showing any of the moves?

I havent seen a good guide since the old gamepro SF2 guides those were good, they showed pictures of EVERY possible move with a breakdown of the percentages, useful combos (not Brady jab, jab jab 3 hit combo),etc.

Ahh yes, the SF2 guide. That was the only guide I ever had in print. I have found that www.gamefaqs.com provides all you really nead in a strategy guide anyway, even if you don't have pictures. I can't see paying 15 bucks for some hundred page guide filled with pictures when I could just download a great one someone else wrote off the net and read it on my computer.

I specifically remember Final Fantasy 7. The guide I had was so good I printed it off and made a book out of it hehe.

Versus guides rule. Guides are worthwhile for RPGS since they come with Maps. I got the Shenmue and PSO guides, and they both rock.

There was a sweet DOA3 guide at ign. I even have it bookmarked. Not that it does any good now.

Tuan Jim

Prima Guides are horrible. I very rarely use game guides (I only use them to find out hidden extras and the like), but when I do need one, I use GameFAQs as well.

Does the DOA3 guide at IGN use P, K, F notation? Or does it use the crappy notation for moves that the Prima guide uses? I'm not a subscriber to IGNinsider, but I'd be willing to pay for a short-term subscription just for the DOA3 guide - that is, if the movelist is easy to read. Too bad there are hardly any FAQs at gamefaqs.com for this great game.

Josh, thats great lol

Well I went ahead and signed up for a one-month subscription to IGN insider for $5. Just to get a look at the "guide" for DOA3 they have available there. There isn't any decent strategy in that guide, but I didn't expect it either, so no big deal.

However I am definitely surprised that the movelist does not contain hit levels - that is, whether an attack hits high, mid, or low. Considering that a large part of the game deals with guessing whether an opponent is attacking high, mid, or low, and responding with the appropriate counter, I really can't understand why the hit levels are not included. Also the movelist does not contain hit properties (whether an attack causes a stun, and what kind of a stun it is). But I didn't expect that either (my expectations were already low).

Needless to say I don't intend to renew my subscription to IGN. It looks like I might just have to make a decent movelist myself.

A review of Prima's DOA3 Guide @ Amazon:

" useless and stupid..., January 1, 2002
Reviewer: nightmarecow1 (see more about me) from Westfield, New Jersey United States
Strategy guides are horrible. Why use one ESPECIALLY for DOA3? ITS LIKE A STRATEGY GUIDE FOR PONG!!!!!!! "

I know for a fact that Prima's guides are worthless. Beyond worthless, even.

I worked at a video game company in the QA department up until just recently (I'll decline to mention any names, since my NDA may still be in effect). One of the last things I worked on was a rough draft of the Prima Guide for the game we'd been testing for the last year. Who better to offer suggestions and input than the guys who had been playing it forever, huh?

When I got the draft it was loaded with inaccurate material, bad maps showing the incorrect paths for the user (or at least not the optimal paths), and general incompetence. Having my work cut out for me, I came up with a huge list of suggestions and advice. I pointed out things that were just blatantly wrong, graphics that were out of date (several builds ago) and so on.

Much to my great surprise, when I checked out a final version on the stands - not a damn thing I said was listened to. The only thing different between the version I saw and the version that went out was the color screenshots. Everything was there in it's messed up glory - right down to a typo that I pointed out to them.

Unbelievable.