Mass Effect 2: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides)

Comment: I found the Game Guide to be quite helpful in the early stages of the game. Unfortunately, that is where I currently am as I am going slow and maximizing my game experience, so I can not speak to the utility later in the game. I would assume that the guide will continue to provide the same level of assistance throughout the game.
Having also played the original game 'Mass Effect' and used the guide as well, my initial comparison is that the original guide was somewhat clearer in it's explanations and suggestions. So I would rate the original slightly higher than the current guide, though I must stress that the current one is certainly useful and value for money.

Comment: Most of Prima's guide to Mass Effect 2 is devoted to a walk-through, which would make sense if it were a guide for a linear game. However, the best quality of Mass Effect 2 is the huge amount of freedom the player has to explore and enjoy a beautifully detailed universe. This guide should have been more like a tourists guidebook; with maps showing locations of encounters and loot, star charts showing where missions and resources can be found, and warnings about what you may encounter along the way. Instead it is more like a narrative, for the most part just repeating what is happening on the screen, with some advice on what to do at each juncture.

Good: The description of the squad mates gives good advice on how to use each one effectively.
Bad: The missions walk-throughs do not tell you what you will be up against at the beginning (which is when you choose your team), so this information is not as useful as it could be.

Good: Charts containing information and advice for use on gear that can be acquired during the game.
Bad: The charts do not list where the gear can be found. You have to read the whole book to find out where you forgot to pick up that cool Tempest Submachine Gun.

Good: A planetary database listing all of the planets in the game.
Bad: The database is a complete waste of paper. It is just each planets descriptive text from the game cut and pasted into a box. The planets are sorted by name, but until you visit the planet in game, the name is not given. That's right, the only way to find out which planet the guide is talking about is to travel to the planet in the game - at which point you already have the information in the guide. The database does not even list which missions can be found on the planet. This should have been the most useful part of the book, instead it was completely pointless.

Good: Maps for most of missions showing locations of things the player may otherwise miss.
Bad: No maps for the side missions.

Good: Descriptions of all of the available missions in the game.
Bad: Where are they? The planets are given by name, which, as explained above, the player does not know until they travel to the planet. Also, it would have been nice to have small hints up front ("take squad mates effective against synthetic enemies") so that the player can be prepared without having to read the details and spoil the story.

Bad: The walkthroughts. Really. Some information given is given too late to do any good, like describing in the middle of a mission something the player had to do before the mission started. Some information is just flat wrong.

I am so happy that I restrained myself from even opening this book until after my first play through. Now I wish I had not wasted my money. It is not so much a guide as a list of spoilers. Instead of helping someone get the most out of a wonderful game, it just takes the fun out.

Comment: Okay what it does right:

Maps of major levels.
Discussion of different missions.
Nice art additions in the hardback copy.

What it does wrong:

No maps of minor missions.
No breakdown of what achievements give you.
Poor organization.
In general, this is a crap book.
Despite great presentation not enough additional value in hardback edition.

It does not want to give away general mystery of game and thats fine but this should be a comprehensive walk through. I do not feel that the writer played the game enough to really give it the detail it deserved. Yes a good strategy guide can spoil the game but it is there to help you plan. The first ME strategy guide was phenomenal for one reason, it had comprehensive maps of all the worlds. This cut down significantly on "exploration time" to find every single element out there. My suggestion to all strategy guide writers is that unless your guide has comprehensive level maps then you have not done enough work on the guide.

Comment: I have the collectors edition of this book, which includes some fancy stuff (that really isn't so fancy.) I'm only going to comment on the actual GAME GUIDE material here, which is identical from one version to the next.

This book is a GAME GUIDE for a video game. So when I get to a portion of the game and I'm hesitant on which choice to make and I refer to my GAME GUIDE for some insight on what ramifications these choices might have.... ...and the guide tells you COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CHOICES than what actually exists in the game... ...then it's automatically a useless product.

The choices on my screen consisted of three different guns to choose. I could only have one, so I was hoping to learn which was the best for my style of gameplay. This Game Guide told me that I could choose between three versions of UPGRADES for my existing weapons, and proceeded to tell me how those tech benefits might affect one particular class (out of 6) for my character. Oh I scanned back and forth to see if I was missing the right section, but nope - the game guide was flat-out wrong.

This is simply unacceptable. If the "official game guide" doesn't have the right information about the "official game" then it's nothing more than a pretty paper weight.

In the end, I use it for the maps, since there are NO maps in the game (idiots.) And since you only get one chance to explore most of these areas, I try to make sure I didn't miss an upgrade or a new weapon, etc. I am quite hesitant to trust it though, at this point.

**UPDATE**

During the last fight, which I apologize for having to spoil here a bit, I encountered an event where one of my team members dies. I don't want him to die, because then I don't get the achievement for keeping everyone alive. After two repeats of this section (thanks to a clever game save spot) I yield the same results. So I turn to the GAME GUIDE! Oh Game Guide of wisdom, tell me what to do! The Game Guide says, "Note: It is possible that one of your team mates may be killed at this point in the game." NO, REALLY?! I HADN'T NOTICED! What advice does the heavenly game guide provide to circumvent this problem? NONE! NOTHING! I have to go online and hit some chat boards to learn that you have to choose a teammate with a history of leadership for this particular section in order to keep him/her alive. OH! Well that makes perfect sense. Why couldn't the OFFICIAL GAME GUIDE have told me this? Ah, the world will never know.

DON'T BUY THIS STUPID BOOK!

Comment: I ordered this and then went to look at the reviews of others. I'm glad I got it first, because this is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to know about absolutely everything you need to experience in full the game. The maps are great and the area at the front fills in the glaring holes from the manual about Loyalty and such. The planet section might not tell you where on each planet to look for such and such, but it will save you valuable time if you want just one resource (such as needing 50K Platinum for that one expensive ship upgrade)