More Awesome Than You!

This post is just for idiots like me who:

1. Would buy a Prima Guide in the first place.
2. Would pick up a book the size of a paper back and expect it to have legible font size.

The guide Wal-Mart has is tiny and the printing is so small, I'd expect this book was made for insects to read. Don't bother with this edition unless you want to go completely blind. I will now have to march to Wal-Mart and stage a hissy fit in order to get a refund, because they do not like to refund books.

A better tip is don't shop at Waldemort. They are part of the commercial Axis Powers.

I think you mean BUY not BY.

But you needn't have posted this warning.  Nobody here is dumb enough to believe a Prima Guide, let alone waste money on one.  Oh, and I *do* pick up books the size of paperbacks and find they have legible font sizes (even without my glasses) - this from someone who started wearing bifocals a few years back.

I'm stupid enough to buy a prima guide. For the first time in my whole simming history I decided I'll have one.
Well I'm getting my Collector's Edition as a birthday present, so I thought why not waste my money on the Prima Guide.
Now I've been resisting the urge to cancel the order, because stupid GAME (game.co.uk) held it as "pre-order" till today's midday, now it's stuck on "pending". And my CE should be here tomorrow (also from them).

Fixed, and that was kind of my point. I can read paperbacks, and expected to be able to read this one. Oh well.




Yes, and the guide that comes in the CE is FOUR PAGES LONG and completely worthless. So yippee!

Yep, I heard that fun fact. So luckily it won't be a surprise to me.

Oh and I just checked, my Prima Guide has finally shipped. But they didn't bother to mail me about it.

Congratulations, n00bs!  You have purchased the Prima Guide to TS3.  This worthwhile volume embarrassment will serve you well as you discover the wonders and unexpected pleasures of TS3 prop open your doors or fend off Jehovah's Witnesses in hand to hand combat.

Caution: For accurate game tips and to preserve your own eyesight, reading this book is contraindicated.

Google indexes this site fast -Search results for 'Prima Guide Stupid' is the 7th link.

Why would anyone buy a game guide anymore with GameFAQ and sites like this one available? Even the library here has those stupid guides! (They have fallen pray to offering noneducational and trendy material to appease youth, instead of updating the facility and replacing the worn materials. Meh.)

Some people prefer to have a physical book with pretty pictures to leaf through.  There's something comforting about flipping through a book that you just don't get on even the most informative web sites.  Of course, that assumes complete and accurate information.  Prima is by no means the only (or even worst) offender as far as full color glossy paperweights go.

Exactly. Particularly when much of the TS2 Prima Guide ended up being wrong. Personally, I just keep an eye on this site for information since it's far more likely to be accurate.

Well I didn't buy any previous Prima Guides, but like I said, since the game was free to me this time, I decided to try. I might regret that later, I don't deny the possibility.

And um... Go ahead and laugh at me, but I love lists. I mean I LOVE lists. I have a notebook with all TS2 careers, all 10 levels of each with workdays, work hours and payments written down. And stuff like that. And I have lots of lists from snooty sims printed or written down. And I like having it somewhere not on the internet when the site can be down or I just might not want to alt+tab or something else. You have no idea how much time I spent with the reloaded (aka free trial) version, going through ALL premade families and making a list on excel with the names, ages, traits and lifetime wishes of each sim. Guess what, I've seen on a free preview pdf that the Prima Guide book has that list. That fact alone makes me love that book. Means I won't have to print or write down that from my pc, I'll have the paper version of the list in the book.
(I wonder what trait could represent this weird thing about me, but I'm a Knowledge sim for sure.)

Edit: Oh and by the way, one of the dead guys in someone's family tree (maybe the gay guy? I don't remember... gonna have to check) had "Artistic" and "Can't Stand Art" traits, which are (are they?) impossible to have both.

I bought my copy of the Prima guide at GameStop and I can read the font just fine. In fact, several of my paperback novels have smaller font than the guide. I got it for 20% off and I had some money on my Edge card for some trade-ins I did awhile back, so I only paid like $4 out of pocket for it. I'm kind of glad I got it since I can't play the game until the crashing stops (I'm downloading 3dmark06 right now and I'm thinking of swapping with my brother's 8800 GTS to see if it's my card) so I've been reading the guide in the meantime. I know some of the info is probably wrong, especially if they wrote it using an earlier build of the game and EAxis changed things later. But it's still kind of interesting to read.

Why wouldn't you flip through the book first? I always flip through books to make sure there aren't any obvious printing errors, like blank pages. If you'd taken two seconds to crack open the book before cracking open your wallet, perhaps you wouldn't have this issue.

I'm fairly sure that my Walmart had the guide sealed in plastic.

And you still bought it?  If you hadn't would it still be eating away at you ("What's inside that plastic?  What are they hiding?")?

The guide they sell at Gamestop is the full size guide. I got my refund from Walmart today and bought the one at Gamestop. It's so much better. My whole point was to warn people off the one they have at Walmart because its really small, does not have the pull-out map, and is much inferior to the one at all the other stores.

Oh and yes, it is sealed in plastic. I was not even allowed to touch the thing, they had it in a locked case, they took it out and immediately locked it into a little security box for me to take to the front as if it was some sort of solid gold goose egg. I saw that the book itself was about the size of the DVD case, and I assumed that the text would be sized appropriately. Instead I find they merely shrunk the page down until the font is unreadable and the pictures look like postage stamps. I really had no way of knowing this.

My intention was not to get on here and bitch for sympathy though, I just wanted to let anyone considering buying this guide know, don't buy it at Wal-Mart.

I like Prima Guides because it's good to have something to turn to without having to open up a window while the game is playing. And yes, I also like lists.

Mine is full-sized, so the type is easy to read. I can't say I'm a huge fan of this guide though, as it's kind of badly organized. Rather than separating things into meaningful chapters, a lot of stuff is just sort of lumped together. I haven't been able to find a list of plantables so far, as well as a few other things. It took me forever to find out things like how to get to the "invite to move in" stage. The map and list of households is at least useful in figuring out where people live and how many Sims the neighborhood started out with.

Ask and you shall receive.

List of Plantables

Common:

Apple
Tomato
Lettuce
Grapes

Uncommon:

Watermelon
Lime
Onion
Potato

Rare:

Garlic
Bell Pepper

Special:

Money tree
Flame Fruit
Death Tree
Life Fruit

Available only through opportunities from restaurant:

Egg
Cheese
Steak
Burger Patties
Omni plant

Awesome, that is getting printed and inserted into my new full size guide.

I find it interesting that you pay money for a guide, and yet have to put information INTO IT.  Still, you know best.

As you've taken the plunge on loser street, any chance you could have a look at the guitar challenges section and tell me what it says about the playing at 10 parties/venues? I can't clear it and it's pissing me off.

If it causes them to burst into flames on contact, it might actually be worth buying!

Accuracy aside, the tiny print issue may be caused by age and denial.
The same bastards that print the Prima Guide now seem to be printing my newspaper.

No, I didn't buy it. The comletionist in me wanted to, but I thought prima guides were coffee table book sized with lots of pictures. If I find a decent sized one I might buy it.

This is all it says "Guitar Star - Guitar Stars must play at 10 parties and venues in the town to earn their title. Afterward, they earn even more money for tips and performances."

In other words, sorry it's no help. I've wondered about that myself, and haven't found an answer.

One does not simply walk into Walmart and buy a Prima Guide. There is evil there that does not sleep.

Given the sorry state of game manuals these days, the Prima Guide serves as the manual for the game.  I'm surprised more people aren't bitching about having to buy a manual separately, but then what percentage of the game buyers ever read their manuals?

Anyone remember the days when games came with nice thick manuals?  Those manuals had no more errors in them than the Prima Guides do today.

Condemning the Prima Guides for an error is like condemning a shop manual for your car because an illustration showed a screw in a different place, especially when that screw wasn't important.  Do you trust the info in the Guide 100%?  No.  Do you trust it more than a bunch of random people posting on the Internet?  Hell yes.  

Yeah.  I'll buy the Prima Guides (already did, actually).  But thanks for the heads-up on the Wal*Mart mini version.  That sucks.

Hook

The NeverWinterNights manual is epic. Heck, the manual that came with Ultima IV had maps and was huge.

I read the manual for games. It's a part of the anticipation. You buy the game at the store. You just can't wait to play it, so you take out the manual and look through it on the bus. Then, when you get home, you start the installation of the game, make a nice cup of tea and read the manual thoroughly while the game installs.
Manuals probably got thinner because computers got faster, eh?  :P

I think I enjoyed the brick that is the World Of Warcraft manual more than the game itself.

*sniffs sadly* Yes.  Like the one Civilization came with (that's Civ1).  Roughly the same size as a TS2 Prima Guide, or possibly slightly bigger.  It was also on the floppy disks in a text file.

I think the reason nobody minded if the manuals had errors back then was because they were included with the game.  Part of the reason we're so quick to criticise the Prima guides is because we now have to pay for something that used to be included when we purchased a game, and we resent paying extra for something with errors.  People figure that if we have to pay separately for the manuals then those manuals better be as close to error free as possible and unfortunately that's not the case.

They have the same guide at Target as well, but it isn't locked up in the glass box of death, just shrinkwrapped. I managed to liberate the book from its wrapping and I looked at it, but it doesn't have anything that I didn't already know. The only interesting thing that I saw was maps showing where to get specific rocks and specific bugs, but that is just as easily found with the collection finder ingame.

Civilization has come with a good manual throughout the life of the series.

The only time I got pissed about errors in game manuals is when those errors wouldn't allow me to get through the copy protection. If the fourth word on page 110 is supposed to be "tiny" but the manual printed with "huge", then JESSLLA RAEG.

The game manuals that come with the Guild Wars campaigns are beautiful things. Fully coloured, more information than you can shake a stick at, gorgeous artwork... I was simply floored when I looked through mine for the first time and immediately compared it to the pathetic little pamphlet that EA offers.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the very impressive manual that came with the original release of The Sims; it's probably the only one I've read through more than once.

Wow, that was truly epic for a manual.

It wasn't just Civilization; anything that MicroProse put out had a great manual. Silent Service and the original Railroad Tycoon had fantastic (and *heavy*) manuals with lots of play tips, and historical background that was both interesting to read and helped to provide a context for the gameplay. Unfortunately, those days are long gone, and usually the manuals provided with the game are simply documentation of the game functions; you can almost see  "For more information and gameplay tips, see the official strategy manual, available at fine retailers everywhere" lurking in the docs for the game.

As to the errors in the manual, I don't have too much heartache with one or two oopsies, but seeing "Refridgerators" as a table title made me flinch, and feel pity for the copy-editor who signed off on that (yes, I checked the manual to find her name). There are often last-minute changes in the game which may make the hint book wrong, but errors like that are simply unprofessional.

Why would Prima print two different sizes of the same guide? Is the smaller guide at Wal-Mart cheaper?

OH MY FUCKING GOD! That's what this whole thread is about! WTF!

Really?  I have to admit, I haven't seen anything that explains why it's printed in two different sizes, or even whether one is less expensive than the other.  I saw you say that you returned yours at Wal-Mart and bought a new one at Game Stop.  I didn't see you mention anything about a price difference.

Oh, I remember my beloved Railroad Tycoon manual!  In order to play the game, you had to match the picture of one of 25 or so locomotives on the screen to its name.  To figure out which one it was, you had to match the picture on the screen to the one in the guide.  Unfortunately, the picture on my screen was always so badly pixelated and generally poor graphics that I used to count wheels, stare at the position of the little bells and dohickeys on the locomotive and generally destroy my vision in order to figure out which one it was. 

Ah, the memories!  One of the other games I had, Castles II, made you answer a history question that was in the extra information included in the manual.  Who won the battle of Agincourt?

Of course, this type of copy protection has disappeared now that everyone has access to the internet.  Instead, we get Suckurom. 

I understand the desire for lists, but I've found that the Prima guide is more frustrating to have than it is to find correct lists online. Instead, try the sims2wiki, I believe they're continuing it for the new game, and you can contribute to the correct information!

I remember the manual that came with Simon the Sorcerer 2. As well as all the explanations for the controls and things it had a transcript of Simon explaining the first game to his psychiatrist. Brilliant way of getting through the 'previously on Simon the sorcerer' bit. Then when they re-released the game for later versions of windows they skipped the manual and stuck it all on a pdf on the disk. Somehow wasn't the same...

The micro-guide is fifteen dollars, the legible one is twenty, from what I remember.

I remember the original Prince of Persia had a sequence based number or something (Page #, Line #, Word #).  This code would give you a letter. (1 in 26 chance of being right).  You had to enter a code every time you entered the game or levelled up.  There were lots of chances to enter a letter.

Given this, and the finite number of actual page/line/word numbers used, it was easy to note which letters did not work, and thus never enter the same letter twice for the same code.  Also, since the game did not shut down when you answered wrong, you could simply restore to your last saved position and try again, going through and testing letters for whatever page/line/word prompt came up.  You never had to see each prompt more than 26 times.   I recall cracking that code within a day.

Ah, Secret of Monkey Island. The manual was beautiful and the install would required you to enter the first word on page 10.

The wii remake just won't be the same.  :-\

The guide I got at Best Buy is a large one. It was $19.99, came with a mouse pad and huge town map of where to find all the gems, bugs etc....after your frequent user thing-a-jig...it was $18 something after taxes

I've been toying with the idea of getting that one, but I couldn't find out anything about the mouse pad.  It is one of those foam-ish ones or one that is friendly to wireless/laser mouses?

You could just download it like i did. =]

Where have you downloaded TS3 Prima Guide?

There's links in the "Prima guide PDF"-thread.

There's going to be a Wii remake of Monkey Island? Really?! I think I'm having a game-gasm.

I think my most memorable manual would be the bookwork that came with Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist.

It's fairly thin, seems as if it would work fine. I have a roller ball so I haven't tried it...the map is just awesome!!! The book itself is large and hardback!

I still keep it in my bathroom, and I haven't played Sims 1 in three years.

I loved the Myst and Riven guides when I was a kid. I'd carry them around to read and reread them.

The Wii Monkey Island game looks like a sequel, not a remake.  In the trailer Guybrush refers to Elaine as his wife.

Read MOAR.

Nintendo announced two new Monkey Island games last week at E3; remake and new series. The trailer you saw is for the five episode game series to be released following the remake.

I'd say more, but that would be shilling.

Ah, thank you for the information.  That is squee-worthy news.

I had an Indiana Jones game based on The Last Crusade on my good ol' Amiga back in the day. One of the levels was based on wandering around the tombs, but to enter the tombs you first had to enter a secret code, which you had to find in the manual. There was a long list of possible codes and you had to match it up with what was shown on screen. If you put in the right one, you could continue the game no problem - collect all your collectible bits, and eventually leave the tomb. If you put in the wrong code, you were sent to a 'dud' tomb that had no collectibles and no exit, and thus you essentially failed the game  :D