Descent: Freespace the Great War; Official Strategy Guide

Gives good mission descriptions, walkthroughs. The game is great, the book makes the perfect companion for the game. One problem with the book is the first section. I found the ship descriptions to be mostly useless, except for the speed information. The mission tree was great, allowing players to experience all levels of the game.

Official strategy guides of simulations or space combat simulations (like in our case) have a certain layout. Have used enough of them and be- lieve my saying. The work at hand, is a good to very good guide but it has some defects that make it fail the perfect 5 star rating: Colour. What's the matter ? Are they jealous of flushing, or they think readers can't recognise colours ? We want ship stats and pictures from the game and we want them in colour. Mission branching. Is not present. It's better to say where the player is led to by a certain outcome, and show it by a tree diagram, than to say alternative missions and just lay down words. Picture it to us. Describe to us the alternative mission in a separate chapter. Also, where are the loosing game paths ? Where is the backstory ? It's good to cut into the chase, but a portion of those who buy these books, need a backstory, a reasoning of playing in a certain way. Also a nice touch to exhibit the multiplayer missions, but since we get Acts and different cut scenes that get us into the story, it would be good to picture this information here (look at Official Guide to: Wing Commander 4 and Wing Com- mander 3 with the ISN inserts to get my meaning). Why I wrote the defects ? The book is complete to all other aspects and there's no need to re-tell them: ship stats, foe presentations, weapons, mis- siles, strategies, hints, mission descriptions and briefings, winning notes, just everything. Seems finally that writtings a perfect guide is not dif- ficult, but needs a better planning and a PC gamer attitude towards the final product.