Category Archives: Books

Terra Nova – Battle Guide

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Terra Nova has to be one of the less famous Looking Glass games, although I’m sure more people remember it than their golf game from the following year. Despite this, Terra Nova was in development for around 4 years going right back to the time of Underworld 2 as I understand before finally reaching stores in 1996.

It’s a mech FPS game that had the potential to be quite a strategic title, with plenty of options for commanding your team mates and using differering tactics for each mission. In practice, this only came into play in the later stages of the campaign and it’s more of an arcade game.

The FMV between missions was a late addition in response to games like Wing Commander 3, and this showed in the weak plot which was my main criticism when playing the game for the blog. Whatever the flaws, the main campaign was still great fun and I wish I’d played it back when it came out instead of 15 years later.

The guide was published in 1996 by Brady. It’s shorter than the usual Prima equivalent but we do get some colour at least on the inside pages. It starts with a few chapters about the history of the game’s universe and the clans of Terra Nova. Very little of it came across in the game, but there is a reasonably detailed summary behind the games events.

Next it’s the obligatory chapters on teammate bios, weapons, opposition stats and general hints. The tactics section is for the most part obvious things about sidestepping to avoid fire, and drawing out a couple of the opposition at a time. I definitely didn’t use my jump jets as much as suggested here. They recommend using them to move in short jumps so you go bouncing around the landscape at speed.

As ever the mission descriptions take up most of the guide. These have maps, specs of the opposition, the briefing, and a step by step walkthrough for each mission. There isn’t any addition to the plot and the miniscule length of all the briefings is a good indication of just how little story there was in the original game. I’d hoped that it might be expanded on here but unfortunately not.

There is a short technical help section which mentions that Terra Nova had unofficial support for VR headsets, which would be interesting to try out. I’ve only ever tried VR twice and been deeply unimpressed both times so it could be less fun than it sounds, but it does strike me as a game where it might work fairly well. In the unlikely event I ever get my hands on a VFX-1 headset, I’ll give it a go.

Apart from this book, I’ve also added the Lands Of Lore – Guardians Of Destiny guide since the last post. I’ve just a handful left now and it will be Thief 2 next.

Official Book Of Ultima – 2nd Edition

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I’ve been sent a link to a scan of the second edition of the Official Book of Ultima. For the most part this is the same as the first edition, but it has solutions to the games that were released between the two being published. I’ve added this to the downloads here for anyone interested. Thanks to xyzzy for the link and to whoever did the scans in the first place.

I’ve been struggling to find any spare time recently so I’ve not even looked at Terra Nova yet. I have added scans of the 11th Hour Guide though.

Wing Commander False Colors Scans

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I’ve just uploaded a scanned pdf of the only missing Wing Commander novel, False Colors. It does still leave the junior version of the movie novelisation but that’s more or less bottom on the list of priorities for now.

The next guide I’ll be looking at will be Terra Nova, but probably not before next week.

System Shock 2 – Official Guide

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System Shock 2 is a game that needs little introduction. It’s held up by many as one of the greatest games of all time and is the most requested game on GOG. Unfortunately it isn’t owned outright by EA leaving it in legal limbo, making a re-release or subsequent sequels unlikely for the moment. It’s an issue that crops up frequently with many games having shared rights, which can then get passed around after buyouts or closures leaving the ownership situation far from clear.

Not being able to buy a downloadable version is no excuse not to play it, of course. It’s worth the time and effort to track down a hard copy and it will run on 64 bit Windows 7 with a little tinkering. It’s stood the test of time extremely well although there are games released since that can compete with it, with the most obvious being its spiritual successor Bioshock.

The System Shock 2 guide was published by Prima in 1999. I expect it’s going to be one of the more popular downloads on here, given the interest that is still around for System Shock. It’s certainly one I was keen to have a look at myself and is among the more expensive guides I’ve bought. Most of them are practically being given away but this was about the same price as it would have been new. The game itself is much the same and is worth nearly as much as the new price these days but it’s a bargain compared to the $5,000 someone just paid for a copy of Akalabeth on Ebay.

The guide is by the same team who created near enough all of these books for Prima so it’s no surprise that it follows the usual formula. This means that it starts off with fairly general information and plenty of it including guides to character development, weapons, ammo, armour, etc.. I’m glad to say that this isn’t just pure tables of info and includes lengthy descriptions of all the items and creatures, even down to explaining why all the champagne you find is the same brand. If you want needless background info on the System Shock universe there is plenty here.

The best fact I got out of this section is that a lot of the textures used in the body of the many were created from images of one of the Looking Glass producers colon. He was having an internal examination anyway so he didn’t go quite to the extremes of getting it done just for the game. He just asked his Doctor for the images and he obliged. That whole section was unpleasant enough without this bit of knowledge.

This first half of the book covers all the various options on how to play the game well and I’d be interested in playing an OSA character having read through this. It would be quite a different experience to the melee specialist I usually go for in this sort of game. I’ll try it out if I ever go back and play it again.

The walkthrough section takes up the second half of the book, using both annotated maps and lists of all the items you can find in an area and where they are. The map annotations act as a step by step guide of sorts but it’s as much about what can be found and done in each area, leaving you free to proceed in another order rather than having to follow the guide explicitly. All the logs from the game are printed among all the text, allowing you to follow the storyline to a large extent. There are no developer interviews unfortunately so the book ends with the walkthrough.

This is a fairly standard guide but much more complete than most others I’ve looked at, with enough in here to give it plenty of appeal for anyone who has already finished the game. I’m glad to see that not all Looking Glass games got the poor treatment Thief did, especially given that I have Thief 2 and Terra Nova guides still to look at.

Apart from System Shock 2, I’ve done a load of scanning since the last post and have uploaded the guides for The 7th Guest, Last Express, Myst, Gabriel Knight 1 & 3, Under A Killing Moon and Dungeon Keeper. There are some of my favourite games in there, as well as Myst which I’m less keen on but I wasn’t going to turn the guide down for free. I’ve not exhausted my supply of these books yet but it’s starting to run low.

The pace of scanning will slow down drastically for now. Apart from anything else, I’ve started on Fallout New Vegas which is probably going to consume most of my spare time for the coming weeks. I had been putting it off but a scan of the missing Wing Commander novel, False Colors, will be next.

Deus Ex – Official Guide

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I’ve always been a fan of Warren Spector’s games so it was something of a surprise that when I came to play the game usually held up as his masterpiece for this blog, I didn’t like it all that much. The main reasons were the dialog and voice acting which stopped me from being able to take a deadly serious game, at all seriously.

I had played it already back when it came out, and I certainly enjoyed it more back then. I suppose it must reflect my tastes changing as I get older, which isn’t a pleasant thought. Perhaps, it’s simply the case that other games have offered similar but improved experiences since and I went in with my expectations too high. Either way, I’m clearly in a tiny minority with my opinions and there is still plenty to like in Deus Ex.

I didn’t exactly explore the game thoroughly on my playthrough which left me interested to have a look at this guide and see all the things I missed. It was published in 2002 by Prima and is actually for the PS2 version of the game, although there is little (if any) difference to the PC game if this guide is anything to go by.

It starts with advice on how to develop your character including descriptions of all the various upgrades in the game. There are then lists of all the weapons and opponents followed by a brief section with various general advice on combat and other aspects of gameplay. The tips on character advancement are the most useful section but it’s all decent advice.

The last 2/3’s of the book are taken up with a walkthrough of the game. This does mention all the various options you can take, although it tends to only go through one route in-depth. This walkthrough is very pictorial with 100’s of screenshots throughout. It’s not that dissimilar to reading some of my own posts in that sense. Because of all those pictures, there isn’t all that much description and the plot of the game is barely mentioned. It’s strictly about the actions that you need to take.

This means there isn’t really anything in the way of plot spoilers, but I’d like to have seen all the differences in the story described in full. The 3 endings are mentioned but you are clearly expected to play the game to find out what happens when you try different things. There is a 3 page section on the story of Deus Ex at the end however, which doesn’t deal with events in the game but does give the history of events before the game starts. The story isn’t especially plausible when you see it all written down like this but it’s certainly got more depth to it than your average game.

The guide suffers some of the same issues that the Thief guide did but to a far lesser extent. I might have expected a list of all the experience bonuses, more detailed maps and where to find equipment. Most of the information you actually need is probably in the walkthrough though and it does pack a lot into a fairly small number of pages.

As usual I’ve scanned and uploaded this. I’ve also been scanning other guides in the meanwhile, and have added pdf’s for a Curse Of Monkey Island, Magic Carpet 1 & 2 and the Pandora Directive since the last post. I know at least one person is waiting for it, so I’ll probably have a look at the System Shock 2 guide next.