Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour : Prima's Official Strategy Guide

Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: This guide does exactly what a strategy guide should do: It tells you how to play the game. Of course, the game is somewhat open ended within each mission. I often found myself going different routes than the guide suggests, but even then, the suggestions made by the book are valuable.

Note that this covers both the base game and the expansion, which makes it a good value. Unless you already had the book for the base game... ;-)

Rating:
Summary: Good but could be better
Review: Typical of Prima's guides this book contains all the "how to" suggestions of completing the game. Part I of the book focusses on the original "Generals" which gives good hints including an overall map of each mission. This section would be a 5 out of 5.

Part II is where it seems to fall apart. Part II has a nice guide on new abilities but as far as a guide for each of the fifteen missions, it divides the mission with a step by step of how to go through the mission with little windows into what you can expect to see along the way. The one large omission is that it doesn't have an overall map for each mission or any mission in "Zero Hour" which I've found is probably the biggest help in these guide books. With the overall map, the reader/player can get an overall perspective of where the dangers lie and how best to avoid them. This is especially helpful if you want to attempt to complete the mission by a different method. Why this was included for the Part I "Generals" missions but not the Part II "Zero Hour" missions is a mystery.

For a book on the original "Generals" this is a 5 out of 5. For a guide on "Zero Hour" it would probably be more of a 3 out of 5. Frankly I'm disappointed with this supposed "Zero Hour" guide for the reason above.

Rating:
Summary: Good but could be better
Review: Typical of Prima's guides this book contains all the "how to" suggestions of completing the game. Part I of the book focusses on the original "Generals" which gives good hints including an overall map of each mission. This section would be a 5 out of 5.

Part II is where it seems to fall apart. Part II has a nice guide on new abilities but as far as a guide for each of the fifteen missions, it divides the mission with a step by step of how to go through the mission with little windows into what you can expect to see along the way. The one large omission is that it doesn't have an overall map for each mission or any mission in "Zero Hour" which I've found is probably the biggest help in these guide books. With the overall map, the reader/player can get an overall perspective of where the dangers lie and how best to avoid them. This is especially helpful if you want to attempt to complete the mission by a different method. Why this was included for the Part I "Generals" missions but not the Part II "Zero Hour" missions is a mystery.

For a book on the original "Generals" this is a 5 out of 5. For a guide on "Zero Hour" it would probably be more of a 3 out of 5. Frankly I'm disappointed with this supposed "Zero Hour" guide for the reason above.