Dragon Age: Origins Collector's Edition: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides) [ハードカバー]

The Positives

1. This is a sturdy, well put together book. The cover is nice enough but careful handling this book with your bare hands because you will leave noticeable smudges. The pages are crisp and strong with vibrant colors for the art and well sized text. Also, the Bioware team autographs grace both the front and back inner covers. It's a nice touch overall. A note to console owners of the game: this guide features screenshots of the PC version of DA. You will see many screens that are not a part of the console UI.

2. The bonus lore sections (not in the standard version of the guide) contain some fantastic background information on everything from the geography, history and cultures of Thedas to some stunning D&D-esque artwork and concept drawings. I'm not sure how big a deal this is for some as most all of it will wind up on unofficial wikis but it's a nice to have it in book form.

3. The walkthrough presented for the mainline quest is thorough and is made to get you though the game as directly as possible for those who just want to get to the end quickly.

4. The first few sections covering character builds, party make ups, talents, skills and combat tactics offer excellent advice and examples. The section on companion AI scripts alone is worth the read for those who want to get in depth with that.

5. The book's layout is very straightforward. The first few sections cover the basics of gameplay (keep in mind the author assumes you've read the instruction manual packed in with the game) then you have sections covering your companions, NPCs, equipment lists, vendor lists and locations, the main walkthrough, a bestiary, side quests listings, section covering PC achievements as well as a list of console achievements and trophies and the aforementioned Lore sections.

The Negatives

1. This book is rife with spoilers! Way too many in my estimation and they're hard to avoid. In fact, if you buy this book, I recommend you DO NOT read the sections covering your companions. Far too many story points have been ruined for me through casual browsing alone! Worse still, there are no warnings before any of the spoilers so read with caution!

2. The section covering the side quests is very skimpy with practical information. For the most part you are told how to initiate the quest or how to find it. On some of them it will list steps that need to be taken but most are just general descriptions of the quest itself. For many of the side quests there are no listings of enemies, bosses or rewards associated with it. For the most part you're left to figure it out on your own. Personally I can live with this but I would have liked a reference I could go to after I've beaten a quest to see what my other options were.

3. There are many typos and grammatical errors in this book. Not comically so but enough to be noticeable.

4. The bestiary suffers from the same problems as the side quests listings. The information on a given enemy is usually nothing more than it's Codex entry found in the game. Very few of the listings offer practical advice on combat or weaknesses.

Overall Thoughts

Frankly, practical advice and walkthroughs that offer more than this guide does will sooner or later be available on unofficial Wikis and other game sites. That said, despite the negatives, I don't regret buying the guide because, for me, part of the fun with old-school western rpgs is figuring things out as you go and Dragon Age is as old-school as it gets. I don't think the guide is worth the MSRP but at the discounted price Amazon is offering I think it's a good pick up, especially if you've become a fan of the DA:O setting like myself.

Pros:
It's professionally written, with excellent graphics, beautifully bound and presented. You will enjoy reading it, and getting some background for the game.
Cons:
I will give you a quick example, for the side quest in the game titled "Elora's Halla" the game guide informs you that if you use skill X you can complete the quest and receive "an item", if instead you use Skill Y, you can complete the quest and receive "some experience points". Well...which do I want to do? I have no idea what "an item" is, and I have no idea of the relative value between "an item" and "some experience points". What this means, is that prior to completing the quest, I must (1) save the game, (2) perform both solutions, (3) find out what I get for both solutions, and then (4) determine which save game I want to keep. Whatever would I have done without this guide? Well...I would have (1) saved the game, (2) done the quest both ways, (3) received my rewards, and (4) loaded the save game dependent on which outcome I wanted. So whether or not I bought this guide, I am forced to do the exact same thing. I contend, that this means that I, and whoever else purchase this game guide, have wasted our money. This is not an isolated incident. In virtually every case throughout the entire guide, at no point am I actually GUIDED to perform the action that I want. I have no guidance, whatsoever.

Don't waste your money.

I'm shocked; for a Prima guide, this is absolutely worthless. I'll give you the pros first, since there aren't that many: first, if you haven't played much of D&D or WoW (or other such games), this guide does give an indepth look into character creation and gives many tips at most of the types of characters you would play. Second, it has a nice section showing the gifts in the game and whom to give them to. Third, it has a LOT of history in it. Since this game has a lot of story, I will include that as a pro. Oh, and it's hardbound.
Other than that, there isn't much to this guide. The "walk-through" is horrible. Every section has (if you are lucky) a small paragraph that does not go into detail about what you should do. It's like asking for directions, and someone saying, go to (state), then (city), then downtown. If you have questions after that, you're screwed.
The layout is decent, but all the side-quests are in the back. That doesn't sound bad, except there aren't really hints in the main quest that say "you could do (quest) here." You just have to know, or get lucky.

Short Version: Good character creation tips, good history, everything else bad.