Prima Guides
128 files
-
Super NES Games Secrets
By Areala
Hey all you 'Secrets of the Games' collectors out there! Welcome to volume 1 of Prima's Super NES Games Secrets, where GamePro's Andy Eddy compiled strategies shared by Zach Meston, Rusel DeMaria, and Donn Nauert into a book covering most of the original releases for the console. Expect to see Super Mario World, Pilotwings, U.N. Squadron, F-Zero, Super R-Type, Gradius III, and (admit it, the real reason you bought this book) True Golf Classics: Waialae Country Club!
Otherwise, why are you reading this? There were something like two dozen books in this format put out by Prima. You know what they look like. You know what you're getting. You already downloaded it. Click 'Thanks' to pay your tribute, and await the release of Volume 2 as soon as I get it finished. ❤️
430 downloads
Updated
-
Super Smash Bros. Melee - Prima's Official Strategy Guide
By dablais
Super Smash Bros. Melee - Prima's Official Strategy Guide
392 downloads
0 comments
Submitted
-
-1.thumb.jpeg.47dc9978a77b7e71e0210bd2b962b819.jpeg)
Super Smash Brothers Brawl Prima Official Game Guide (2008)
By bogusfrank
Super Smash Brothers Brawl Prima Official Game Guide (2008)
452 downloads
0 comments
Submitted
-
Super Star Wars Official Game Secrets
By Areala
Prima's official guide to making the Empire look like a bunch of scruffy-looking Nerf-herders (at least until the sequel) makes its Retromags debut!
Probably what's most impressive about this book is the amount of artwork taken from the movies which is packed between the covers. There are sidebars galore, with all kinds of info on the major players from A New Hope, sprite rips of all the various enemies you will face in the game, and some huge, multiple-page-spanning composite maps of each level. Oh, and the cheat codes. Because, trust me, you're going to need those to get anywhere in this merciless game.
All in all, this is a pretty cool book which can be expensive to find in good condition. Even if you don't care for the game itself, it's something every fan of the Original Trilogy can flip through for a little nostalgia hit.
As Old Ben Kenobi might put it: "An elegant guide from a more civilized, pre-Special-Edition age."
Enjoy! ❤️
580 downloads
Updated
-
0 comments
Updated
-
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Prima Guide
By MigJmz
This scan was provided by Melora from History of Hyrule.
Visit the History of Hyrule website and follow him on twitter @historyofhyrule.
Thanks to TimBisley for asking for permission!
1,027 downloads
Updated
-
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Prima Guide
By MigJmz
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Prima Guide
1,240 downloads
0 comments
Updated
-
Tomb Raider Chronicles Official Strategy Guide
By Areala
A fine guide for a middle-of-the-road game. Once again, Chronicles received a release on the PlayStation, PC, and Dreamcast, but since they're all exactly the same with no platform-specific differences other than control layout, you can use this book no matter which version you're trying to beat. What's interesting is that this game isn't a sequel to Last Revelation, but rather a series of non-connected mission packs showcasing some of Lara's past exploits
This is a compact book, and they could have started and ended with just the walkthrough bits, but Prima went above and beyond with a few extra pages at the end. The first bonus section is a short look back at the previous four Tomb Raider games, showcasing Lara's development and her biggest accomplishments along with some screenshots to refresh our memories. At the time, Chronicles was touted as being the last time we'd see Lara, at least for a little while, so this was a nice inclusion.
Following the retrospective, we then get four pages of notes on how to use the Level Editor which shipped with the PC version of the game. This tutorial comes from Nick Connelly, one of Core's level designers, and explains how to build, texture, light, and populate a room. It's a basic room, nothing to set the world on fire, but it's a nice introduction and explanation of what can be made using the level editor. There are much more comprehensive tutorials available online to explain the ins and outs of the level creator, but this is certainly a fine start.
Enjoy! ❤️
614 downloads
0 comments
Updated
-
Tomb Raider Game Secrets
By Areala
The world was introduced to Lara Croft, aka "The Divine Pony-tail", with the release of the original Tomb Raider game in 1996, and I, Areala the world has yet to stop worshiping her for the goddess that she is. Oh sure, she's had the occasional makeover from time to time, to smooth out her polygon counts in her more curvy regions, or to increase her resolution to high-definition standards, but make no mistake, this was the Lara the world fell in love with, triangular boobs and all.
This was one of the last guides produced in black and white by Prima; by the time they did their Tomb Raider II book, everything was full-colour. It's a pity they couldn't have done it for this book, since sitting right next to it on the shelf was Dimension Publishing's official guide, which made this one look downright pedestrian with its greyscale gradients. But even in the mid-90's, going full-colour for a strategy guide was a luxury most publishing houses outside of Nintendo were not willing to spring for, except for the occasional mid-book insert like you got with Prima's Super Metroid and Secret of Mana guides.
On the plus side, there is a short interview with some of the Core staff which explains how they developed the game, which is neat from a historical perspective.
Nevertheless, whether you prefer Nick Roberts's stoic British sensibilities in this guide, or Zach Meston's irreverent, American, devil-may-care prose which graced Dimension's offering, you absolutely must download this book, and properly thank your Retromags Goddess for willingly sacrificing her collection of Tomb Raider goodies for your benefit.
Enjoy! ❤️
670 downloads
Updated
-
Tomb Raider Hint Book
By Areala
A short, fifteen-page guide to the original Tomb Raider which gives a run-down of Lara's moves, the traps she can encounter, and the locations of the extra weapons she can acquire. I'm not entirely sure where this came from. It may have been a freebie that came with the purchase of Tomb Raider Gold on the PC, it may have been included with a magazine...I just don't know. It's nothing special, but now all of you can enjoy it too!
475 downloads
Updated
-
Tomb Raider I and II - Prima's Official Strategy Guide
By JohnR
Tomb Raider I and II - Prima's Official Strategy Guide
Paper Doll can be found here scanned by the lovely Areala
1,607 downloads
- tomb raider
- tomb raider 2
- (and 9 more)
Updated
-
Tomb Raider II Gold Official Strategy Guide
By Areala
You were expecting Tomb Raider III, weren't you?
Isn't it just like Lara Croft to surprise us like that? The Divine Pony-tail is never where you expect her. Rather like this strategy guide here, which covers both the standard Tomb Raider II game and Gold level pack expansion. You would expect such a book would be larger than the stand-along Tomb Raider II guide, right? More levels = more pages, of course.
You might think this, but then, like Marco Bartoli thinking he could stop Pistols Spice, you would be wrong. Kip Ward re-wrote his entire manuscript into a format which would become the standard for Prima's Tomb Raider guides from this point on (a design standard which they almost certainly cribbed from Zach Meston's guides for Dimension Publishing): hundreds of screenshots, one after the other, each one accompanied by a tiny block of text explaining the next step to mastering the stage.
The layouts and paste-ups for these things must have been hell.
Because of this, we get 112 pages of pictures explaining exactly how to complete every level and find every secret. Just the way Lara would want it, don't you agree?
Of course you do.
Enjoy! ❤️
537 downloads
Updated
-
Tomb Raider II Official Strategy Guide
By Areala
The second installment of the Divine Pony-tail's adventure takes her globetrotting polygons to the mountains of Nepal, the depths of the ocean, the Great Wall of China, and the mine-infested canals of Venice in search of the Dagger of Xian, which turns you into a dragon if you stab it directly into your heart.
That sounds painful. Don't do that, boys and girls.
This Prima guide is in full-colour, featuring a walkthrough by Kip Ward filled with copious screenshots and illustrations of Lara Croft adorning every single page! What more could a love-struck woman such as I, Areala fans of Tomb Raider II ask? So, while it pained me to put my beloved TR2 guide beneath the cruel guillotine for debinding, the ability to spread the Gospel of the Divine Pony-tail will hopefully more than make up for the sacrifice.
Enjoy, my beloved disciples! Enjoy! ❤️
967 downloads
Updated
-
Tomb Raider III - Prima's Official Preview Guide
By E-Day
Tomb Raider III - Prima's Official Preview Guide
372 downloads
0 comments
Submitted
-
Tomb Raider III Official Strategy Guide
By Areala
Of the classic, PS1-era Tomb Raider titles, Tomb Raider III is probably the most difficult, and not always for the right reasons. With Core Design's employees struggling with epic burnout after being forced to churn out two sequels in two years, this game had the largest design team yet behind it, but by now the cracks were starting to show. With the public clambering for more everything, and no time to build a new in-game engine, they still managed to pack in new moves, including crawling, hand-over-hand climbing, and sprinting. Lara's arsenal was upgraded. There were new outfits to wear and new environments to explore, new enemies to slay, and new traps to contend with. The devs put a major focus on the idea of multiple ways to reach the same goal this time around, something they briefly toyed with in a couple of places in the first two games; this time, it was practically law. Instead of linear level progression, once players beat the opening stages set in India, they could choose to visit London, Nevada, or an island in the South Pacific, before taking Lara to Antarctica for her final confrontation.
The other Tomb Raider games could easily be completed without a guide; you'd occasionally want to refer to one if you couldn't locate that last secret, or were having difficulty understanding one of the puzzles, but by and large, it was within most players' abilities to complete the game without one. Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider II fostered level design that wanted to surprise and delight the player. Tomb Raider III, on the other hand, was designed in such a way as to be openly hostile, with massive, sprawling levels filled with death traps and obtuse puzzles, along with enemies placed specifically to force the player to waste resources. Picking the wrong location after finishing India, in fact, is tantamount to the game kicking you in the nuts/ovaries, and the "wrong" choice is not telegraphed in any way. If you ever flip through a strategy guide for Tomb Raider III that does not instruct you to go to Nevada upon finishing India, throw that book away.
Fortunately, this Prima guide does not make that mistake, and the path Kip Ward lays out is the "easiest" way through the game. That doesn't mean you get a cake walk, it just means you won't flip the difficulty switch to "screw you" without realizing it. Kudos also to Ward for providing a walkthrough of sorts for Lara's Home, explaining how to get into the secret treasure room, find the Racetrack key, and unlock the Quad Bike course. None of this is essential to beating the main quest, but it's possible to explore her mansion without realizing there's more to it than just beating the Assault Course and learning how to jump around.
Enjoy! ❤️
1,052 downloads
Submitted
-
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation Official Strategy Guide
By Areala
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation was a grand and confusing piece of art, with some excellent ideas and some utterly brain-wrecking puzzles which were clearly put there to pad out the play time and prevent people renting the game and beating it over a weekend. This was the first Tomb Raider released on the Sega Dreamcast, but aside from slightly better graphics than the PlayStation edition, it and the PC incarnation are all the same game, so this guide can walk you through any incarnation.
Much like Tomb Raider III, Last Revelation absolutely screamed for a strategy guide due to the aforementioned hair-pulling puzzles and some generally obnoxious gameplay elements which made things far more difficult than they should be. It's the most difficult of all the "classic" era entries, even harder than picking Nevada last in TR3, so if you managed to complete it without resorting to a walkthrough at any point, hats off to you. It's also the longest single entry in the franchise, comprising 42 stages in total, although some of these are re-visits to older stages with some minor tweaks due to story progression. It's the first Tomb Raider game to feature no hidden levels or special bonuses for collecting all of the in-game secrets (of which there are 70), although the British paper The Times teamed up with Core Design to release a special, PC-only downloadable level which celebrated the 75th anniversary of Howard Carter's excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb. Interestingly enough, this level wasn't just DLC, it was a full-fledged mini Tomb Raider game all on its own which didn't require the full version of Last Revelation in order to run, and came with two other TR-themed puzzle games to mess around with. This guide doesn't cover that bonus level, but if you're interested in playing it, you can find it at Stella's Tomb Raider Page. Both the GOG and Steam versions of Last Revelation come with the Times bonus content, just FYI.
Anyway, at nearly 180 pages, this is also the longest classic-era Tomb Raider game guide Prima ever made.
Enjoy! ❤️
852 downloads
Updated
-
Ultima Online: Age of Shadows Official Strategy Guide
By Areala
Age of Shadows was the fifth expansion for Ultima Online, released in early 2003, and like the previous year's Lord Blackthorn's Revenge, also featured a darker vibe. The primary purpose of this expansion was to add a crap-ton more land to help with the player housing situation. To that end, the team created a new land mass called 'Malas', an area that was essentially a giant, broken-up continent with hundreds of smaller island-like locations connected by bridges. Major changes came to the housing system, allowing players to customize and create structures of much broader and grander design than the small number of prefab options which had been available for the last five years. Established players who had already built and maintained homes were allowed to convert their old homes to the new design standard, ensuring they wouldn't be left out of the fun. In addition to alleviating the housing bubble, the expansion also introduced two new playable classes (the Paladin and the Necromancer), and added a Diablo-style explosion of magical item attributes and properties, allowing for a much greater range of possibilities for the loot tables.
But it wasn't all fun and games. All that extra stuff came with an increased monthly fee, and players discovered the new and powerful magic items turned the UO experience from a skill-based roleplaying experience into a loot hunt for the best gear so as to allow accelerated character growth. The combination turned off veteran players, who left the game in droves, and marked a significant downturn in the game's place in the much more crowded MMO marketplace.
This guide is an oddity, being mostly a reprint of the Lord Blackthorn's Revenge book (minus the Todd "Hey, I'm the Spawn Dude!" McFarlane interview), with only the last fifth or so being devoted to the new content unveiled in the expansion itself. Not bad if you skipped buying the LBR guide in 2002, but otherwise...
Enjoy! ❤️
156 downloads
Updated
-
Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge Official Strategy Guide
By Areala
This was published in 2002 to coincide with the release of the expansion, the fourth for Ultima Online, which was noteworthy for none other than Todd "You're Damn Right, I Created Spawn!" McFarlane joining the design team to populate a new zone within the now much larger map of Britannia with all sorts of twisted nightmares from his imagination.
For some reason, the two expansions that happened prior to Lord Blackthorn's Revenge (Ultima Online: Renaissance and Ultima Online: Third Dawn) both dropped without getting corresponding strategy guides, official or otherwise. Because of that, the guide to Lord Blackthorn's Revenge had to cover an awful lot of territory, as the playable world within the game had more than doubled since Second Age, with entire new continents now populated with extensive new dungeons. But in addition to covering all the updated content, this book offers a slew of extra content of use/interest to fans of Ultima who couldn't care less about playing the MMO. This includes an overview of the grand Ultima timeline featured in all the games which had released up to that point, a character glossary for major NPCs, significant events that had taken place both in the online and off-line games, a guide for new players, an interview with Todd "Did I Mention I Created Spawn?" McFarlane, and a bunch of other goodies. Even if you couldn't care less about a twenty year old expansion to an MMO, you'll probably find something worth reading if you have even a passing interest in the Ultima world or RPGs in general.
This is a remarkably well put together book, with a lot of great information. Obviously it's more useful if you're familiar with Ultima Online, but even if you don't know much (I never played the game myself, though I had friends in college who did, so most of my knowledge comes from their accounts), it's still a really cool book that deals with far more than just stat tables and skill progression lists.
Enjoy! ❤️
148 downloads
0 comments
Updated
-
Ultima Online: The Second Age Official Strategy Guide
By Areala
Ultima Online: The Second Age was the first major update/expansion to Ultima Online. Released in 1998, a year after Ultima Online's debut, it added a new swamp/marsh zone called "The Lost Lands" (which included two new cities), a plethora of new enemies to fight, and the ability for players to construct their own cities. A plethora of other mechanics were implemented and enhanced as well, including a real-time text translation service allowing players world-wide to break the language barrier, modifications to the user interface, and an expansion of in-game chat features.
For many, The Second Age is considered the definitive version of the game, as a massive number of players joined UO with this specific edition. This has led to a plethora of user-created servers (known as 'Shards') dedicated to running versions of the software that most closely mimic the look, play style, and features of this specific instance versus the version of the game running today. Indeed, if you want to see what all the fuss is about, the shard is free to play, with the software that can be found here:
https://www.uosecondage.com/
Because of that, this guide has actually retained its value on the second-hand market, making it a $20-30 acquisition for anyone wanting their own copy. After learning this, it pushed this book to the top of the preservation stack, and I'm delighted to offer it up for your perusal and digital hoard.
The only down side? My copy was acquired second-hand, and is lacking the full-colour poster map that came bound as a tear-out sheet between pages 144 and 145. If anyone else has a copy of this poster already scanned, please don't hesitate to contact me, and I'll add it to the file with full credit to you.
Otherwise, enjoy the download, smack that 'Thanks' button, and I'll see you with the next upload shortly! ❤️
153 downloads
0 comments
Updated
-
WCW vs. nWo World Tour - The Official Trategy Guide
By E-Day
WCW vs. nWo World Tour - The Official Trategy Guide
625 downloads
0 comments
Submitted
-
0 comments
Submitted
-
WCW/nWo Revenge Prima's Official Guide
By MigJmz
WCW/nWo Revenge Prima's Official Guide
742 downloads
Submitted
-
X Squad - Prima's Official Strategy Guide
By E-Day
X Squad - Prima's Official Strategy Guide
232 downloads
0 comments
Submitted
-
Yu-Gi-Oh - Worldwide Edition - Stairway to the Destined Duel (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)
By bogusfrank
Yu-Gi-Oh - Worldwide Edition - Stairway to the Destined Duel (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)
286 downloads
Submitted
-
.thumb.jpg.f4c02a692e14d848b004f8911db0669d.jpg)
Yu-Gi-Oh! - Capsule Monster Coliseum - Prima Official Game Guide (1996)
By dablais
Yu-Gi-Oh! - Capsule Monster Coliseum - Prima Official Game Guide (1996)
147 downloads
0 comments
Submitted
-
Latest Products
-
GMR Issue 19 (August 2004)
In Stock -
Retromags Blindbox Fundraiser!
Out of Stock -
-
Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 13 (Christmas 1990)
Out of Stock
-
-
Download Statistics
Announcements
-
Files
-
page001.thumb.jpg.9a45970ee716a6254537f4e0574195aa.jpg)
.thumb.jpg.9300ddcffaa3983824e655c715ee199b.jpg)
.thumb.jpg.bd07b95196b553657a1e10501fb1e1aa.jpg)
480.thumb.jpg.bf8f133852be4ad2abb4b8e5d95ea108.jpg)
001.thumb.jpg.73fe11915c83cad971a5d4c9e4f2befb.jpg)
.thumb.jpg.69fc10b74ed3fecef1bc64fa3d2367b6.jpg)
ThumbnailFrontCover.thumb.jpg.e3370a0fa6f29faf7e4ab408d0638cf6.jpg)
.thumb.jpg.a201824797edf0fec65daa662810efc0.jpg)
