Fallout New Vegas Collector's Edition: Prima Official Game Guide

As a frame of reference, I am a Fallout "junkie". I have played every Fallout iteration, and most recently spent nearly 400 hours in the east coast wastelands of Fallout 3. My constant companion through that journey was David Hodgson's excellent Collector's Edition Guide. And I'm happy to report this guide for Fallout New Vegas is no different. David has a wonderful way of including non-spoiler strategy and character creation sections at the start of both of these guides, which allows you to safely plan for your upcoming journey without worrying about stumbling across a story element you really wished you hadn't seen. You can decide exactly how you want to allocate those SPECIAL points (No, really, SPECIAL - Strategy, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck...S.P.E.C.I.A.L.). And key to that initial allocation is knowing which Skills to summarily choose, and then which Perks you want to gain access to during the game. With the change to only gaining 1 perk every 2 levels (instead of F3's generous 1 per each level), planning these out based on your style of game play is critical. Like to talk your way out of battles? Perhaps a high Charisma and Intelligence, which could lead to choosing Speech and Science for your TAG skills, and then select skills like Confirmed Bachelor of Lady Killer for extra conversation options. Personally, I like to play the sniper, so a high perception and agility came into play. The guide has helped me through over 100 hours of Fallout New Vegas so far, reach level 28 out of 30. It let me plan my skill progression, choose the two traits (back in Fallout!) that best suited my game play. But there is so much more. A detailed fold out map, that references locations specifically spelled out in the guide. Sections of companions, enemies and NPCs, armor, weapons and ammo. Want a step-by-step through the main quest? It's there. Want help with just one side quest? They are there in alphabetical order. Wondering what is inside that tempting mine entrance you just stumbled across while running from a pack of Deathclaws? It's in there. I highly recommend this to EVERY Fallout player, new to the series or a hardened veteran of the wastes. Congratulation to David for creating another wonderful guide that lets every user choose their level of help and their level of "spoilerage". See you all in the wasteland...I'll be the one playing Caravan at the Mojave Outpost, drinking a whiskey with Cass and wondering if I'll ever get to visit California beyond that locked gate...

LOVED: - Art section in the back. Had some great pictures of the posters you see throughout the game. - Detailed fold out map. Printed on both sides, with every collectible, point of interest and easy to read grid format. - Quest TREE! Shows the entire quest line and options. Saves so much time... as oppose to the Borderlands guide which just listed it by mission number and just casually mentioned a quest had a pre-req with no page number to find said pre-req. In the FNV guide, it'll let you know exactly what your actions lead to. Even has some alternatives. - Suggested character builds. I went with a generic build in FO3 since I didn't really know any better. Avoided the mistake this time and went with the suggested power armor and weapons build the guide had. It'll keep me on track for the perks I want late game. There are quite a few suggested build types so you are bound to find one to fit your style of play. - Layout of all towns and shows you what items are to be found in each building. - Has a warning for every game play change between FO3 and FNV. NEEDS WORK: - Towns are sometimes listed without their zone coordinates. This happened to me early one while looking for the detailed map of Goodsprings. Eventually found the coordinates and flipped the appropriate page. - The pro's and con's of each faction could use more detail. There is an intro piece on each but I had to go further into the walk-through to see how exactly siding with one side cut off others, including sub-factions. I went with NRC because... well I'm from California. Wish I had more of an idea of what I was getting into. - Missing at least one of the Free Quests. I ran into one in Goodsprings that was not listed. It was the typical damsel in distress ruse from FO3 so I knew what was coming. Though, it would've been helpful to know there are few items at the end that worth it. DISLIKED: - Length of art section. Wish it had a few more pages. This guide is definitely worth the price and a must have for people who want to experience the entire game. It is high quality, easy to follow, and very informative.

The book is pretty thick at 480 pages and packed with information. The type is fairly small, but not cringing small. The difference between this and the normal edition is the hardcover and there are 32 pages of extra content (art and behind the scenes stuff). Mine's numbered 97590, so I guess they printed a lot of collector's edition. The book is split into a few main parts: Training, Main Quest, Side Quest, Tour of Mojave Wasteland and Appendices. The Training section basically talks about the game mechanics and character development. There's an explanation for all the attributes, perks, skills, etc available, all of which I find very useful as I'm new to Fallout. There are also suggested character builds with recommended stats and suggestions on how to spend you Skill points. And of course, there are weapon information and enemy profiles. The walkthrough section is detailed and complete with all the items you can find during any particular quest. To avoid spoilers, just skip the text and follow the quest flowchart which is basically a list the prerequisites required for the quest. Items you can find are marked by big icons. Side quests come in at an overwhelming 150 pages, more than twice the pages for the story quest. Wow. They are as detailed as the main walkthrough. This where you can find cool items, gain extra experience and visit strange places. I might take a year traveling through the desert to find all these side quests without the guide. You can be sure you won't miss any even if you miss talking to any characters. Maps come in a few form and they are very useful. The pullout poster map has 3 maps showing the roads, enemy hangouts and collectibles respectively. In the book, the maps are close-ups of areas and blueprints of buildings with details down to the room level, and the list of collectibles and quests. If you're a collector-type of player in the game, then this book (or the paperback edition) is for you. I'm not too sure the extra 32 pages of art/stuff/hardcover is worth that extra $6 or so - but it's not too much anyway. (There are a few pages from the art pages on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

my first opinion was that the cover was beautiful because its a hardcover(and i love hardcovers) i first noticed a map at the back of the guide with three maps of the mojave wasteland 1st map:shows al the locations and the legend 2st: shows al the threats (which location that is dominated by hwo) and the 3st shows al the locations of the secrets (hollowed out rocks, sunset sarsaparilla star bottle caps, skill books, skill magazines etc) in the guide is a more detailed explanation of the location. the thing i really love is that there is information about every human,insect and abomination(there are a lot more new animals than in fallout 3). there is also information about every perk in the game(even the special perks you can get buy completing a challenge or objective) you can also see information about every weapon in the game(including the special ones, 42 by the way) the walkthrough for the game itself isn't very clear though, sometimes its a bing line of tekst an you really have to search for the info, its all in there but its all cluthered up. you still have the completion graphic with al the actions you can do. and the locations and the advantages of comapanions, you can even upgrade your weapons now! i say its a smart choice to buy this guide if you want all the snow globes, sunset sarsaparilla star bottle caps and special weapons. it becomes quite more fun if you use the strategy guide, but you shouldnt play through the storyline as it is told in the guide, to explore the mojave wasteland on your one is much more fun :).

I am a returning Fallout player, so obviously I compared this edition to the Fallout 3 guide as soon as I got it, as far as content goes, this guide does the job with the bestiary, items, weapons, ammo, factions and crafting sections, in a few words they get the job done... good. But I have the feeling that this guide is more for seasoned Fallout players as the step by step guide for the primary, secondary and unmarked quests are not as detailed as in the Fallout 3 guide, the character build section and survival section of this guide are more thorough more so than in the quests. As for the book itself, it is much better than its predecessor, keeping the same hard cover and art work that made the Fallout 3 guide stand out so much and with silky smooth paper that is way much stronger and tougher than that hideous paper used in the last guide. I have really no complains about this guide, if you want to master the mojave and have Deathclaws run from you on sight, this is a must have for you, the only reason why I didn't give this guide a five star rating was because the quest section of this guide was not as detail heavy as the Fallout 3 guide like I said before, but overall this is a very nice piece for any collector or achievement hunter.

I felt a bit iffy buying a hardcover strategy guide for a 16 year old videogame but I was surprised and delighted upon receiving it. It was still factory wrapped and contained the foldout map as well. None of the corners of the hardcover or the pages were dogeared or damaged. As this is a new limited edition strategy guide I would recommend the seller but don’t get your hopes up on availability. Only negative strike against this purchase was that the price was too dear.

I received my Fallout New Vegas Collector's Edition: Prima Official Game Guide on 10/18/2010... so i had a chance to peek at the guide prior to the game being released. To avoid spoiling the game i only read the first few missions, and i must say they are very detailed. A very important area in the fallout series is the choices made for speech... they are covered in detail so you know ahead of time what will result from different choices. The main reason i buy game guides for is for the locations and items. The Fallout New Vegas Collector's Edition: Prima Official Game Guide does a great job on listing the items, locations, and extremely detailed weapons stats. Another reason i use the book is to make a plan for how i would like my character to level up. I find it extremely useful to create a draft of your character prior to starting the game. While playing Fallout 3 i made the mistake of choosing some useless perks, i didn't want to do the same again. The guide also has a pull out map identical to the Fallout 3 guide map... very detailed map & useful map! This book has everything you would expect in a Prima game guide. If you love the Fallout series this is the guide for you!

Let me start off by saying the quality of the hardcover version is very good. It is illustrated well and has a great deal of information. It comes shrinkwrapped with a fold out stand-alone map inside. Because I often use reference guides while playing video games, the hardcover seems like it will do well in protecting the pages from bending and tearing. The introduction is very thorough in explaining the various stats and build types, so I was initially quite impressed. When I started playing, however, the shortcomings of this guide became apparent. The guide is structured so that the main questline is summarized in a consecutive order. When I say summarized, I really mean summarized. Each quest is a few lines at most. Any further details on the quest in addition to side quests have to be looked up in a separate quest section. This isn't too bad as it is listed alphabetically. Although more detailed, the quest guide also leaves much to be desired besides telling you what you must do and possible outcomes of various actions. If for example, you would like to see if you missed any items (skill books, weapons, etc.) while on a particular quest you must then find the area that you're in a separate zone guide. The zone guide is a nightmare to navigate as the locations are divided up in zones (Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, etc.) Then again the items aren't listed in any convenient matter. For that you will need to look up the appendix section for a list of items. And finally to add insult to injury, there is no index. So on any given quest be prepared to spend quite some time navigating through hundreds of pages to find what you're looking for. Now this is a shame as the guide has a lot of good information, just a horrible layout. Not to kick it while it's down, but it really reminds me of the game itself. Great game. I love it. Just what were they thinking in releasing it with so many bugs? I feel this guide would have been 5 stars easily if they spent a few extra days or weeks editing it. But production schedules are a bi*th, and the consumer pays for it in the end literally and figuratively. I give it 3 stars because it does have all the information. Minus 2 stars becuase I found myself on Fallout Wiki more often than trying to figure out where everything in the book was. The layout is really not good. And the type is difficult to read. If you haven't purchased this guide yet, read it at a local store before buying to see if you like the format. If you just want a collectible, then the hardcover is really nice. And as always Amazon prices rock. Less than the cost of the softcover at other stores. Thanks for reading and good luck! Edit: 10/26/10 I guess they did put in an index. Unfortunately it's only available online as a PDF. Kind of defeats the purpose, but you can go print one out and stick in the back of your copy... Being a product manager dealing with print jobs, I can almost guarantee what happened. "Oh sh-t, we ran quality checks on the print runs and we forgot to give them the index." "How many copies were affected?" "All of them. We can tell them to halt production and add it in, but that will change costs and delay production." "Ship them out. We'll post a PDF index on the website and say its a free added value. We'll call it something catchy like.. 'Enhanced Navigation'." [...]

This book is a must have if you own Fallout: New Vegas the game. There are so many locations and places in this game that even the most thorough gamer may miss a few. I know that part of the fun is to find a new area on your own without help from a book, but seriously this helps with the frustration of finding something you've spent hours looking for. It also describes the enemies and items to be found at all the locations. So you know if its worth it to investigate an area or not. Also the book details all the missions, enemies, items and a little back story to the game. The book is well presented with a detailed hardback cover and is over 200 pages and also includes a seperate map pinpointing all locations of interest in the game. Overall I would give it 10/10.

A mi hijo le encanto ya que es un gran fan de la saga fallout y le gusto que fuera una guía estratégica de sus entregas favoritas

Essential giude if you want to roam the wastland!

I've played the Fallout Series all the way from the first two, then tactics, even Brotherhood of Steel which was the original Xbox's attempt at a Baldur's Gate style game, now, I play the second Fallout title by Bethesda studios and what can I say? Better, bigger and bolder, they've refined it, given it more of that wasteland feel and added twists and turns at every angle, therefore, I decided to buy the guide a few days after I purchased the game, why? I want it all, I need to explore every inch of this game, I want to play this game as fully and complete as I did in the previous Fallout titles. The guide, well, it's a great publish, I set out by starting again, following one of the "Archetypes" it recommends for the "Hardcore" play through, I tried to reed little bits at a time and found my self with the game on pause for 10 - 15 minutes at a time as I read up on quests, info, tips, extras, alternate options and found my self enjoying the read more than I thought, I was pleased to find that you can be shown all available outcomes and items obtained (As well as amount of Xp) also how to tackle each obstacle depending on your play style, be it silent and stealthy, rugged and rough, or go in all guns blazing. As for content of the guide, you will not be unsatisfied, it has load outs of all statistics, a huge bestiary, weapons and armoury section and secrets/hidden objects and also shows where there are differences between this game's mechanics and that of Fallout 3 for those who played it (Like me) and think, "pfft... Yeah, I was pro at Fallout 3 so I'll smash through this new one in no time" - only to find out it's not quite the same as it's predecessor. The look and feel of the guide is neat and tidy, it's a rigid hardback book, clear and readable text, not to busy or confusing and has some great artwork within which the standard guide doesn't, and there is an issue number stamp that gives it a great feeling of authenticity. All in all, I rate it hugely, 5 of 5 stars.

Fallout guides are the benchmark.