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[Naked Snake]

I don't know if this has been talked about in the official thread since I'm avoiding it like the plague because I'm still very early in the game and don't want anything spoiled... Did anyone get the LE guide yet, how is it? I want to know if it's good so I can order it before it becomes hard to find or something

http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/245794.asp

 

[Mr_Furious]

I picked it up yesterday and skimmed through the content. The guide is like the stand alone guide already available so you can see for yourself if it's a good guide. IMO, the guide is competent but nothing special. It gets the job done. As for the artbook, I was expecting more than what was inside. Mostly character art in the same style as the previous character artworks in the franchise with a severe lacking of good concept art for the mechs, vehicles and environments. The back of the thing says $30 but EB had it tagged at $25 so if you can score one at that price PLUS the 20% discount IF you buy the game with the guide, then it' worth it. Don't pay $30 though, unless you are a HUGE fan of all things MGS.

 

[Uncle Dukey]

If you're just interested in an art book, wait for them to release a standalone one..

 

[Naked Snake]

I picked it up yesterday and skimmed through the content. The guide is like the stand alone guide already available so you can see for yourself if it's a good guide. IMO, the guide is competent but nothing special. It gets the job done. As for the artbook, I was expecting more than what was inside. Mostly character art in the same style as the previous character artworks in the franchise with a severe lacking of good concept art for the mechs, vehicles and environments. The back of the thing says $30 but EB had it tagged at $25 so if you can score one at that price PLUS the 20% discount IF you buy the game with the guide, then it' worth it. Don't pay $30 though, unless you are a HUGE fan of all things MGS.

Thanks for the impressions, what about the "foldout" (poster I guess? How big and what's the image?) and the comic book excerpt?

 

[Mr_Furious]

I just skimmed through the book and didn't look at the poster or comic and don't have it hear at work to check. Sorry.

 

[Naked Snake]

If you could report back when you get a chance to check it again that would be appreciated.

 

[Lord Error]

I got it yesterday, and I think both the artbook and the guide are really great. The print and paper quality are fantastic. I'm a big sucker for tasteful use of paper texture and quality gloss and matte lamination, and they certainly did it nicely here. Both books just feel very rich and nicely textured to touch.

As for the content, the comic book excerpt is there, at the end of the guide book, and the poster is also there, it's a really nice picture from the game, btw (the one with the Snake with the croc hat in the mangrove location).

The art book has tons or character art, mostly from MGS1, then MGS3, and the least from MGS2 - which is somewhat unfortunate, because from what is presented there, you can tell how Shinkawa's techniques progressed as he was working on the series. Guide book is thicker, content is very nicely laid out, but I didn't want to flip through it too much, as I'm still not nearly done with the game.

We don't get stuff like this in US very often, and importing books from Japan usually costs a lot more, so in short, I think the whole package is well worth the money.

 

[Naked Snake]

Thanks a lot Marconelly, you rock!

I'm going to order the guide now.

 

[Lord Error]

I can also second the complaint that there's too few mech artworks in there. There's one page dedicated to Metal Gear Rex, and there's a page where the MG Ray is in the background behind Snake and Raiden. That's about it. There might be some artwork of Shagohod in the guide book, but I didn't look at any pages beyond the point where I am in the game right now.

 

[Naked Snake]

Amazon.com has it for less than $20 (with free shipping after I add another book I want), that's even better than EBGames.com's price. They don't have it instock yet though, but I'm not in a hurry since I'm still very early in the game, it really sucks that I've been awaiting this game feverishly for ages and now that I have it I just don't have time to play!

 

[mrkapawutzis]

Amazon.com has it for less than $20 (with free shipping after I add another book I want), that's even better than EBGames.com's price. They don't have it instock yet though, but I'm not in a hurry since I'm still very early in the game, it really sucks that I've been awaiting this game feverishly for ages and now that I have it I just don't have time to play!

I was also planning on getting it from Amazon, but the fact that they don't have a release date has me suspect that they'll ever get it.

 

[Naked Snake]

I'll wait a few days or a week and see if they'll start shipping it, if not then I'll cancel my order and get it from EBGames.com instead. Normally I could order from Amazon before (credit card technicalities), but I gambled an order with EBGames a couple of weeks ago and it went through, so I'm hoping it'll work again.

 

[Crazymoogle]

Same old same old as far as guides are concerned. Incomplete, desperate to not spoil anything, and a few pages of utterly inconsequential stuff. On the other hand, they seem to have most of the toy frogs and some really handy maps.

The artbook, as far as american artbooks go, is fairly good; you get the front profile shinkawa artworks from almost every major MGS character, and very little else. You even get the less racy of the Sniper Wolf drawings.

On the other hand, some of the images are clearly photocopies rather than digital prints (pg. 69, 73), while others are just web-taken photos that are scaled obscenely (pg. 27, 77). If you want a real, authoritative and thoroughly interesting artbook, you need to buy the japanese releases (and although fully in japanese, the MGS1 book has a long conversation between Shinkawa and Amano (the FF logo and former character artist)

So, mixed bag, but no surprise there as this wasn't a Doublejump production.