Customer Reviews

Grand Theft Auto IV Signature Series Guide (Bradygames Signature Guides)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The only reason this guide gets a second star is because this guide does what it's supposed to do. It is quite helpful for getting you through the plot when you're stuck and it does contain detailed maps of the game's many extras. It also lists the Achievements for Xbox 360 and helpful strategies for Multiplayer.

I find the quality of strategy guides in general have gone down in recent years, and this one is no exception. Owners of stategy guides for the previous games in the GTA series (GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas) will be quite disappointed with this one. This strategy guide doesn't contain the expected list of vehicles that previous editions had (no pictures of the vehicles and not even a text list). It is also organized quite poorly. Most of the extras are contained within the Main Story Walkthrough (side missions, girlfriends, etc). You can't look up the extras by category. For example if you want to look up the girlfriends, one is listed on page 19, a couple on page 102, one on page 146, etc. All the other extras are listed in a similar manner. Since most of everything is listed within the Main Story Walkthrough, you always run the risk of seeing plot lines you don't want to see yet.

As others have stated, Game Guides have drastically declined in quality in recent years. Some seem to provide good information but appear to be printed on home computers, whereas some have excellent appearance, but lack desired information.

This book applies more to the second category. I made sure to flip through the pages before leaving the store to make sure none of the pages were crimped or blurry. What I saw was a very cleanly printed book, void of unnecessary images or intrusive background images. Game content is provided with clear and explanatory side bars and sub-plots. The information is very neatly presented and is very easy to follow.

However, readers will become discouraged when they begin searching for particular information regarding side-quests, extracurricular activities, non-player characters (your "friends" in the game), etcetera. The Table-of-Contents only shows the core missions of the game, along with the necessary "side missions" that grant 100% completion. There is no index, making it very difficult to find what you're looking for. This is especially frustrating when you're flipping back and forth through pages while mumbling "Well I know I saw it in here SOMEWHERE..."

There are no appendices or any other breakdown for all the other content (and trust me there's a lot of it) that GTA IV provides. This book focuses on "how to beat the game and get 100%." If you want to find easter eggs, hidden content, or just that typical, cool stuff that GTA has always provided, you'll probably have to sit near a computer and employ creative search-engine strategies.

Also, be advised that though the game documents the Achievements for the Xbox 360 system, it offers no advice on how to earn them.

I'm glad I got it for 20% off by buying it with the game.

Just got the book today after i have completed about 20% of the game. This guide is pretty interesting as it gives you tips here and there but like other reviewers, i find it rather disorganised. Not having the list of cars is definitely disappointed.

The plus points are the tips that are inside which is very informative for busy working class people who just wants to get to the game main storyline.

This guide is very thick. It has everything about the story line and special items and activities. However, like other guides you have to take it with a grain of salt so to say because the way the writers play the game may be different from the way someone else plays the game. You can get a idea of what strategy to use, but use your head when playing because you may need to change what you do to get through the game. The guide is helpful as far as letting you know what you need to do to complete the missions and it gives good advice on strategy, so it is not all bad info. I like it and use it when I get stuck on missions.

The Grand Theft Auto series of games have always been crammed full of things to do in addition to following the main story -- there are tons of hidden secrets and various other activities and missions.

The Bradygames Guide has literally everything you need to know about GTA IV, in order to obtain 100% completion. Considering how much information is involved, this is no small task. The book has a ton of colorful pictures, as well as detailed descriptions on beating every mission and finding every. last. secret. period.

The only downside to the book, and it is a major one, is the way in which the information is organized. The book is laid out from the standpoint of "this is what will happen next if you play the way we played". In other words, there is no organization of topics, only a 'flow' of information from one event to the next.

The problem with this methodology is that because GTA IV is an open ended game, it is extremely unlikely that anyone will play through the game in the order the book was written -- this means that you're not going to be able to easily find specific information in the book unless you also know what event preceded it in the main story.

Anyway, even though the data organization is a major annoyance, the fact remains that this guide has everything you ever wanted to know about GTA IV, so it is a must buy! You can find the same information scattered across a variety of websites, but the book is cheap and is very convenient to have next to you on the couch!

The quality of the materials used are top notch! The printing is excellent and the pages are thick and durable. I found the mission walk through section very helpful, accurate, and comprehensive. However, the guide lacked a lot of useful info. It doesn't tell you that you get better at fighting the more you do it, or which cars are the fastest, or how much the hospital will charge you when you die, etc. The guides I own for the previous GTA games all include this info, so I was a little dissapointed. the quality of the guides materials was vastly superior to any of the older guides though, so that earned it one more star.

This book has been helpful for me so far. I'm not a hardcore gamer, and I wouldn't call myself a casual gamer either, maybe a 'gaming enthusiast'. I also am a father of 3 young children with a career, which means maybe 45-90 minutes of gaming several nights out of the week. Although it's easy to stumble into a spoiler with this book, I like it because I know I'm not missing anything out of this fantastic game by not having endless hours to pour into it. Even if you don't care about 100% completion and you just want to follow the radar blips to complete the storyline, this book can still help because it can tell you how to find special items or unlock special abilities that will help you in the gameplay without having to use cheat codes that could cause glitches.

This book is thick, three times as thick as the one for gta 3. Full of info on all the missons and works for the PC version perfectly. Just a side note, the cheats codes for xbox 360 and ps3 work for PC as well.

This is an excellent strategy guide. It gives a very detailed explanation for each mission you incur. The maps show the locations of weapons, businesses, cars, characters, hidden items, etc. A lot of work went into the guide. My only complaint is that it does not show pictures of all the cars in the game. The San Andreas guide had that. This is why I give it a 4.

This is a real solid guide for GTA 4. The only beef I have with it is that it does not include a checklist that you can use to keep track of your 100% completion goals, but it does tell you what you have to do to get said 100%. The maps are accurate and reliable, the strategies are good ones to use, and it tells you the little things, like what activities your girlfriends enjoy, when your friends and GFs are available, and the appearance of hidden characters, which I think is nice. Overall, a good companion to help you make sense of the large and insane world that is Liberty City!