Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter: Sybex Official Strategies and Secrets [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

~ David Chong (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This much anticipated expansion pack for Icewind Dale features new spells, weapons, equipment, and monsters. Like the original--a hugely successful role-playing game--Heart of Winter is a party-based dungeon crawl filled with incredible monsters and powerful magic. This official guide, created with the full cooperation of Black Isle Studios, features comprehensive walkthroughs of every level, detailed maps, and in-depth strategies and statistics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Sybex; illustrated edition edition (February 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0782129129
• ISBN-13: 978-0782129120
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #989,486 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Good manual for Icewind Dale, July 8, 2008

By	Francis R. Kolb "Frank" (South Carolina) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Manual was more than acceptable providing information enabling game play to be played to the fullest. Game suggestions were given to provide the most rewards and experience points.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Only for novice gamers, July 10, 2001

By	Paul Cerra - See all my reviews

This guide to Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is quite comprehensive. It contains countless details on items, spells, weapons and armor. The enemies you'll face are discussed. Locations of hidden treasures are revealed. For those gamers who are stuck, the guide offers detailed maps and walkthroughs for each area in the Heart of Winter expansion.

Despite this wealth of information, I believe that this book does not provide a good value for gamers. First of all, 99% of these "secrets" and strategies can be found for free on the internet. Secondly, the game manuals (supplied with the game) are quite comprehensive themselves, meaning that this strategy guide is often just repeating information that has already been presented. But even more importantly, this book provides so much information as to take all the fun out of playing the game.

Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter are very "linear" games. In other words, there is usually only one path to take. So the fun comes from building up your party of brave adventurers through hard-fought battles with terrible monsters. The manual deliberately leaves out all the tiny details on how best to group your party, or what weapons to use in different situations, leaving these things for the player to discover. Unfortunately, the manual reveals all this and more, and I feel that it leaves almost nothing for the player to discover on his/her own. I realize some people will consider my comments to be unfair criticism; after all, this is a strategy guide and it is *supposed* to reveal the techniques that work! Plus, the argument continues, you don't *have* to read those sections.

To its credit, this strategy guide does provide some very useful suggestions on one of the most important parts of the game: creating your characters. You will live (or die!) with these characters for the rest of the game, and it is important to create a well-balanced party, not to mention one that you'll enjoy playing with. Here the guide really does shine, helping players choose from the many player types available. Yet once again, I must point out that this information is available for free on various internet fan sites.

So if you are a novice gamer, and Heart of Winter has you stuck and frustrated -- and if you like holding a book in your lap -- then this guide will be a good purchase. But for everyone else, I'd suggest saving your money.

2 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ICEWIND DALE: HEART OF WINTER, March 1, 2001

By A Customer

This is the best guide in the gaming world.