A quick and entertaining read with fun insights into the world of game development and of course, strategy guides. Starting around the Tony Hawk chapters, I liked the depth and insights the author gave, and I really enjoyed the Diablo 3 chapter. That said, there were a couple chapters earlier on that felt relatively underdone; I wanted more details. In any case, I look forward to seeing other books from this author!

Thank you to Goodreads, the publisher, and the author for a free copy of the book.

You ever see a book and think OMG THIS WAS MADE FOR ME!!!

This book just misses the mark. The stories, outside of Diablo 3 are pretty much fluff. I never felt like I was getting a behind the scenes look at the process. It was more like hey I wrote this guide and I did it in this office.

That was fun, cool idea for a book. I read my fair share of guides back in the day. There are actually a few I wish I could get my hands on just to thumb through the art. I’m glad he took the time to acknowledge the notorious FF9 guide, as that’s one of my favorite games ever. Interesting to learn what went into the making of them. Worth reading if you’ve got the time for a quick read.

Full disclosure, I’m a sucker for insider stories about the gaming industry. Even being an insider, working in games myself, reading behind-the-scenes accounts of games I’ve loved is fascinating. When I picked up The Walkthrough, it was because I was sitting next to Doug Walsh at an independent author event held in a temporarily converted martial arts studio in Redmond Washington. Doug spent years working writing strategy guides for games like Bioshock, Gears of War, Halo, and plenty of others that made me insanely jealous. This book is his story of what putting together those thick, glossy beauties, adorning the shelves of Game Stop was like.

Off the bat, I think it’s hard to write an autobiography without sounding a little pretentious, and at first, it can seem like Walsh writes in that style. However, as he gets into his interest in the gaming industry as a whole and the intricacies of what went into writing a strategy guide, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Walsh’s account of his time in the industry is brief, to the point, and never ceases to be interesting. Before reading, I didn’t have the slightest idea how a guide got made, and reading Doug’s stories made me nostalgic for the days that they were still on shelves.

Overall, I was engaged every minute through Doug’s book and I would highly recommend it to any video game fan. Hell, even the young’uns out there who think strategy has always been found on YouTube might enjoy this piece of what is quickly becoming history. Walsh is an engaging writer with an interesting story, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Very cool look into the video game strategy guide industry, going from it's heyday in the early aughts to it's (mostly) demise just earlier this year.