To Guide or Not to Guide: Awesome Sega Genesis Secrets by J. Douglas Arnold (1991, Sandwich Islands Publishing)

Note: Unless otherwise stated, all images in this article are scanned by me from my own sources.

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this review, I just want you to take a few moments and look at that cover. I mean, really look at it. Get all up in its business with your eyes, and feast in the glory of all that amazing airbrush work.

You just don't see stuff like that on books these days. Refreshing, isn't it? Kind of a breath of fresh air. I mean, there's everything you could want on that cover: a wizard gazing into a crystal ball, an armored knight fighting a fearsome dragon, and enough lens flare and pastel shades you could confuse this for a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper from a distance. They didn't call this book "Awesome" for nothing, you know. The artist, by the way, is Thomas Helmintoller, who spent years travelling the globe and training the employees of those airbrush kiosks in theme parks how to paint clothing. Man, why don't we have airbrush t-shirt kiosks in theme parks any more? Now I just feel old. :(

If you lived through this era of gaming, you might recognize the look this book is aping. Prima started pumping out their "Secrets of the Game" series in this format a year earlier, so it's not surprising Sandwich Islands chose to imitate it. SIP didn't last as long as Prima did, but that's not what matters. What matters is if their content was any good, which is why you're here to witness me pronounce judgement in the column known the world over as...

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To Guide or Not to Guide?

Awesome Sega Genesis Secrets is a compilation guide for twenty-one different pieces of software, which could have been yours back in the day for a mere $9.95 US or $12.95 if you insisted on living in Canada for some reason. I know the cover says "over 50 games" down at the bottom, but it's counting the ones listed in the "Mini Strategies" and "Awesome Secrets" sections at the back of the book in that total. It's not exactly lying, but it is a wee bit misleading.

The guide spends the first 225 of its 250 pages giving the full monty treatment to Air Buster, Alien Storm, Arcus Odyssey, Batman, Castle of Illusion, Decap Attack, El Viento, Midnight Resistance, Musha, Quackshot, Saint Sword, Shadow Dancer, Shining in the Darkness, Sonic the Hedgehog, Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin, Streets of Rage, Strider, Thunder Force III, Toe Jam and Earl, Vapor Trail, and Wardner. No matter what kind of gamer you are, you're going to find something useful stuffed in there. The cover touts a 25-page chapter devoted to Sonic the Hedgehog, and given how recently that game was released, getting a complete walkthrough for the game out so quickly would impress even the most impatient of rodents.

Those last twenty-five pages give hints, tips, cheats, and strategy tips for another another thirty or so titles, but for some reason pads the content a little by including entries for games covered elsewhere in the book. These entries direct the reader to go to a different section in the book, which is OK I guess, but taking out the duplicate entries back here would have allowed the author to cover more cheats for games not included. Not like there wasn't plenty more for Arnold to cover, since he got a full five volumes' worth of stuff put out by the time this series wrapped up, but still...

It's not all just text either. Almost every page in here features 1-2 screenshots, and while the images appear in black and white to save on printing costs, they're about as far from the grainy messes that show up in other books of this sort that I've ever seen. Here's a page from the Midnight Resistance write-up:

This is ridiculously impressive for 1991.

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Guide.

This isn't just a book of secrets, it's literally 21 walkthroughs all slapped between two covers and heavily illustrated with screencaps. Unlike other books of this sort by other publishers, Arnold didn't write up how to beat the first couple areas then leave you hanging. Every single game in here gets a step-by-step guide to handling each level, broken down into sections with hints about what to look for and what surprises you can expect. There's no overview of the controls, no recycling of the content you'd find in the instruction manual; Arnold gets straight down to the business of guiding you from the title screen to the ending expeditiously, then caps each entry with a selection of interesting cheat codes, passwords, and tricks in case you want to humiliate the game even further.

It's honestly worth owning this book for the entry on Shining in the Darkness alone: it's 19 pages of walkthrough along with grid maps for every dungeon in the entire game. Sure you could hop on GameFAQs and find the same information, but there's no need to juggle screens if you've got this book. I could run through Shining in the Darkness today using nothing but that section and kick its ass--I should know, it's what I used to finish it off back in the day.

Finally, I've got to give props to the selection of games covered in here. While it's easy to find resources for big hits like Sonic the Hedgehog and Streets of Rage in other books of the period, it's not so common to see coverage on titles like El Viento, Saint Sword, or Arcus Odyssey. As a plus, take a look at that list of games again and you'll see there's not a single sports title among them. Hallelujah! I know there were plenty of people who used the Genesis to get their fix of sportsball, but no genre ages as rapidly (or poorly) as the sports simulation.

Don't believe me? Do you watch YouTube versus matches of Madden 2008 on a regular basis? Seen any speed runs of MLB 12: The Show lately? Popped online with your emulator of choice to play Joe Montana II: Sports Talk Football against a friend in the last 365 days?

I didn't think so.

Pages devoted to sports games become garbage as soon as the new edition comes out the following year, while games like Castle of Illusion, MUSHA, and Shadow Dancer are timeless, just as enjoyable today as they were twenty years ago. Zero sports games equals more long-term staying power. That isn't to say the book ignores them completely -- there are codes for games like Buster Douglas Boxing and Super Volleyball in the back -- but eschewing them in favor of more action-oriented titles means this entire book remains relevant today. What's extra sweet is the ability to pick up a copy for under $5 plus shipping, so add this one to your shelves before everybody else figures out how frigging 'awesome' this book really is.