Quake III Arena: Prima's Official Strategy Guide

The book contains a variety of material: a section on weapons (usefully describing their comparative benefits), a chapter on arena basics (including some useful tips on BFG/rocket jumping, air control and splash damage) and a guide to the built-in characters (interesting, but doesn't add much to your gameplay skills).

After these diversions comes the main section of the book: a level-by-level guide to all the arenas provided with the original release of the game. These sections vary in size and detail in accordance with the complexity of the level covered - so the later arena levels tend to get more coverage. Each contains a diagram of the entire map seen from above - these are useful, but the diagrams are literal birds-eye views, so they include ceilings and roof bars (difficult to see through). Also, it's a bit hard to visualize the multi-floor levels from these diagrams. After the map diagrams is a guide to getting around the level in question - this is generally the most useful part, containing many tips and secrets that you'd be very unlikely to stumble across by yourself when playing the game.

Without doubt, reading this book will make you a better Quake III player - though of course it's no substitute for indulging in hours of dedicated gameplay! The book isn't perfect - the screenshots are too small in most cases, the guide lacks an index, and the author makes no mention of the actual map file names (eg 'Q3DM17' for 'The Longest Yard') or the Q3A console syntax. Still, these are small complaints.