Quake Game Secrets: Unauthorized Guide to the Shareware Levels

Some guides are worth their weight in (metaphorical) gold.

Some are cash grabs so blatant you find it hard to believe anyone willingly paid money for them.

Quake Game Secrets falls so far into the latter camp that it pitched a tent, got a fire going, dug a field latrine, and is now roasting marshmallows. 

It is a book rushed to market, specifically to cover only the levels of the game which the game makers are giving away, for free, as Shareware, by a publisher who expected people to pay $10 for said book. Read that again: this is not a guide to the full registered version of Quake. It only covers the maps, enemies, weapons, and artifacts found in the first episode.

It is so rushed and so much of a cash grab that rather than explaining the game's storyline, or controls, or anything else important, it instructs the reader (ie: the person who just gave them ten of their hard-earned dollars) to literally open the MANUAL.TXT file which accompanies the game software and read that. Part of your ten bucks goes to someone cheekily telling you to RTFM. 

I cannot make this up.

Who, in 1996, was so desperate to get good at the shareware version of a game that they had to rush out and pay ten dollars for some hand-drawn maps and text-only explanations of how to beat each level and find the secrets? Identify yourselves. Show of hands. You, in the back: no slouching. Get out here and own your idiocy!

Now drop and give me twenty. 

Do not download this.

It is 42MB of shame and disgrace being offered here solely so I didn't have to look at it any longer. You will improve nothing about your life by acquiring a copy of this book. After your demise, some poor unfortunate soul will be scrubbing your hard drive, find your copy of this download, and their respect for you will diminish by a statistically-significant fractional amount. Not as much as by what they'll find upon viewing your porn folder (you degenerate weasel!), but why make things worse for your family?

Eff this book from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea, from Land's End to John 'o Groats and back again.

Or, you know what? Screw it. Just hit the 'Thanks' button once you're done adding it to your digital hoards.

Whatever.