Today I had a revelation! I remembered this hintbook for the game Command & Conquer that I purchased in 1998 as a teenager in hope to get some help with the game. It included a mission description in which the player had to nuke a armada of harvester-trucks. So I thought it could have been a beta or press-release the author played and wrote about: Something rare, something forgotten, something never seen by man. I always wanted to get my hands on this version of the game. By now I think I’ve put too much into it. I wrote a mail to the worlds biggest Command & Conquer fan Nyerguds (he created most of the inofficial C&C95 / The First Decade patches) and asked him about it. Here’s my final conclusion to this fanatic story erasing my mind.
"nyerguds send me a page with beta screenshots" He also mentioned that the mission with the harvesters could be a fan made campaign he heard of once called (Andrew Griffin's Amazon campaign). NOT CONFIRMEND!
I searched for 2 hours before I could finally find the book on the internet by remembering and putting the pieces together. I still couldn’t find my original copy.
Now follow some facts and some translations: The book came out in 1998.. (don’t know if its a later revision) the description (the same as in the book, I remember) states: he played a englisch preview version of the game. GDI’s final mission “bosnien-herzegowina” wasn’t even included on the disc. It’s also statet that the mission they called “zaire” in the book couldn’t be finished due heavy bugs, and the in the book “southafrica???” called mission didn’t even had a mission briefing and a solution could only be predicted.
icabali commented:
I’m pretty sure I’ve read from various sources that Zaire, the 8th Nod level was originally unable to be completed before release. The Chinook reinforcement didn’t trigger, and therefore you couldn’t land on the mainland and capture the GDI base.
The only review of the book on Amazon states: the book can’t be named a hintbook because its completely wrong, incomplete and players will be more successfull without it.
To be honest, this sounded like a foul egg to me. I also dug in the authors history. He seems to be a deceiver in various things. For example owning various MediaAGs, sexshops, adult content promotions and pays and treates his employees very bad with only his own good in mind.
What’s the point about this article? Well, I am a fan of the C&C games. And being a fan of something can sometimes be very addictive. I thought the facts in the described book are real and some sort of rare. Facts retrogamers like myself never encountered until me. But that this wasn’t the big catch, the rare find I was hoping for. What I learned? Don’t fool yourself with informations you read in books or the internet. Even though it can be that I fooled myself again by believing the things I dug out being true.
A3D's Let's Plays 
I feel you, dude. Retrogaming has become a hobby that so many people exploit in negative ways. But your smart and do research and learn from experience. That’s the mark of a true retrogamer :).
Thanks. ;)
I’m pretty sure I’ve read from various sources that Zaire, the 8th Nod level was originally unable to be completed before release.
The Chinook reinforcement didn’t trigger, and therefore you couldn’t land on the mainland and capture the GDI base.
Not heard about the other points made though.
I had a hintbook by Roger Wong for the Red Alert, that was pretty useful and accurate. I’ve been trying to track that down online, along with a postcard I used to have from the official PSX magazine, that had an advert for it saying something along the lines of, “do you want to join the army, sit in maggot filled trenches, waiting in the mud for enemies, or do you want to play Comand & Conquer: Red Alert and conquer the world from your armchair”
The advert you stripped from the dark corners of your brain somehow remind me on the MTV Ad no.2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxXkbxF7z0w