huh?

Do you play with the guides? I recently picked up the book for RL on Gamecube and find it enhances the gamepay a bit. Before that, I was adament about not buying them unless I had already finished the game and wanted to unlock hidden secrets or find hidden levels.

What do you guys think? Do you use them and if so, do you feel "ashamed" for not trying to solve it on your own?

CastleGrayskull

Never feel ashamed. We're not talking about cheating in the Olympics here. It's your game; you can do whatever the hell you want. As for the guides - I never buy them. Any info. you find in a guide you can find online at gamefaqs or any similar site.

huh?

I recently decided to start collecting them for the games i want to buy them for, not just getting them off the Internet. I have really enjoyed sitting in my bean bag chair with the book next to me, reading about each mission and then plugging away at it.


Good Times.... very good times

Groucho

I don't like using guides at all...that's just me. What bothers me is when gamemakers put information in the guides that really should be in the manual.

huh?

i agree, it seems like sometimes they are just trying to force you to buy the book.

in the past i felt the same way you do about the books, but i think i've come full circle. i don't really enjoy walkthroughs, but if the book is just helpful enough to point you in the right direction, then i enjoy them, and find they can even enhance my level of appriciation.

sniper308

I download them and then if I want to read it away from the computer, like you are saying, just print them out ...

Groucho

I agree. Unfortunately, most strategy guide just tell you outright: "do this."

Does anybody remember Infocom's old strategy guides? They were really cool...they had a magic pen that would uncover the hint you needed, so you didn't have to accidentally see something you didn't want to. To make it better, there were different levels of hints. So, if you were stuck somewhere you could uncover the first hint which would be a real general poke in the right direction. If that didn't work, you could get a little more information. After a few levels, the complete solution would be revealed.

Later on, Infocom just put their hint system as part of the game...you didn't have to buy the strategy guide at all. You just typed "HELP" and it brought up a menu, and you could choose how much of a hint you needed.

kar10

I buy this prima guides for the maps since some of the games are too big like metal gear solid 2 and Halo for example.

happypants

I had a couple of these! The drawback is the 'invisible ink' answers eventually fade away. I remember looking at the books a couple years after I got them, and all the answers I exposed were just yellow lines.

Draven

The only guides I ever get are ones for fighting games. We nearly wore our "Tekken 2" book out in college.

I did have that old black covered Nintendo guide that had strategies for like 15 games in it. I used that to get through "Goonies II" and it STILL took forever. I never would have gotten anywhere in that game without the guide. Even the map was confusing...

KirstenS

I almost always buy the strategy guides. They've saved me hours of frustration. The guide I got for Zelda: OOT was especially helpful -- the maps were fantastic, and in the back there was a tear-out page with all of the Ocarina songs listed. If I forgot the the keys to a certain song, all I had to do was look at that page instead of searching through the Zelda menu.

Mezzanine

When I was a kid, I used to use guides and maps from magazines. But as I got older, I realized that the guides take a lot of the fun out of playing. With a guide, you're basically just following a recipe instead of completely experiencing the game and figuring things out on your own. Nowadays, I only look up guides on the web when I'm really, really stuck on a certain part, or after I've already finished the game.

Boot

I've gotten stuck a few times in Resident Evil Code: Veronica and have referred to the walkthrough to help me get unstuck. Otherwise I try really hard to figure it out myself. That's part of the challenge.

Outlaw

Puzzle games and RPGs are my favorite types of games so I usually like to figure out stuff on my own. But I've been stuck on rare occations with certain games so I only take a look at a guide if I'm really stuck or I'm pressed for time. I usually check gamefaqs.com, that place is a godsend!

Gamewizard

gamefaqs.com is the only place I go when I need help with something. I can't see spending $10 or more on a guide when I can buy a new dreamcast game for the same price