Strategy guides

[Cecil_and_Kain]

This poll only applies to people who play certain types of games. I have almost never played a long, rewarding game all the way through without the use of a guide. This leaves my sense of achievement a little less than I would expect. I am starting to feel like I am cheating and rendering my games pointless. What do the people of this forum think of strategy guides?

[Nayrman]

Depends on the game. RPG's are pretty much mandatory "guide" games, since they're impossible to 100% or complete without using them to a certain extent.
Adventure games like Zelda, eh, only for those going for everything.
Everything else then you're wasting your money and somewhat ruining the experience.

[Tupin]

I agree with Nayrman. Anyone who buys a guide for a game like Mario Party is stupid.

I only get guides for games with a lot of stuff to do, to make sure I do everything. Examples include Animal Crossing, Zelda, and GTA.

[Kilroy]

My parents normally buy the guide whenever I buy or they buy a game. I dunno why, because this leads to a lot of poopty guides (The main one that comes to mind is Mario Kart: Double Dash -_-).

I use guides on occasion, for when I really don't know where to go. That's rare, though, since 99% of games will have some sort of hint, subtle or not, of where you're supposed to go next.

[SkyMyl]

I only get guides for games with a lot of stuff to do, to make sure I do everything. Examples include Animal Crossing, Zelda, and GTA.

This.

If I'm playing an RPG or Strategy game, I'll have to use a guide as my texty.

[Cecil_and_Kain]

Depends on the game. RPG's are pretty much mandatory "guide" games, since they're impossible to 100% or complete without using them to a certain extent.
Adventure games like Zelda, eh, only for those going for everything.
Everything else then you're wasting your money and somewhat ruining the experience.

The games I refer to are RPGs. I feel as if I completely wasted 50 hours in a game where I already knew where to go to gain ultimate power. There was no satisfaction from killing the final boss or finding a powerful sword. The game was sucked from the disc into the book for easy consumption.

[DededeCloneChris]

I like to use guides for RPG or more important games (Brawl).

Since we're talking about guides, never buy Prima guides. They're incomplete in some ways. >_< (The only goid thing they do is the good posters though).

[Doodle]

It depends.
Some parts of a game may just be too difficult for people to figure out on their own. A strategy guide is good in situations like that.

[Shujinco2]

For the early Mortal Kombat games I used a guide. It's only because I didn't know how to do ANTHING cool or awesome.

I wonder if Tetris ever had a guide... :D

[Tsumaru]

Guides are useful for 100%'ing games.  Unless they're the crappy recent BradyGames guides that don't have main story walkthroughs, only maps.

I bought the Pokemon Platinum guide sheerly for the National Dex movesets.

[Nayrman]

For the early Mortal Kombat games I used a guide. It's only because I didn't know how to do ANTHING cool or awesome.

I wonder if Tetris ever had a guide... :D

It would only be a sentence long: CREATE ROWS DUMBSHIT! XD

[SkyMyl]

For the early Mortal Kombat games I used a guide. It's only because I didn't know how to do ANTHING cool or awesome.

I wonder if Tetris ever had a guide... :D

It would only be a sentence long: CREATE ROWS DUMBs***! XD

Actually, they do.

It's called an instruction booklet.

[Allegretto]

If you don't find the treasures and rewards for themselves then why bother doing it at all.

Strategy guides are there to baby people through the game who don't have the patience or will to find the extra's on there own. If they don't have those traits then they don't deserve to get them.

I don't use guides.

[Friendly Hostile]

If you don't find the treasures and rewards for themselves then why bother doing it at all.

Strategy guides are there to baby people through the game who don't have the patience or will to find the extra's on there own. If they don't have those traits then they don't deserve to get them.

I don't use guides.

I disagree.  Some games that rely heavily on statistics and have a large number of potential outcomes often merit a strategy guide.  It's not used to beat the game, but in those instances to do what it's named for: guide.  Some games quite literally would require several hundred hours to learn all of that information.  I also think some developers might even place some things in the game under the thought that the only way to get them is if you have a guide, since there's next to no clue on what is needed to be done to obtain some items within the game.

[jnfs2014]

Some guides are helpful for finding stuff.


However, I only buy it if it's 50% off with the purchase of said game. :P