Game guides

[Hollycat]

In my opinion, they ruin all the fun.

[Iceglow]

I don't often use guides of any sort. I tend to like figuring things out for myself. However if it's something stupidly annoying that will equally fuck me the hell off if I don't therefore do it.... Oh hello bloody flags in fucking Assassins Creed 1! I'll utilize a guide that makes it as quick and painless to accomplish as possible because honestly I don't necessarily have the man hours to give over to not using the guide.

[Hollycat]

I don't often use guides of any sort. I tend to like figuring things out for myself. However if it's something stupidly annoying that will equally smurf me the hell off if I don't therefore do it.... Oh hello bloody flags in smurfing Assassins Creed 1! I'll utilize a guide that makes it as quick and painless to accomplish as possible because honestly I don't necessarily have the man hours to give over to not using the guide.

Only acceptable time.

[Jinx]

Mostly I don't use them, unless I'm having a really hard time.

Or if I'm trying to be a crazy completionist. Example: Shadow Hearts: Covenant, wanting to collect all of the Crests. Only because I put them on Solomon's Key myself and had fun, so I needed all of them!

[Goldenboko]

Depends what I'm doing, 100%-ing certain games can be retardedly stupid hard and literally impossible to figure out!

[escobert]

I like figuring things out myself but, I do like guides after I've played the game fro awhile and I just want to easily look things up without having to alt tab.

[Shorty]

I used to use them all the time to complete every possible aspect of the game, but over the years I'd rather just play and figure out puzzles and bosses on my own.

Silent Hill can get really fucking hard, though. I usually have to use a guide for those games.

[Bolivar]

I try not to use them if I can.

If you're talking strategy guides, I love having them around if it's a game I really love. I like being able to flip to a page real quick and take in the beautiful artwork of a title. It's great especially if the game's systems have a lot of depth, like Tactics Ogre, Dragon Quest VIII, or Guild Wars 2, which I just bought the hardcover guide for.

[escobert]

Yeah I got the guide for GW2 as it was 10% with the game at gamestop.

[JKTrix]

The retail guides for Dark Souls and Soulcalibur V were fantastic. I like a well-done guide, even if I don't really use it. I got the guides for the last two Zelda games after I had finished either of them simply because they felt like collector's items. I'm a collector. I kind of like having the art as well, since we don't often get proper art books for most of these games. I have a few 'proper' Japanese art books for some games I have too.

In fact, if a game has art that I find appealing and it has a separate strategy guide for purchase, I'm pretty likely to pick it up just for that. Thankfully, folks like Atlus actually include art books with their games.

[SeronStar]

I buy game guides for the pictures in them mostly, and also for if I get really stuck on a game.

[Wolf Kanno]

I mostly buy them for the art and possible interviews some of them have, but I haven't felt the need to shell out money for a guide in a long time (I think P4 was the last one) as I usually use GameFaqs if I am really stuck, but mostly I just look at equipment logs or ability lists.

I honestly feel that Guide Books kill some genres.

[NeoCracker]

I only ever use a guide for reducing mindless busy work.

Like Mini-medal hunting in Dragon Quest.

[pederloo]

I enjoy using them as a little crutch if I don't feel like spending forever on something silly. (i.e. picking up a saved game from forever ago and not remembering where you had to go on the world map)

also...first post :quina:

[Raistlin]

I used to use them more when I tried to do everything in a game, but now much more rarely. Good hard copy guides can be cool to have, though.

[Mercen-X]

I collected them for the pictures when I didn't have internet. Except for XI, I bought that because there are too many useless screenshots on the internet and I'm never gonna play the game anyway.

Guides are useful for exploration if you don't want to ask online.

[Tigmafuzz]

I only ever use a guide for reducing mindless busy work.

Like Mini-medal hunting in Dragon Quest.

This. If there's something I have to figure out in a game, I'll figure it out myself. If it's something annoying like trying to catch frogs or something, I'll look up a way to make it go by faster. But I'll still do the gruntwork for the most part.