Do you buy strategy guides?

Never, and I don't intend to.

Never done it and I don't see a reason to buy one when you have an internet connection.

Fuck no!

I used to, a long time ago. Only good for collection, since online faqs are always more detailed.

I only have two strategy guides; one for Ocarina of Time and one for Pokémon Red/Blue. I bought them maybe about a year after the those games were released so it's a really long time ago.

I used to have the Pokemon Crystal strategy guide and man...that thing was awesome. It had a complete Pokedex and everything! I didn't even know Octillery existed until seeing a photo in that book. Plus Ken Sugimori's art is pretty neat. So yeah, I had 1.

No, the Internet gives me a ton of guides for free.

i bought the one for dragon age origins. it contains no useful strategy, but it reinforces my nerdology.

no, i havn't bought one in a long time. there is no point now since there is internet.

Not anymore. I've been tempted a few times if they come with DLC or something really cool, but I haven't since 2007 or so. No real need when you have websites with walkthroughs and videos to help you through some tougher sections and to find some collectibles.

I remember making this thread a long time ago and 95% of the answers I got were sarcastic "the internet" comments. I'd expect this to have the same.

But on cereal business I don't buy them much anymore. Mostly due to them becoming thinner and less helpful, and most games nowadays don't really need them. I've got a pretty decent collection (I'd say) of strategy guides for older games, and I've got a shitload of different Ocarina of Time guides.

No.

I used to for certain types of games a decade or more ago but even for completionists they aren't needed anymore with every other resources available.

Yes for some games but not really to even use them I bought the Final Fantasy XIII and Dragon Age 2 guides simply because they were hardback and awesome looking books that you could totally put on your coffee table without it looking too tacky and be something game related. Seriously, Piggyback does AWESOME hardback guides. And their hardbacks are almost always individually numbered as they usually only do one run of them. Great stuff.

lol

If it's a really nice one, yeah. Most of the time, though, nope.

@Ssj4raditz The bioshock infinite one looks really nice and it comes with a neat keychain! I can't bring myself to buy it though, even if it does look nice, haha.

I bought the "Special Edition" one for Portal 2 direct from VALVe after beating it. My brother bought me a pre-order as a birthday gift, and I wanted to give VALVe some money, as I enjoyed the game.

Ended up getting it signed by Ellen McLain, the voice of GLaDOS.

No, but I can write you some strategy guides.

I was just thinking about this this morning. For some reason I own strategy guides for GTA IV, Spiderman 3 and The Last Remnant. I'm pretty sure I bought the TLR guide to ensure I got all the side quests and to get a better grasp on the battle formation mechanics, but am at a loss on the other two. Incidentally, since buying the TLR guide, I haven't touched the game once.

Nope. I had bought one or two as a kid (even then I didn't like them). But now my guide is the internet.

Only for huge games, like San Andreas and Final Fantasy XII. There are so many side things to do and raw data in charts and maps that it' really useful. I don't actually read the walk through sections but I do glance through them once I'm done and I'll spot different ways I could have done things or small tips that are useful.

The majority of online guides are junk. Half the time you are looking for very specific minor things that most of the online guides don't have. You end up having to search through two or three guides and use info from them all because they are all so incomplete. Online guides suck.

The strategy guides for Bethesda games are awesome. I loved my FF7 guide back in the day aswell. You just get detail that you don't find online.

Only twice, one was the Twilight Princess collectors edition one which looked really nice. The other was the God of War 2 which came with an awesome art book. But I don't plan on getting any more.

This.

it was ssooooooo worth it

If it's a game I deeply love, I'll pick up a strategy guide for it, but it has to be super detailed or look purdy, like that hardback New Vegas guide.

No. But once in a while when the local game shops start tossing them out, I ask nicely and get them for free. I have a couple of limited editions because of that.

Use to when I was little but now that I'm smarter I don't need them for help. Also the internet came along.

The correct answer.

Fuck no, GameFAQs has been around for almost 18 years.

Sometimes I do, depending on the game. I haven't in a while. They can come in handy though, and have obvious advantages over online guides.

I think the last one I bought was for LittleBigPlanet. It's pretty hard to find all the items in that game.

I see no need to as there is plenty of youtube videos/wikis out there

@connerthekewlkid: That is beyond awesome.

I do not buy strategy guides because I like finding out things like that on my own. For me that is the best part of many games and part of the challenge.

no. never.

i usually want to figure out, discover and explore games on my own rather than just following a guide.

if im having trouble or think i missed something then the internet exists.

Not really. I do sometimes if it is a JRPG that I want to get all the stuff in.

No, there are plenty of free guides online that are so much better. GameFAQs, YouTube videos, game wikis, you name it. They're all better than any strategy guide you pay for.

My mum used to get me Zelda ones when I was a kid cause she always thought I was skipping shit, but now? Nawww don't need that shit, I'm a real man now.

No, GameFAQs exists and I can't keep filling my flat with old game stuff. Maybe if it was really cheap and I really liked the game, but that situation hasn't come up yet.

I have a ton of old strategy guides that I bought about 10-15 years ago. I stopped at some point when it seemed pointless although I really only bought them to read about the game more than using them to beat it. Some of the best ones really got into the fiction like the Earthbound guide.

Mainly stick with getting the ones like Skyrim or Fallout3 where there's plenty of depth there in the game to look up online every few minutes. Aside from that I tend to skip these over the art books on a game which I tend to enjoy & get a lot of. Definitely learned over the years if getting a strategy guide in a store I'll look through it first & look at some of the online reviews at Amazon, then get it cheaper online than in the retail stores.

I bought the limited edition guide for Diablo 3 cause it looked nice. Kinda regret that now.

Also bought the Dark Souls hintbook, which is kinda useless since they changed a bunch of stuff in patches. Still, it looks cool and the maps are useful. That one I don't regret.

I got the guide for Skyrim with the game. Aside from one puzzle solution being wrong, it has been pretty useful.

Nope. Used to get the occasional one when I was much younger, to read about the more obscure stuff and easter eggs; it was downright vital to figure out how to properly breed your Digimon in Digimon World so it would evolve into the one you wanted too. There were only so many of these green slimemons and yellow poopmons that I could take! Funnily enough I was also first introduced to the Resident Evil remake by spotting a strategy guide for it in a shop.

The internet exists.

I used to, when faq's weren't a big thing, but now official game guides are lacking in information and often flat out wrong.

I bought one, and that was for Urbz: Sims in the City.

Great game, but that guide was pretty much useless since the game explains everything you need to know.

Today? No.

Back when cheat codes were a thing and the only real source to find secrets were through guides? Yes.

I'm a mid-level collector, but I've never branched off into guides. I mostly just stick to interesting LEs and older classics or rarities. In the same general area though, I do often look into art books or other things, such as Xenogears Perfect Works and the like.

I do have the Final Fantasy strategy guide that Nintendo Power sent me in 1989 or 1990 though. So there's that!

I used to back when I didn't have internet (essentially 12+ years ago. Back then EB games would give you a discount if you bought the game and the guide at the same time. Essentially I would pay full price for the game and then get the strategy guide for $10-15. A price certainly worth it for a kid who didn't have internet to look up hints/cheats when he got stuck.

The only reason why I even bought them was because they had nice game artwork on some of the pages. For the actual strategy guide, I find forums much more helpful.

I used to buy Strategy guides when I was younger, and that was because I hadn't developed my gaming skills yet. Now, I don't do it anymore, and if I truly feel stuck on one part of the game, I go on the Internet to look up the solution.