Debate This: Are Strategy Guides a Form of Cheating?
July 23, 2009 60 Comments
Debate This is an ongoing feature which provides an opportunity for open discussion on various video game-related topics. Those who know how to debate in a mature and respectful manner are encouraged to participate. Present your opinion, but be prepared to defend it.
Strategy guides. Walkthroughs. Detailed FAQs. Some gamers reluctantly rely on these comprehensive resources in order to pass only the most difficult of levels. Other gamers purchase them in conjunction with their games, sometimes reading them before even putting the actual disc in the tray. The hardcore crowd may consider their usage a definitive sign of a general lack of skills, or even take it to the extreme of classifying it as cheating.
Whatever your views, these assets are readily available in abundance and in whatever form you prefer to digest. You can find them on the internet or in a tangible book. They’re often in a video that lets you watch someone playing through the game or a description of the same in text form. Some people swear by them, others detest the very thing they stand for. Let’s see what side of the fence you reside on with this rather unusual subject matter. Debate This: Are you opposed to, in favor of, or indifferent to using outside resources such as strategy guides and walkthroughs when playing video games? Do you consider it cheating, a necessary support system, or something comfortably in between? Do you think lesser of people who use these assets when completing games? And why or why not?
FRIST!
Anyway, so what if some fat 33 year old living in his mom’s basement beleive’s it isn’t “hardcore” to use guides! If I need help, I’ll get help.
I think the people who thumbs downed this are fat 33 yr olds…. I agree… I don’t use them because I dont need to- If I did I probably wouldnt waste my money on them though, its just a game.
That’s what the internet is for =D GameFAQs.com!
Yeah. Buying game guides is stupid. That’s what the internet is for!
I think it’s fine, especially when you’ve run into a particularly nasty portion of a game and you can’t ever get past it no matter how hard you think or try. We play games to have fun–when frustration sets in, you’ll need a guide to keep things fun again.
Now if you consult a guide every step of the way–have you no shame?
i try not to use them…if i ever do….i feel bad about myself….but i dont feel bad when i use them for side things like achievement getting…but all in all i dont like them
Half of the strategy guides I flick through at games stores have those maps which show the locations of unlockables and such, and almost all have detailed walkthroughs which explain exactly how o complete each mission. Now I would be lying if I said I had never used either of these, but sometimes a level can just be a bit too frustrating, especially on higher difficulty settings that you could use some help. When searching for hidden items though, if you use a map or something, it’s no fun. If you like the game enough, don’t ruin it by taking the fun out of it.
Strategy guides are helpful, and they always leave certain parts of the story walkthrough spoiler free, which in my mind, is always nice. In the end, as stated above by Mike, a game is about having fun, and if the game is too aggravating and antagonizing to be fun, then a guide is always appreciated, no matter what form it may be. To an extent, it would be like removing the tutorial feature, and giving a complete newbie a controller.
The only strategy guides I’ve brought and used are the Final Fantasy ones. I only buy them once I’ve completed one play through of the game and use them for a second play through for discovering/helping me through the secret areas. They are a great help, detailed and clear.
I don’t see anything wrong with using them, each to their own.
I think this is right, if I ever use a guide I’ve always completed the game at least once before breaking out a guide. The only ones I can thinjk that I’ve used are the GTA san Andreas one to get 100% after the main story (to find gang tags and such) and the Metal Gear 3 one so I could find all the frogs and get the stealth camo.
It still feels a bit cheap but then again I’ve always been a bit slutty when it comes to getting the little bonuses in games.
After debating with light show and Meyagi on Halo Wars, we have come up with these points.
Strategy Guides are approved because…
The creator of the guide would need the game months in advance, probably during BETA and post-BETA builds of the game, in order to create the guide to launch coincide with the official game release. So, in order to create the guide, you kinda need to know the game’s campaign while it is still being built, requiring the game creator’s consent to do this. (UnrealCh13f)
It IS cheating if…
You refer to it at every portion of a game’s campaign
It IS NOT cheating if…
You refer to it in order to acquire something that it not needed toward a game’s completion, like skulls, etc.
We all that if you use the strategy guide at all times, we do think lesser of people.
Personal Opinions…
We all approve the use of a strategy guide, IF the following condition is met.
If you are stuck at a certain part of a level, or you can’t find something that isn’t vital toward completing the campaign, then use it. But don’t use it if you are just going to follow the guide the whole way through as it takes away from the experience. (Everyone)
Also, don’t buy a strategy guide anymore. If you really need help, there are lots of free and useful resources such as YouTube and GameFAQs.
Well, it’s kind of funny, really. I looked at walkthroughs for a few games like Portal and the ending of Bioshock, because I thought I’d never play them. But, as it turned out, I did play them, so I already knew the entire game, which kinda ruined it a bit for me.
But anyways, I don’t think strategy guides are a bad thing in moderation. If you use them if you’re stuck, then you’re using it right, but I don’t think you should have your hand held throughout the whole game, because that wouldn’t make it the player’s experiene, and I think that’s part of what makes a good game so great, seeing the various ways the game is played, from person to person.
Whoopsie, I had a big ol’ run-on sentance there, didn’t I?
Herp derp.
They are OK to use when and only when a Section of a game goes from “Fun” to “Aggravating”.
this is so like my history essays (:
basically, for a casual gamer, playing a level like cortana on halo 3 is totally bullshit on legendary. that’s where all the guide books come in. i only buy guidebooks for pokemon and final fantasy games. hahaha. it’s cool to know where you can catch your pokemon etc. but it’s more of a reference, than to be an essential item to “pwn the game”.
without a detailed list, i wouldn’t even know how to get all the different weapons in FF:Dissidia. i mean, who bothers to notice drop rate and everything. guides are there to save the time for irrelevant stuffs and to enjoy the game :D
I wouldn’t buy a strategy guide for Pokemon, the games are straightforward and any pokemon I need to find I just check the Serebii.net Pokedex.
For me, walkthroughs, etc. should only be used when trying to complete a ridiculously hard task in a game (trying to get the “good” or “best” ending, or something similarly difficult) or after you’ve completed the game and are starting the tedious “collect them all!” quests that the developers dropped in to artificially lengthen the game (just because the game’s plot is 5 hours and it takes another 5 to find all the bullshit you hid in the game world does not mean that you get to advertise a 10 hour game) .
In my opinion, part of the fun of a game is figuring stuff out on your own. It gives you a sense of achievement when you figure out how to beat a really hard section of a game. It doesn’t bother me when people beat a game using a guide. It does bother me, however, when they act like they’ve accomplished something after they (for instance) needed a guide to beat Halo 3 on normal. I wouldn’t go as far to call it cheating but it is cheap.
I’d agree with this – I wouldn’t buy one, because it’s all on the internet anyway. I just think about two games when I think about strategy guides:
One – Broken Sword “The Sleeping Dragon”, where you had to listen in surround sound to the dripping water in time with the wine bottles to get the code right. Doesn’t work so well on a laptop.
Two – Prince of Persia “Warrior Within”, that game was dire enough without having to fumble directionlessly up and down the same corridor a dozen times. And the life upgrades were very well hidden!
Ive only used them when in dire dire need of help. Anyone ever beat Dead RIsing without a walkthrough? You are either a video game god or restarted the whole game 2 or 3 times.
I’ve only looked through a few online walkthroughs to get through some tough parts of games, such as Last Remnant (thank GOD I’ve finally finished it) and Rondo of Swords. Before that, the only strategy guide I got was for Xenogears, and it was mostly to see the artwork on the inside. But I still felt like I was cheating having it open all the time I played through it.
If someone went through all that trouble to get through all the secret parts of the game, there’s nothing wrong with people who buy the guides or look them up. I mean, people can always choose not to. And even when you have the walkthroughs, you can still fail from lack of skill.
Still, it’s better than Nintendo’s new suggestion of letting the game “help” when the game gets too hard simply by putting down the controller.
I think that ideally, games shouldn’t require guides in most cases. NOW, there are some exceptions, like Fallout 3, whose guide was very good and comprehensive. But for a lot of games, the guides offer simple go here do this instructions. For me, this takes the wonder out of playing a game, since you know what will happen next at every turn. Now, in a perfect world, games would be difficult enough to offer a challenge, but easy enough so people wouldn’t go “what the hell am I supposed to do!?”.
I would class campaign walkthroughs as cheating (although should only be used on rare occasions) multiplayer guides on the other hand I is cheating.
One time I saw an IGN strategize video on the front of the Xbox dashboard giving tips on Halo Wars multiplayer. Out of curiosity I took a look and was appalled to the detail they were explaining techniques, the first was one of the techniques I had won most my games using. Sorry about ranting a bit there.
I remember playing a Star Wars game, released sometime in the mid to late 90′s, that had a complicated series of switches that had to be thrown in a very precise order to move on to the next objective. The problem was that the order in which the switches had to be activated wasn’t clearly defined within the game so you had to go out and purchase a $20 strategy guide to find the switch activation order. The procedure was so complicated that no one could possibly figure it out on their own and you were forced to spend more money on the guide to finish the game. I got so angry with this game and I refused to buy the strategy guide for it and I tossed the game in the trash.
I’ll never purchase another game again that requires me to spend even more money on a strategy guide just to complete the game
Jedi apprentice? there were some tough-ass puzzles in that game…
On either side of the debate, walkthroughs can be called a nessasary evil. You’re not playing the game help free (obviously) but sometimes we get stuck and its a feeling much like not being able to finish a book you were really into.
I’ll admit it, there are games out there that can completely kick my ass, stump me, or make me feel completely useless as a gamer. If someone wants to make me blush or possibly even cry, just ask me what I thought of the storyline in Ninja Gaiden.
That’s the rub actually. Gamers are playing for immensely personal, subjective and widely varying reasons. For some, it is a fun thing to do to spend time. For others, it is a challenge with a sense of accomplishment when met. For some, the storyline and the immersion into the alternate reality is the attraction. For others, the competition from the game (or other players) is the draw. There are so many reasons that people game, and no one has the same reason as the next person.
A guide may be a crutch for some, but for someone else, it could be the key to a door that is preventing them from experiencing the universe of the game.
That’s Beautiful And Deep… it’s true that many people play games for different reasons… i personally have the fallout 3 guide… but i mainly got it for the poster and the locations of minor stuff (i’d already beaten like 98% of ALL the game TWICE) i think whatever… if you want to drop 20 bucks on a gome book or spend time looking on the net, then that’s fine, i do it at times… in fact i need to for gears of war (the original one) that last boss kicked my ass so much it was appalling… is anyone still reading this?.. lol
I am! :)
I agree, they’re especially useful for those little things hidden in the game that maybe you didn’t find during the first run through. Speaking of which, I should probably look up the rest of the cards on Riddick. Surprisingly enough, I never found all of them!
I believe that when people spend their hard earned money on a game they should be allowed to play it however they like (the exception to this rule being online cheating) so I have no problem with using a strategy guide. Besides, considering how hard it is to get kids to read anything these days, strategy guides should be considered a good thing.
That is actually the reason my soon-to-be mother in-law bought her son the Twilight Princess strategy guide, he read the whole thing cover to cover. Literacy FTW!
I see nothing wrong with using them, there are times when you get stuck and don’t know wtf to do next, so you go out and grab the guide or look for the FAQ. Most RPGs i have owned (Kingdom Hearts for example) i bought the guide or printed the walkthrough at some point, the only one i own right now is for the Wii edition of RE4, and that’s for pointers on getting goodies and boss strategies. So i say they aren’t cheating, but more about helping you when you get stuck.
I like to play my games without a strategy guide at least the first time around. I will only use a strategy guide if I’ve been wandering around the area for an hour, talking to every NPC and exhausting every option I can think of. Then I’ll pop open gamefaqs.com and find out what the hell I possibly missed, which is usually something very simple.
I think it detracts from the game quite a bit if you simply go through the game with a strategy guide, because you don’t get the satisfaction of completing a quest or something on your own merit. I think the strategy guide detaches you from the game a little that way.
I’ll never actually buy a game guide when you can just find the answers on the internet. The only reason I have the guides for Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic is because it came in a bundle.
Forgot to add. Cheating can be fun sometimes, depending on the cheat. Cosmetic cheats are fun. Changing the paper doll in Baldur’s Gate so that you can play looking like Sarevok is pretty fun. :P
We have the same time limit! That is when I resort to looking at walkthroughs as well, after I’ve been wandering around unsuccessfully for an hour. That walking on the astroid thing part in Dead Space? Goodness gracious, I never would have figured it out if I hadn’t of looked it up.
that took me 45 mins to figure out on my own… my internet was down so i couldn’t look it up..
I finally resorted to a walkthrough for that particular segment, and I swear I still only passed it on a fluke. I don’t think I could do it again!
YES, it is cheating. But that does not mean its a bad thing. More than anything, strategy guides are a waste of money. You can almost always find better (but without pics) on Gamefaqs.com a few days after the game comes out.
Depends on the type of game. If playing an RPG, say… Final Fantasy, or KOTOR, or Mass Effect, I find that using a strategy guide takes the edge of the the entire experience. Similarly with puzzle-based games, such as Braid, using a strategy guide is like cheating and giving up.
On the flipside, not many people have the sheer amount of time necessary to play these extensive games properly, and so if stuck on one particularly dastardly puzzle it can ruin the entire experience for everyone. I remember a particular puzzle in the Resident Evil series, which i tried to work out for literally weeks during my youthful school years. In the end i bit the bullet, and checked a cheat book. Turns out the solution had no reasoning or logic behind it, and no matter how hard i tried i would have never completed the puzzle on my own.
Then there’s non-RPG/puzzle strategies. I think that guides and FAQs for games such as Pokemon, Viva Pinata or Super Smash Brothers are fine. With these extensive “Collection” games, discovering everything on your own would truly be madness. Similarly, from a Halo point of view, I could have never discovered all the secret skulls on my own.
It truly depends on the game in question… Personally I like to play through a game once on my own, and then a second time with a guide or FAQ on how to “Get the best weapons” or “Get all the achievements”. This means that I get the full enjoyment of having played and beat a game on my own, without any help whatsoever, without any spoilers or “cheats”, but i also get to experience the game from the point of view of a perfectionist.
Gives me the best of both worlds :)
- Tactful
PS: If the game in question is made by Nintendo, and was made before 1999, Strategy guides are COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY ALLOWED FOREVER.
There are two reasons I buy strategy guides.
1: I’m a collector, and I like to get them to increase my collection, as is the case with my Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo Wars strategy guides. I don’t NEED them, but I like to HAVE them.
2: I like to get the full experience out of a game, and I use strategy guides to help me do that by exploring every possibilty in the game, such as with Mass Effect and Fallout 3.
If I use a strategy guide it usually is to assist me in my conquest for terribly hard to find placed collectibles in games like the Skulls in Halo 3 or in Viking:The battle of Asgard. At times for games like Final Fantasy and Lost Odyssey to check on strategies to kill a certain boss but that pretty much sums it up. Never have I played through a level with a strategy guide right next to me following its every word. I’m not blind, I’m not a child… I just want that extra experience by that the museum guide gives by narrating all the pieces.
Depends on these questions:
What game is it?
Is it multiplayer or single player?
Does the game require true skill?
Example:
Halo, multiplayer, yes. A guide can’t 4-shot for you can it?
Pokémon, mostly single player, sorta. The guide will tell you what to do but the guide still can’t do it for you.
Does this answer the question? lol
I wouldn’t necessarily call it cheating as much as I would call it help. Though I can definitely see how it could be considered cheating. It’s more or less telling you what to do, or how to do this and that, as opposed to figuring out by yourself. If you use a guide to complete a game, that’s cool. I can’t say I’ve never done it, but it’s not something I like to do, just because it feels much more of an accomplishment to say you completed a game by yourself, with no help whatsoever.
But no, I wouldn’t call it cheating, though it’s not something I like to turn to.
Many of the games I buy, I buy because I’m a fan of the art style, regardless of any other merits of the game. I also like RPG’s, which are a lot more “minutia” involved than other games.
Games cost a lot, and I’m going to get my money’s worth out of a game. I want to know all the cool stuff that’s in there, and also not spend my time getting frustrated at a point that I can’t pass. I’m only about 6 hours into Tales of Vesperia and I’m stuck. There’s a lot of stuff going on as far as preparing your characters for battle. Who knew that some poison resistance in this one spot would have made all the difference? it’s a skill that I hadn’t focused on much this early in the game. Now I know I need to give more attention to it.
I like art and I like stories, and I prefer to be able to focus on that and less on the actual “gameplay” part of it.
I agree with your statement about focusing on the story and art etc. on some games.
And with Tales of Vesperia… Even though I’ve beaten several other Tales games, I still had to use gamefaqs.com a couple times on my first play-through.
I think that really, it depends on the person about whether or not they should use a strategy guide. In my opinion, using a strategy guide takes the fun away from puzzles, dungeon crawling, boss battles etc. but some people may be dependent on a strategy guide because they don’t care about the discovery of the way to beat the game, but just care about playing and completing it, and use any assets they have. In addition, they may just use the guide to get tips, not to spoil the game. And because of the internet and gamefaqs.com, people can easily get the information about a particular thing in the game, and even just get the hints for improving. Using a strategy guide to figure out how to beat a game, is somewhat like using an instructor to maximize your skill and strategy at a sport. (or at least I assume, I am ignorant of all sports)
In my opinion, people should use a strategy guide if they wish too, or if they do not, they they are not forced to. Although, I would not use one, it does not mean I will stop a friend from using one to complete a game and vice-versa.
For me it will depend on the game. 85% of the time I’ll figure it out on my own. Games like final fantasy, Kingdom hearts which require complex things done to insure secret endings, I have no problem using a guide. I always strive to complete 100% of all games i play. Some times I’ll beat the game the first time without and then the second play through I will use a guide, or a website like gamefaqs.com to complete 100% of the game.
I would say it’s dependant on the type of game, in regards to cheating. If the guide gives general tips (for instance) on how to beat The Covanent, then that’s just advice (or strategy), but if the guide is telling you the answer to a puzzle, then that would be cheating.
Personally, I think looking at a strategy guide for a game is like reading the plot sypnosis of a horror film before you see it, just so you don’t get shocked. It takes away the suprise, the tactics, the thought-provoking situations. The tension, atmosphere and achievement are all cast aside to make space for the ultimate in spoiler books. In other words, it takes away the game.
IMO people can view as many walkthroughs or strategy guides as they want, but I still feel that before turning to such resources one must ATLEAST try. I feel that you shouldn’t use them if you just a reached a challenging part of a mission/game and haven’t tried at it for a while. They should be used when you are absolutely stuck to assure you actually get enjoyment out of the game, but if you feel you must use such resources for every leg of your journey before you even try then that is your decision but it will remove the sense of accomplishment and impair you when it comes to facing problems without a step by step walkthrough. So on a last note, games are meant to be challenging but also fun and if you remove one side you remove the other, and if you put to much weight on one side and not enough on the other you will get the same effect.
I don’t often purchase strategy guides anymore because, well, I can find the same content for free with a simple Google search. The last guide I actually bought was the Gold/Silver PokeDex after G/S came out so I could catch ‘em all.
Honestly, though, I couldn’t care less about strategy guides in a single-player game. It’s their choice, after all, and what happens in their game world is exclusively up to them. I do have a problem, however, with strategy guides that give in-depth tips on a game’s multiplayer, especially when they’re obtainable at launch. Sure it’s not terribly unfair considering it’s obtainable to everyone, but it… ugh. Just doesn’t feel right.
/Videogame morals? What?
I think it’s just help to find the secrets in the game. It’s not like in order to beat the game you need to have the strategy guide. I don’t buy them because they cost too much. The only strategy guide I ever bought was for Majora’s mask, because I was 10 and that game confused the hell out of me.
i couldn’t beat that game so i put it down and forgot it for years… i found it later and beat it… damn water temple… the same for ocarina of time… i finally beat them when i turned 18..
Some games are annoying or hard and i’m barely able to figure out what to do next -cough- tombraider underworld -cough- and do collectible guides count?
I don’t think they should be considered cheating, the person using them should be considered and is IMO lame, but what the hell, if companies can make some money off those people why not. It just seems to take the fun out of the game. I don’t see the point in playing a game if you have a book that holds your hand and tells you exactly what to do every step of the game. Figuring out the secrets and finding the easter eggs is part of the fun of a game.
Personally, I read strategy guides because if I missed something while playing the game, I want to know about it.
It’s just like playing Final Fantasy X all over again and accidentally skipping one of the Al Bhed Primers. DAMMIT!
Whoever has Hayabusa….did you unlock that by figuring out the order to jump through the rings on your own or did you look it up on the internet?
Use them as a last resort and you are fine in my book (Internet FAQ’s/Guides > $25 printed guides)
For RPG games like Fable or Pokemon it’s alright, but I tend to avoid using guides.
But sometimes those lovely gaming magazines have guides in them, so it’s a bargain to get the magazine.
Hey if you’re looking for a little bit of help, then get it. Although we don’t want to think about it, people shouldn’t be spending all of their free time only playing video games, we should be participating in other actions as well. Personally, I have never bought a strategy guide for any game but they always look extremely cool when I leaf through them in the store.
I openly admit to looking up ways to be specific parts of games on the internet and if I want to complete achievements I also get a little help in that area as well. But if I’ve already beat the game, I just want to save myself from missing something and having to go back and repeat it.
For those of you out there who make the walk throughs available and are that good that you don’t need help finding everything, you rock and I really happy for you. I just need a little bit more of a boost in that area, that’s all.
Ah snap! It’s finally back!
It all depends on the game. For instance, if you’re playing a puzzle game like Kickle Cubicle (best puzzle game evar) then a guide is kind of cheating. Also, a guide to find all the COG tags in Gears is kind of cheating. However, if you are frustrated to the point of giving up, then the game is flawed or you just suck, at which point a guide is fair game.
I agreed with most people here, if you tried and tried like hell to pass a certain stage or level. A strategy guide or other forms of hints and tips is okay with me. Prototype is kicking my ass for few days already(pardon my words), i’m getting tired on certain stage now, and i’m not ready to get back into it yet from my break. Maybe for some people it’s as easy as eating a pie, but when i said it tough; it’s tough. Take it from a guy who first game console is a Colecovision. Games had increasingly getting harder and well, annoying?– at times, it takes all the fun out from playing the game. So, with that i wouldn’t mind be like a puppy with it’s tail between the legs by getting my first ever strategy game guide.
I love a good FAQ. Mostly because some games are virtually impossible to figure out by yourself. Most of the time I play games with my friends in the room. We collaborate to make a working strategy. Like a living FAQ. That isn’t cheating. Reading a FAQ online isn’t cheating either. That is success.
Codes, game genies, and hacks are cheating.