I try to use FAQs as little as possible, unless I'm so stuck that the game has stopped being fun. Mainly that applies to older games, recently I started playing the original Phantasy Star and I don't have the time to figure that game out.

I do my best to wait until a game becomes intolerably impossible to beat to resort to a guide, online or otherwise, and for the most part I can get through tough spots, I consider any time that I feel as if I HAVE to use a guide to be a failure on the part of the game designer. Their is, in my opinion, such a thing as making a game too hard. Unlike some people's masochistic tendancies. I feel no sense of accomplishment for solving a hard puzzle or beating a hard boss if the experience of doing so was like pulling teeth. All it does is make me feel like the game is calling me stupid. 'Other people can beat this faster then you, Jeff, what's wrong? Your pathetic. You just keep dieing and dieing...oh I guess I'll let you win now...for no reason you understand. Wasn't that FUN???'

I'm glad there's someone out there who had the same experience as me. For me the addiction went as far as preventing me from playing certain types of games (FPSs, for example) because they didn't allow continuous FAQ use. I broke out of it just a couple of years back and have been happier ever since.

I never used to use FAQs or guides when I was younger, simply because I didn't have access to them. I did start using them quite religiously though, and I realised it was really detracting from my enjoyment of a game.

I have been using a guide for The Last Remnant, but I've made a conscious effort not to use guides unless under exceptional circumstances. I think part of my enjoyment of Tales of Vesperia and Final Fantasy XIII has been higher as a result, but I couldn't quantify that.

I actually pride myself on not using guides/faqs for the initial run through of a game.  If I look up anything before the main story/campaign is finished, I actually get strong feelings of (no joke) guilt.  What's worse, that feeling/memory sticks with me far too long.  After I've beaten the game once, however, all rules go out the window.  To me, it seems like something I've earned at that point.

I did finish Ocarina without looking anything up, but I have to agree that the Water Temple is one tough !@#!$@#.  It took me hours of mapping with pencil and paper to get through that one.

I am with you Tyler! I have never used them before, and if I did I would feel guilty about it. Sure I ahve looked up some easter egg hints when I completed a game, but never anything to help with the main quest. As for LoZ:OoT I was stuck at the water temple for nearly 1 week (~15 hours of game play). I refused to get help.... and luckily I figured it all out. What a rush when I was all said and done!

I basically have a code that I follow: If I cant beat the game without help I do not deserve to beat the game. I know it is hokey, but thats how I roll. I would feel guilty (and embarrassed) as heck if I ever got help with FAQs. The only game I have never finished was Metroid Prime 2. I got ~30 hours in, stopped playing for 1 month due to final exams, and couldn't figure it out when i got back. I didn't have the heart to go back and play the game over again, and I definitely didn't have the heart to look up a FAQ. I just feel like its a game that beat me, and thats that.

@Thomas: I get the guilt, too. When I turned on the PC to find out how to beat one FFXIII eidolon, I literally stopped and asked myself "what the hell are you doing?"

I also feel guilty for using a FAQ, even when it's on a hard spot. I don't use them for anything but certain RPGs. (Like Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem.) That's because I am a total perfectionist. I need to recruit every character and complete every side quest, usually on the first play through because I rarely have time to play them again. (I have a small list of games I love that I do replay every now then though!) At least with online FAQs I can look up just how to recruit a character and still use my own strategies for battles and such.

I will turn to FAQs when I'm playing RPGs, but only as a summary of what happened the last time I played it.  Every once in a while, I'll get distracted in the middle of a game (eh, or bored, as in the case of Shenmue) and put it down for months.  When I finally return to it, instead of grinding my way through the first 30 hours of the game again, I look up a FAQ and see how it begins. 

Generally, if I'm interested in a game, I play through it without any help the first time, and only consult FAQs for unimportant info, like, say, finding all the feathers in Assassins Creed 2.

My wife and I did consult a FAQ in RE5 a few times, simply because some of the solutions of that game were so inconsistent our frustration was overcoming our enjoyment of the title.  Given a choice between "never play this again" and "look up the damn FAQ" we tend to choose the latter.