Editor's note: I started cheating early, with an InvisiClues hint book for the original Zork. (The cheats were written in invisible ink!) And I don't regret it, because I don't think I would have gotten past the Cyclops without it. Ultimately, I went on to actually write a few strategy guides for Prima, so I never quite left cheating behind. But it's interesting to hear about the self-imposed rules gamers create for themselves, and the guilt associated with breaking them. -Demian
Let me clear something up right away: I'm fairly anti-guide. When I'm stuck in the Water Temple in Zelda or I can't figure out how the hell anyone is supposed to beat Call of Duty on veteran, I don't check gamefaqs and I don't rush out and buy a guide. When I heard about some people looking up ways to solve Braid -- a game that is predicated on its mind-bending puzzles and the sensational feeling of solving a tricky one for yourself -- I was appalled. (That is, of course, unless they were using the fantastic official guide.) I never use cheats in a game to further the story and I figure things out for myself because there's a certain pride that comes along with crossing the finish line knowing nobody held your hand. My friends, more or less, share the same beliefs.
So when I broke out the (extremely awesome) Mass Effect Wiki the other day to get some help, my roommate gave me crap. For those who haven't played Mass Effect, quite a few quests have you scouring largely deserted, bland, rocky planets for a staggering amount of hidden artifacts and resources, which require aimless driving around until a marker appears on your mini-map. They're fetch-quests, in the purest form, and they suck. Don't get me wrong, Mass Effect is a tremendous game and I am loving it, but these quests, while optional, severely hamper the pace of a game. So, in an effort to both satisfy my insistent completionist impulse and to hurry things up so that I could get back to the good stuff, I used a guide.
Great -- another totally exciting planet to explore!
This reasoning wasn't really enough to convince my roommate (although it's likely he just enjoys crap-giving), so it made me consider if and when "cheating" (loosely defined here as either using cheats or a guide) is ever acceptable in gaming culture. Never? It seems to me that the black and white approach of never or always here is as hard-headed as the stubborn husband who won't stop and ask for directions. You might argue it's a matter of pride, but let's be honest with ourselves here -- it'd be a lot less painful to just stop, ask for a bit of help, and start having fun with the road trip or the videogame.
Because that's what videogames are about, right? Sometimes we forget that the reason we play games in the first place is because we find them enjoyable and fun (at least that's the reason you should be playing). So I propose a simple definition for when using a guide is acceptable: If solving the current situation you are in will provide you with no self-satisfaction and the process of doing so will not be any fun whatsoever, using a guide is acceptable.
So no -- you can't use a guide to figure out where the hell to go in the Water Temple. Because once you figure it out, you'll undeniably feel gratification (come on, it's Zelda). Beating Call of Duty on veteran is a tremendous feat, and one that (although hatred-inducing) is probably a lot of fun and extremely satisfying. Will collecting six noble gasses in Mass Effect make me feel any smarter, and will I feel pretty good about myself when I do it? Nope, it just bugs the hell out of me to see it still sitting in my quest log. Time to get the guide.
This guy is all the guide you need in Call of Duty.
I should, of course, note that once you beat a game, using a guide is usually OK if you want to go back and get absolutely everything. The true hardcore might try and do this without a guide, but again -- what fun is that? Sometimes you just want to see every little item the developers packed onto a CD and a guide is the most reasonable way to do it, without wasting enough of your life that your girlfriend leaves you and eating no longer seems as important as it used to. Not that I speak from experience or anything.
...
OK, it is entirely possible that this whole article is a selfish denial that using a guide in Mass Effect wasn't cheating, and a defense against ridicule from the gaming community as a whole. I'm curious as to where other gamers stand on the issue -- when does pride trump recreation? There's got to be a line to be drawn somewhere, but where? In the end, though, I'll continue to use guides following my rule of thumb -- whether my roommates like it or not.
Comments (24)
I completely agree with this statement. I normally frown upon the use of guides if it is used to further the way through a plot element or puzzle that is tied to the main element of a game. Use of a guide for some optional part of a game such as the fetch quests of Mass Effect or the above mention of FFXII's extras is acceptable.
I too am a completionist at heart and while I would love to say I can 100% a game without any guides, free time can be very scarce. So I'll get my enjoyment from a game by beating it on my own, but I will not waste free time finding extras that would be extremely awful to do on one's own.
And there's really no one who will judge you except yourself (and that roommate who hovers over your shoulder ) Hopefully you're getting the enjoyment out of the game, guide or no guide. Otherwise you should probably be asking yourself then, "Why am I playing?"
Then again, FFXII isn't the only culprit - pretty much any tactical RPG requires a guide to see everything, yet this genre ranks among some of my favorites. There is a certain appeal to seeing something that you know most people who don't care to go back and get it won't see. Like Michael points out though - getting these items without a guide is too much of a burden to do on your own, so what's the point? Grab one and go.
I played every single Zelda (and most games, for that matter) with a guide at the ready, and it didn't regret it more than when Phantom Hourglass came out. That really was the first Zelda game where I beat it without a guide, and so that one's been the most fun of them for me. The satisfaction of beating a game by yourself is really what you want out of games. That game broke me free of guides, which I now only use on rare cases.
For example, In Knights in the Nightmare, mission 23, there is a way to get a hidden mission, 23.5 (go figure). The only way to reach it, is to destroy a tile at the bottom of the playing field twice. There is no indication that you have to do it at all, let alone again. The only way I knew about it was because I'd been reading forums and stumbled on this secret.
And this would all be fine and dandy, letting people who for whatever reason want to attack every square in the game a little something extra, except that it's the only way to get "good" ending, which is bull!
And while I was initially skeptical of your guide-using choice, your thesis is well-stated and justified. I'll be sure to bust out that Wiki now whenever I get around to playing Mass Effect.
And before anyone asks, no, I don't feel any less of myself for doing so, mainly because I play games to relax, not to stroke my ego.
As for me, I didn't use a guide for those fetch quests. I'm not saying that I'm right or wrong, just that it's what I chose to do. My reasoning is that, while time consuming, it isn't something that can't reasonably be done without a guide. I personally rarely use guides, and if I do it's for things like finding out how many times I have to dodge the lightning bolts in FFX to get the sigil, or learning the 15,000 steps required to make a Dragoon or Princess in OB64.
So, while I am not a complete purist when it comes to video games, I don't seek guides for menial tasks.
P.S. Part of me does just enjoy crap-giving.
*Disclaimer* This post represents my feelings only, and should not be used to inflame, incite, or begin destructive talk.
From the sound of these comments, a lot of gamers are using guides to extract every piece of content from a game these days. I don't think anybody is so anti-guide as to flame somebody who does use one(especially on Bitmob). Ultimately the standards are ones that you impose and nobody else - in this case, I was breaking my own standards. @Kyle: I knew you'd to respond to this...
Couldn't agree more. Actually, I was writing a piece that I one day hoped to submit to Bitmob about exactly this. Whether I ever finish it remains to be seen.
Nice article!
My personality is such that if I can't find something on my own, there comes a point where the cost/benefit ratio skews into the negative, where I'd rather be actually playing the game than hunting down Mysterious Item X or figuring out how to beat Secret Boss Y. I do my best (and I am pretty good), but I'm not too proud to concede a battle to win the war.
Back in the PS1 days I took the same philosophy w/ my gameshark- no cheating until I've gotten through on my own once. This was also helpful as the GS was notorious for corrupting my saves.
Admittedly, videogames are probably somewhere in between a puzzle and a golf swing, which would explain why using a guide is considered okay in some contexts (in my eyes).
If anything, golf would be a great analogy for reading multiplayer guides. I didn't clarify this in my article, but I think most would agree there's nothing looking up tips and strategies - they're only going to get you so far before you're required to learn the subtleties of the game itself in order to be good anyway. In a single player game, there's just not the same experience.
I suppose my point is in videogames, in a lot of cases the excitement and satisfaction comes from knowing how - in golf it comes from being able to do.
Sean-Michael: This article wasn't meant to be an anti-guide piece...rather, it was supposed to be the opposite! I was arguing against those people who think using a guide is absolutely out of the question, and more importantly that it tarnishes the achievement of completing a game (those people do exist). I did this by creating a circumstance where it's just plain stubborn to NOT use a guide. For those who get enjoyment out of using guides freely - that's great. Personally, I feel like I'm not getting the most out of the game when I do that, but you're right in that it's entirely subjective. Whatever makes the game fun.
