Alright, lets establish what "the guide" means first of all. Gamefaqs dot com changed video games. Frequently asked questions is something I never thought of until I got on the internet in the late nineties and thought "I wonder if the internet can help me with Dragon Warrior?" That's when I found a website with maps and information, similar to the expensive strategy guides you'd occasionally find. Before the internet and gamefaqs, I was an avid collector of a magazine called "Tips & Tricks." Something about having a stack of cheat codes and information on how to beat games makes me feel cool. Especially when I get phone calls about what to do in games, even now I'll occasionally get a call "Hello what do I do in grand theft auto now? How do I get guns?" And I have to either pull out the internet myself, or tell them "Go to Gamefaqs."

This is how I appear to everyone I know. Especially when I was still in school.


So now, let's talk about where I'm at now. I work forty hour weeks. I come home tired from my physically demanding job. On my days or time off, I have money so I like to go to the local Gamestop. I've been on a Playstation two buying spree lately. Something to the tune of thirty to forty games that I didn't have are now in my collection. Almost all of them are RPGs, involve Samurais in some way, or involve shooting stuff. One such series I much loved but only played one game of was Onimusha. The first game was wonderful. It was a action survival horror game with silly capcom stuff that I love. You know capcom stuff. Power ups that make you feel cool. Big bosses that are outrageous and have fun voices. Stuff that just seems off, like the guy who hangs around from a, I'm assuming cocoon of some kind and talks to you. Anyway, I've picked up all the games in the series except the fighting game and re-release on xbox. Now here is the dilemma, I don't know which one to play, and when I do play, I get lost in a giant castle and just roam around fighting bad guys hoping to find my way. This morning I looked at the gamefaqs button and thought, maybe I should just look it up.

But that makes me a dirty cheating butt pumper. I don't pump butt. I don't like to cheat. New games are too easy to cheat at. At least on consoles most of them are. In a game like Contra cheating feels like an allright and acceptable move. But to know how to beat a game before you've played it that much, it feels like you're cheating yourself. Let me say that again. Most games now are made to be an "experience." I know I made my game thinking of it that way. How would a player find this and react to that? Would they see stuff I put into it and think it was goofy and strange or accept it for what it was? Would they know that you do this to get over this part? Stuff like that seemed fun to me when I was making the game, but then only a handful of people could figure it out. I don't know what happened. Now I feel like looking up where to go next on Onimusha 2 because I have no idea what to do. lts not like the game gave me an airship and told me to go explore. I rode a horse back to town after saving a lady, and now I don't know where to go. I really have no idea what to do. None. I could just roam around hacking dudes up having fun like that, but after awhile I can only kill the same dudes so many times.

Venom honks his horn saying "hurry up video games, we want to play already."


Persona 3: FES has eaten up sixty hours of my time. Well actually more than that. Dragon Warrior 8 has soaked up around thirty to forty hours in the last couple months. Lost Odyssey fifteen. Where do I go? What do I do? Do I ruin all that hard work and time and just look up what happens and how to get to the next part, or do I just try and figure my way out. Wasting my time. Disgaea for example, I bought Disgaea and its all over the place. I've had to fight through early battles assuming that was the way to level up, then I figured out something to do with items from the manual and tried that, but it doesn't work right for me, so now I don't really know what to do or where to go.

The player character from Nocturne. One of many personalities who yell at me from the playstation discs to level them up or play their games.


Okay lets close this out before I get too angry with it all. My closing argument is that I don't want to go to gamefaqs and look up what to do. It feels like I'm cheating myself. If I went to look up a code for something like Comix Zone I'd feel like I'm leveling the playing field. That on something like that, the game isn't ruined by that. The games I'm playing the gameplay is exploring and figuring out what to do next, but you know what I can only walk up and down hallways so much. Even in Silent Hill 2. I'm in a building and don't know what the hell to do or where to go. I saw him. You know who he is if you've played it. He was behind metal bars and I played with a clock. Now I don't know what to do. I'm lost. I want to go to gamfaqs to figure out what to do, but I'm afraid that would spoil what I'm doing. It would make me go "Well I played it, but I had to use a guide." I hate that. I never go for perfect runs on games anymore, least not the first time I play them. It ruins it for me. I'd much rather play a game for an extra ten to twenty hours looking for what to do, but now I don't have that kind of time anymore. This is my dilemma. Now to play us out is Kelly Rollands.