Your thoughts on strategy guides

  I personally think that most people no longer use strategy guides as you have the internet for everything nowadays. You can look up passwords to get to the final boss or look up someone who gameplays beating an entire game. Or the lamest, look up god mode codes and cheats, etc. I like playing and beating my games fair and square. The only time I look up a game online is to just remember how to do a move, or get to a place on the map, or to watch someone play a game that I love myself.

  When I was younger I loved strategy guides. I had the strategy guides to games like "Resident Evil 2" (PS1) and "Silent Hill 2" (PS2). I also had full layout maps to games like "The Legend of Zelda" (NES) and "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" (XBOX). Sometimes I'd use them as a guide, or before entering a certain area just knowing what the layout might look like. Of course I was younger then, so I was deep in the games playing-wise. Sometimes I just loved owning the maps and pictures simply because.

  I don't see myself buying a strategy guide again. It takes a lot for me to buy a game and love it so much that I want the guide for it. Now I play stuff like "Call of Duty": Black OPS" (PS3) and "Contra III: Alien Wars" (SNES). Games you just have fun with and don't worry about beating or winning, games with nostalgia that are all beatable. I'm fortunate to still own all of my game systems and hundreds of my favorite games. I don't own a PS4 or XBOX1, I really don't need to as I'm not much of a gamer today. I'm happy with what I have and can pull out and play again. Most of which require no strategy guide.

  Hope the opinions help, just some gifs included below.

The only strategy guide that I ever really liked was the one that came with Earthbound for SNES. It had cool artwork and was an unusual pack-in, requiring an oversized box to store the game and guide on the shelves. I still have the box, game, and guide. It's actually one of my favorite games.

I only bought 1 strategy guide in my life and it was for Fallout 3. I remember it being cool and helpful at the time. I wonder if i still have it somewhere.

Often I've derived more enjoyment from looking at strategy guides than playing the games for which they were written.

I used to read my brother's Moral Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero strategy guide thinking it was such an interesting and neat idea... and then I played it.

I'd hesitate to say that they're completely obsolete, but I do prefer YouTube videos.