Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Movies Media Entertainment Games

Videogame Strategy Guides On DVD - A Good Idea? 55

Posted by simoniker from the accidentally-purchased-instead-of-game dept.
Thanks to Nintendojo for its review of the GameXplain series of DVD-based game strategy guides, in this case oriented around Mario Kart: Double Dash!! for the GameCube. The reviewer seems to approve, arguing: "Why bother struggling through conventional strategy guides by reading vague text and squinting at tiny images when you can actually see in motion exactly how you're supposed to solve that puzzle, defeat that annoying boss, or shave 15 seconds off your best lap around the track?" He also notes: "When the video arrives at the critical part of the strategy the video will pause, cued by a camera clicking sound effect, and everything unimportant will gray, leaving only the important information in color." The official GameXplain site also mentions forthcoming guides to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Videogame Strategy Guides On DVD - A Good Idea? More

Videogame Strategy Guides On DVD - A Good Idea?

Comments Filter:

  • No. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nope.

  • Strategy Guides :: Dodo? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr. Piddle ( 567882 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @01:29PM (#8762173)

    Seriously, with sites like GameFaqs, I look down upon printed manuals as a genuine waste of money. The only advantage of a DVD guide would be video examples, but it, too, would cost money and would require swapping out a PS2 disc or switching the TV over to a separate DVD player.

    With the WWW, I can access hundreds of people who put out this information out of enthusiasm for free (not unlike OSS), so your only market with printed/DVD guides are people without Internet access or saps who make impulse purchases at toy stores.

    • Re:Strategy Guides :: Dodo? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by StocDred ( 691816 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @01:51PM (#8762296) Homepage Journal
      Seeing as how 90% of GameFAQs.com run like this...

      0. Terrible ASCII art
      1. Useless table of contents
      2. Overlong and pointless revision history
      3. Petulent whining about stealing this FAQ (immediately followed by 'This is my first FAQ evar!'
      4. Obnoxious introduction 'Why I LOVE this game' including stories of the author's friends and siblings
      5. Actual useful info
      6. List of shark codes stolen from somewhere else
      7. Incredibly long and shameful list of thank-yous to every AIM screenname and forum account who ever emailed the author, along with warnings to properly address future emails with the subject 'FAQ-game X' or they will be ignored
      8. Laughable attempt at copyright, similer to part 3 above

      ...I'll take a slick, full-color, screenshot-laden, official book every time.

      Sure, 10% of FAQs are detailed and useful, but most of them are incomplete, full of embarrassing typos, and only marginally helpful. I wouldn't call for the death of the printed guide yet! Not that I don't use online FAQs, I do turn to them in a pinch... but there's a lot of crap out there. And a lot of out-and-out lies.

      Also, there's something to said for a genuine piece of gaming memorabilia for a game you really liked. Most guides I've bought have been because I want a scrapbook for the game, so I page through it later and relive the game without having to play the 15 hours again. I like seeing the promo artwork, good design and layout, and lots of screenshots. Not all guides have that quality, but many do.

      • ...I'll take a slick, full-color, screenshot-laden, official book every time.

        I've had pretty good luck with GameFaqs. I know how to use "Find in this page..." in Mozilla and know how to look up multiple sources if I question what the FAQ says.

        GameFaqs is just one of many sites, too. Doing a web search for the game name plus a specific keyword like "chocobo training" or whatever is very effective. There is no shortage of information on the WWW about games.

        I can't disagree about the collectability of g

      • Re:Strategy Guides :: Dodo? (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Seeing as how 90% of GameFAQs.com run like this...

        0. Terrible ASCII art
        1. Useless table of contents
        2. Overlong and pointless revision history
        3. Petulent whining about stealing this FAQ (immediately followed by 'This is my first FAQ evar!'
        4. Obnoxious introduction 'Why I LOVE this game' including stories of the author's friends and siblings
        5. Actual useful info
        6. List of shark codes stolen from somewhere else
        7. Incredibly long and shameful list of thank-yous to every AIM screenname and forum account who ev

      • Re:Strategy Guides :: Dodo? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by KeeperS ( 728100 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @02:33PM (#8762523)
        I think you're exaggerating the case. I've found FAQs to be more useful than strategy guides.

        Strategy guides can't be updated with new information or with error correction. I remember buying a Super Mario RPG strategy guide that had completely wrong information because there were two versions of the game.

        In addition to having more accurate information, there's also more specific information in many FAQs. For example, there's a Final Fantasy Tactics guide that goes into extreme detail about the mechanics of the game. It covers the damage and success formulas for everything in the game, which is no small feat. The FFT strategy guides don't do that. There's FAQs that go over glitches in the game, translation issues, and all sorts of other things that will never make it into a strategy guide. Even if only 10% of FAQs are detailed and useful as you claim, those 10% completely blow away traditional guides.

        I do agree that there's no better place for good game artwork, screenshots, and such, which is why strategy guides will probably never completely disappear. If I'm looking for information, though, I'll stick to my FAQs.
        • In addition to having more accurate information, there's also more specific information in many FAQs.

          I must say, that's a good point. You can find FAQs about the numerical damage level of every possible Pokemon combination, but you're not going to get that info out of Nintendo for any price.

          It's all relative, I suppose. Choice A has benefits and Choice B has benefits!

          Hooray, a resolution with a minimum of Slashdot posturing and insults. We don't fail it, good friends... we win it.

      • You forgot the author's email address always ends in @aol.com. :)
      • You're right on except for one thing: I can hit command-f and find exactly what I'm looking for with a simple search. This makes Gamefaqs the most useful resource for games ever.
      • Fine. Pay your $20 for the strategy guide. The rest of us will benefit from the awesome and free GameFAQs.com. :)
      • ...and that's why when I find a faq I like, I open it up in notepad and trim that bastard down.

      • You forget one major thing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @07:02PM (#8764254) Homepage
        Most of the strategy guides that you find in Electronics Boutique and the like are from the Publisher of the game in question, which precludes many things from showing up. Anything that might be a bug, like Castlevania:SON's 220+% glitches or infinite money duplicators, are carefully excised from existence. Likewise, as these things are written before the game ships, many of the best, least expected tricks have yet to be discovered. Plus there are many things that the employees will sneak in, such as ridiculous characters, hidden signatures, ludicrous homages and such, that would absolutely positively not be revealed until the product was safely out the door, and the team has been disbanded enough that blame cannot be assigned.

        "Professionally" written FAQs are pretty bad. While they do have the attractive full-color laminated pages, they also were written by someone who was given about a week to research and write this thing. Which means they are also incomplete, full of embarrassing typos, and only helpful for very basic things. For any kind of fighting game you are better off with GameFaqs than with a professionally developed magazine. Hobbyist Faq writers love the game enough and know it end-to-end enough to want to write such a thing, and maintain it over the course of months or years. They're the ones likely to discover the most original combos, the most abusive tactics, and the most powerful strategies.

        Want to know where all of the developer sanctioned secrets are? Get the official guide. Want to know the most abusive, unbalancing strategies to raise your game? Go to GameFaqs. Want to know where one of the level designers snuck in Merlin the Meteor throwing Squirrel? You need GameFaqs.

        By the way, when you are numerating something, please start with one. In much the same way that we don't want to imbue computers with mood swings, we shouldn't want computers to make us zero index everything. Otherwise we run the risk of running counter to the concept of counting.

  • umm.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ophix ( 680455 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @01:32PM (#8762185) Homepage
    the people i know who use strategy guides like the fact that you dont have to stop the game and switch over the tv in order to see what to do next.

  • The answer is a resounding... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by black mariah ( 654971 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @01:40PM (#8762221)
    Maybe. Some strategy guides are useless crap, others are good and can point out some things you would have otherwise missed. I would LOVE to have a strategy guide for fighting games that included videos. I'm not good at them, and seeing the combos in action would help me out a lot. A strategy guide for a plaformer, on the other hand, is almost pointless.

  • I use guides for two reasons (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smoondog ( 85133 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @01:54PM (#8762323)
    (I've never actually owned a guide, I get all my info via walkthroughs on the net)

    1) to find a solution to a problem I just can't seem to find the answer to. I'm not going to spend two weeks trying to solve a single problem in a game.

    2) to find eggs or secret features to the games that I didn't find after I've finished with the game.

    That said, I think guides are pretty outdated. Most of the info you need is available on the net.

    -Sean

  • Not the greatest of ideas... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by KeeperS ( 728100 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @01:58PM (#8762345)
    This reminds me of when Square tried to move their FF9 strategy guide online. When you actually wanted some information, you'd turn to the appropriate page in the strategy guide and be given some really lame explanation with a note telling you to go online for the specifics. It really took the whole point out of strategy guides. When I buy a strategy guide, I want to have all the information sitting right there in one place. Having to hop from computer to paper guide to game is more trouble than its worth. I suspect that having to switch from a DVD to your game is equally annoying, since most people probably have their DVD player and console hooked up to the same TV or use their console as a DVD player.

    I can certainly understand why companies are trying new ideas with strategy guides, though. With the advent of GameFAQs, nobody needs to buy a guide anymore. I'd only buy a strategy guide for the nice artwork or as a collector's item.
    • OMG, That was the second and might I say last strategy guide I bought for that very reason. I spent $25 cdn for a guide that told me nothing I needed to know, only that I needed to logon to their webpage to get what I needed. Since my PC and TV are in completely seperate rooms this was not helpful. I promptly returned the guide and then sent the company that created the guide a irratating email of my complaints. There response was that it was what the public wanted. YAAA what PUBLIC, let me guess his/h

  • The REAL use for strategy guides... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @02:11PM (#8762419)
    For the pretty pictures! I like looking at hi-res, nicely printed official artwork of a game especially when it comes to Squaresoft/SquareEnix games. Having a strategy guide next to me to get through the game is nice and all, but the 'replay value' of the guide is the pictures.

    At least for me.

  • What they really need to do... (Score:5, Funny)

    by JasonMaggini ( 190142 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @03:08PM (#8762746)
    Bring back InvisiClues!

    Now those were game guides!
    • Bring back InvisiClues!

      Now those were game guides!

      Which ones?

      There are 3 generations of invisiclues.

      The first ones had the magic marker which you used to unveil the clue. The later ones had red cellophane. And finally there were some really neat ones made by Magnetic Scrolls where you were given an encrypted string which you typed into the game and it would reveal the answer if you had progressed far enough into the game.

      God I loved those. I think I have Kings Quest I-V hintbooks somewhere.. faded

      • Which ones?

        Ummm... the high-tech ones that finally exist due to wonders of technology and a couple of decades of development in computers?

        In other words, what we need is programs that operate similar to invisiclues. Show a question, click on a link or button or whatever to show more detailed hints. Not as funny or challenging as the originals, but it's the idea that matters.

        If I ever finish making the NWN module I'm working on, I'll make a separate "hint module" that solely exists to provide clues i

  • So if the game comes on a DVD (or you have one drive), do you have to quit out of the game to look at the strategy guide? That'd be useless.

    A DVD in addition to the printed guide could be helpful, but I only bought the FF3 (FF6) strategy guide for the cool pictures and whatnot.

  • I used to do this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tetrad_of_doom ( 750972 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @03:20PM (#8762817)
    A long time ago, when I was in junior high, I would video tape myself completing video games and rent the movies out.

    I think I still have my Blaster Master and Shadowgate videos around somewhere.

    Although today, the idea of using DVDs doesn't seem right. It might make more sense to have people download video from the internet for a price, perhaps as an added service for people willing to pay for gaming news online.

    Of course, I'm sure some online site already do this, but I'm just not willing to pay for it.


    • A long time ago, when I was in junior high, I would video tape myself completing video games and rent the movies out.

      Did you also tape the daily beatings you received from your fellow classmates? You probably would have made much more money.

  • it could work (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Fred Or Alive ( 738779 )
    I suppose DVDs could be useful for some things, like Mario Kart or Fighting Game, which might hard to explain in text. It's far easier if you can see what your supposed to be doing, rather than reading. In Japan some 2D shooters[1] come with DVDs showing skilled players doing perfect runs and the like. It'd be rather hard to express how to do that sort of thing in text.

    On the other hand, it'd be rather stupid for something like Final Fantasy MCLMXXXVII.

    Not that I read strategy guides, and I cheap lamer wh

  • Will people buy DVDs to read? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Peteroo ( 757115 ) on Sunday April 04, 2004 @04:33PM (#8763280)
    I wish Game Xplain well, but I'm skeptical.

    I seem to recall something similar on video in the mid to late '90s. It don't think it went down all that well.

    Moreover, the DVD-based zines I've seen haven't lasted. I'm not persuaded that people want to buy DVDs to read. For my own part, I don't like reading things off a screen all the time. It's hard on the eyes. (Then again, it's unclear to me how much of this guide is devoted to writing--as opposed to voice-acting and video--so this may not be an issue here.)

    Also, while a great many people use the net for help in games, I've seen many gamers comment that they don't want to leave their game to consult a guide. They want something they can hold on their knee as they work through a problem. Or take to the bathroom, or to bed, or to the backyard. How many people have two DVD players hooked up in the same room? Hard-core gamers, sure. But are they the target audience for strategy guides?

    A DVD tucked into a sleeve inside the back cover of a traditional guide for an extra fiver might be a better bet (as someone else suggested). It sounds as though this guide is well put together. But I'd ask the reviewer what the heck the quality of the DVD intro has to do with the quality of the information that follows? (Surely we've all played -games- with dazzling intros and lackluster gameplay?)

    And I didn't see a price. It's $14.95, a touch high, IMO. $9.95 would bring in more of the impulse buyers.

    Peter PS: It might also be nice if they could keep saved-game files on the DVD as well, and allow the player to off-load them into their memory cards.

  • I have bought one strategy guide and one game shark in my life time.

    Both of which I anticipated great use for, but in the end it was a huge waste of money.

    The best solution for me was having a PC online two feet next to me while I play games. That allow me to surf the web and access infinite resources.
  • This would be great for a show on say.. G4TV?
  • Why bother struggling through conventional strategy guides by reading
    Perhaps because your TV is already in use due to the fact that you're playing a game?
  • Not that a guide is really needed for Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 2, other than for item creation, even that can be worked through on the screen.

    Anyway, back to my point. For those of us who pre-ordered this game (at least through Game Stop) we were promised a guide on DVD. The DVDs printed all failed. None of us got them. After a couple of weeks Game Stop said the manufacturer is not going to bother creating the DVD now.

    Guides are not usually necessary. In some cases where a game is not intuitiv
  • You can download videos for many games. For SSX 3, it is much easier to watch the demo and see the shortcut, than it is to read the guide and wonder "did they mean shortcut between these sets of trees of those?" I cut my fastest time on the first track by more than 40 seconds merely by watching the demo video.
  • I am wondering what the next step will be. Will they provide a strategy guide program that plays the game for you? I think one of the real high points of the existing low graphic/low tech guides is that it still requires you to think and doesn't take away all of the challenge.

  • Text may be obscure, but at least it can be followed if you paid attention to the game. Video can be considerably more obscure if you only see segments of what to do. The cautionary example. [seanbaby.com]

    The only way the video walkthrough can help is that if you cover the entire game, collecting everything and doing everything there's to do. If you can't fit that on a DVD, forget the whole thing.

    Here's some good examples [c64-longplays.de.vu] of video walkthroughs (some ed2k'ing required). Check out the Last Ninja 3 one, for example. (Th

Slashdot Top Deals

And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones

Close