What To Do When You Are Stuck On A Game

There comes a time in every person's video game career that some puzzle just stumps him or her, or he or she cannot figure out where they are supposed to go next. A few years ago, that would mean that said gamer should go out to their local video game store and hope that they can find the extremely dense strategy guide for the game they are stuck in and hope that it gives enough information on what to do. However, with the continual expansion of the internet, paper strategy guides have been made virtually obsolete.

Now, if you need help, you have a couple of options. If you have an extremely specific question, you can search using any search function, like Google or Yahoo, with your exact question. You should get a bunch of results, mostly from forums, where people have asked the same question because they had the same problem. Then, you can just browse through the results at your leisure and see which of them specifically answers your problem. After all, in any given puzzle, two people might be stumped by two different parts of that same puzzle, so you should be sure to check that the answers you find are actually relevant to your situation. Alternatively, if no one has asked a question about that puzzle, then you can register on the site and ask it yourself.

Another option is to check an online walkthrough or strategy guide. There are many different websites, like ConsoleCheatCodes.com, Gamefaqs.com, IGN.com, and Neoseeker.com, that have dozens of FAQs and walkthroughs for all sorts of video games. Of course, lesser known games are bound to have less FAQs. But extremely popular games will have many different FAQs for walkthroughs, strategy guides, maps, certain mini-games, one-hundred percent completion, monsters, or what have you. If there is a guide specialized for your problem, like a guide just for the certain kind of puzzle you are stuck on, then chances are that guide will be more specific and helpful. Otherwise, you can check a general walkthrough and just skip to the part at which you are stuck.

Additionally, with the increased popularity of video sharing sites like Youtube, you also have the option of looking for video walkthroughs. People with a lot of time, an expertise in a certain game, and video-recording hardware will often record their own playthrough of that game as advice. They will then post the recordings on Youtube in different parts, and you just have to search through them to find the part that covers the section you are on. In this case, these walkthroughs tend to be more limited than word-based ones, since the latter can offer multiple strategies for any given puzzle or fight, whereas the former can only offer the one that the creator used and chose to record.

With all of these internet-based solutions to video game questions, there really is very little need to buy a printed strategy guide. If you like the combination of the pictures and the words that you get with printed guides, or you just feel better having it on paper, being able to hold the guide in front of you, then by all means, buy away. But there are so many free options online that you should only resort to buying a guide if you simply cannot live without one.

By: John Hancock

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