Game-Books Question

Is there any difference between a Stradegy Guide and a Cheat Book? If so, what?

I wanna know because I'm currently ordering/buying Xmas presents, and a video game book is among them.

Strategy guides are usually more 'legit'. They are often officially endorsed by the people who made the game. Cheat books often are not.

Strategy guides don't usually involve cheating. Mostly they have a walkthrough to help players finish the game, in single player. And in multiplayer games they provide strategy and tips to be more competitive. Cheat books might have cheat codes, or ways of exploiting some bug in the level or something.

What's the game in question?

Originally posted by BackFire
Strategy guides are usually more 'legit'. They are often officially endorsed by the people who made the game. Cheat books often are not.

Strategy guides don't usually involve cheating. Mostly they have a walkthrough to help players finish the game, in single player. And in multiplayer games they provide strategy and tips to be more competitive. Cheat books might have cheat codes, or ways of exploiting some bug in the level or something.

What's the game in question?

So are stradegy guides more "for dummies", in other words, they hold your hand through the entire game?

There's two games actually, for two different people. One is The Force Unleashed 2 which I understand just came out. The other is a little older; Midnight Club: Los Angeles, which came out a couple years ago.

As far as them being for dummies, it really depends on the guide and the game. Some games are complex and for those types (Starcraft II, for example) they're pretty useful. For something like Force Unleashed, which if I'm not mistaken is a linear single player only game, then yeah, it probably would be just a hand holding thing to guide you through the game, and maybe show you where hidden items or treasures would be.

However, some guides do have some neat storyline summaries that can be fun to read. And might talk a lot about the characters in a game and in that respect can make the storyline of the game a bit more enjoyable and fleshed out.

I would never buy a strategy guide considering Gamefaqs and other various sites are around but for games like Oblivion and Fallout 3, strategy guides can be useful. Especially if hardcore stats are involved. I wouldn't mind paying 10 bucks for a checklist type book for some of games like Zelda and such.

I like strat guides more for the artwork than anything else, but I always wait until they get pennied out at work and then get it for free 😛

They really don't make cheat books anymore; those are literally just cheat codes for various games.

I get strategy guides for the artwork as well, honestly.

They are pretty obsolete considering gamefaqs, and even some games that have their own wiki lol.

I get strategy guides to have something to take to the pooper with me. A nice way to pass 5 minutes, and I don't have to keep reading like a normal book. I'll even sometimes scour old strategy guides just for the nostalgic thrill of it.

😊

Same here, Digi. Heck, I've got the Cataclysm guide in there right now.

Back when Nintendo Power was good, I used to enjoy being able to get free guide books for specific games just by subscribing to NP. Like a couple others said though, I mostly liked 'em for their artwork and such.. especially when it came to the books for the 1st and 2nd gen Pokemon games. 😛

Originally posted by BackFire
Same here, Digi. Heck, I've got the Cataclysm guide in there right now.