I bought strategy guides instead. I still have a few of them!
this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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I had guides too, well a few, depending on if my parents wanted to buy it. The best guides I had were for FFVII the unofficial guide with the anime artwork and poster and the Shenmue guide.
FVII the unofficial guide
Please tell me it has like five adjectives that start with "un-", including unauthorized and unofficial, surrounded by a stylized explosion on the cover.
It kicked so much ass
No spoilers! We don't reveal the plot, unlike the official guide.
Can confirm, official guide not only has spoilers but whole ass screenshots.
That's why you get the guide written by real gamers!
Olds know you had to prioritize dial up time for playing games rather than reading about them. Reading strategy guides written before the game was released by people who never had the opportunity to actually play it online before writing while my parents are on the phone and trying to sneak forums in during computer class to try to catch up on the meta.
We still buy them! My family has a lot of fun going through the art and maps and lore.
Do they still make them? Or are you buying the old ones for funsies?
They still make them! The Zelda ones are our favorite.
The official Elden ring strategy guide has a higher good reads score than Ulysses by James Joyce.
If you were 18+ there was also special numbers you could call to have the sexy time over the phone with a lady. But like I said, I was baby 
those phone lines got funnier to me when i learned that one of my mum's friends worked one for some extra money
she was a very happily married woman in her 50s who would be answering the line while doing housework when her kids were at school lol
Based.
Talking sexy while doing the dishes sounds like a lot of fun tbh
I remember the TV ads for those. And Ms. Cleo.
Oh Ms. Cleo! She was so good, wish I had the chance to get my fortune read.
I can still hear the fake Jamaican patois in my head - Call Me Now!
I used to work for Miss Cleo's hotline!! Really and truly. It was weird.
Holy shit... we need this in an AMA.
It's just capitalist sales bullshit dressed up in woowoo. Officially my job was to keep people on the phone as long as possible to get as much money as possible and sell them subscriptions and shit, but they were usually quite sad and looking for the kinds of specific advice and answers you can't get from tarot, and it felt cruel to advertise to someone who was hurting or keep them on the phone when I wasn't helping them. I was very bad at the pushy-salesy part of the job, which was the important part to my bosses, so I only lasted a month or so.
Well... I guess I asked for it...
Any good stories?
Sorry to disappoint but no, it was mostly very sad/distraught people looking for a glimmer of hope and the occasional horndog looking for a good time.
Area code 900 premium-rate telephone numbers. My family was too poor? cheap? savvy? to ever call one.
More like too smart to call, these things were a ripoff.
Hell yeah i do. I called one, once, got my ass lit up after my folks got the bill too.
I distinctly recall the tip line with 
smug face in the game... brochure? guide? instructions? pamphlet? Wtf do you call the thing they don't include with physical games these days.
I also distinctly recall not being allowed to call it.
Insert, I believe?
I remember calling the Nintendo Hotline, waited for ages through the extremely long voice recordings. Once I got connected I asked them if they could tell me the rare candy glitch for Pokémon. They said they couldn't tell me. So I hung up. Good times.
I know that I've called the Nintendo Hotline once or twice in the 90's... I wish I could remember the game.
What I do remember was feeling like a dipshit after being given the answer and I never called another one again.
Sonic 3, Tomb Raider 4 (I think), Overblood (lol) were a few games that stumped me as a baby child.
Oh shit I'm turning to dust I was already well into my teens 
Yeah I remember we had Simons Quest for the NES and we were so stuck on it, finally my dad (who was playing it) called the number and you had to like kneel by a lake for 5 seconds after picking up some item based on a cryptic message of a villager. It was a 1-900 number so it probably cost like 10 bucks. There wasn't even any internet unless you were at a university, I still don't know how you were supposed to figure it out on your own.
Yeah it cost like 3 bucks to call and then like $2 per minute and you were on the line waiting for some dude to look it up in a strategy guide and give the answer.
The soundtrack of that game still rules. What a terrible night to have a curse
Simon's Quest progression is Nintendo Power core
Castlevania music slaps in general
I called the number you got for beating God of war on hardest it was ok. It was like a radio play of kratos going on a tour of the studio or something i may be wrong it was forever ago
Nice
Or those weird 900 numbers that would come on commercials in the US. Like this -
It's true. All of it.
Never got to call one, though I remember trying to memorize the cheat codes or walkthroughs from Tip & Tricks Magazine in the store and then writing them down once I got home.