Hint lines

[CP5670]

Has anyone ever bothered to call these things? I'm talking about the hint lines with 900 phone numbers that were given in the manuals of most games until the late 90s. What sort of "hints" did they give you?

I never got the point of these things considering the charge was something like $1/minute, but I didn't actually try them. Did you ever get any useful information or was it like the hint line thing at the end of Monkey Island 2?

 

[TheVrolok]

I actually wrote to Sierra's hint department maybe two or three times on my first play through of the Space Quest remake in the early 90's. I was probably 9 or so and it was fun when I got stuck to write a letter, mail it, and get a letter back in a few days telling me how to beat the part which had me stuck. Ahh, those were the days. They'd simply say something such as, "Did you try looking around the room, perhaps toward the XXXX, to see if it could be of use?" and that would be enough to get me over the hump.

 

[shortylickens]

Back in the late 80's I called it once for Dragon Warrior.
No help at all.

"These items are hiden well underground." Fucking great.


You have to understand I was just a wee laddie at the time, and games like Dragon Warrior seemed amazingly complicated to me.
I just ran through it on an emulator recently and found the so-called "quests" to be mind-numbingly simple. The world map also felt incredibly small and constricted.

Right after I made that call Nintendo Power had an issue with a strategy guide in it for the game. After that I put all my faith into NP and was never disappointed. In fact I found those magazine issues to be far more useful for my gaming than most of the strategy guides published for PC games today.
The Neverwinter Nights 2 Official Guide was by far the worst offender.
The best so far were the Versus Books guides for Baldurs Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal.


I just use gamefaqs.com now. Free and very helpful.