Walkthrough
From Wikia Gaming, your source for walkthroughs, games, guides, and more!
A Walkthrough (or Walkthru, or FAQ) is basically an extensive guide to get you through a game. There are a few here on Wikia Gaming, but most people go to GameFAQs. GameFAQs' walkthroughs are basically imageless, less glossy versions of strategy guides that are available in stores, whereas sites such as IGN and Gamespot, unconstrained by text-only rules, are able to include many illustrations to accompany and explain their walkthrough text.
The advantage strategy guides have over most online walkthroughs is that they are usually officially licensed and thus are heavily illustrated, resulting in guides rich in maps and character art, sometimes even exclusive to these works. Online walkthroughs have typically fewer images (or, in the case of GameFAQs' and IGN's user-submitted guides, no images at all) and usually no maps, but this is made up for by the fact that they are usually free.
Increasingly, fansites are producing highly illustrated works constantly updated with the latest user-discovered bugs and secrets. Guides written in a wiki environment are also free of such constraints. The comprehensiveness of and free access to such guides may one day challenge commercial guides.
Regardless, when well written both mediums can get you through the game just as easily.
[edit] See also
[edit] External Links
- GameFAQs, offering free text-only hosting of user-submitted guides
- Open Game FAQs, an editable GameFAQs "alternative" currently producing mostly text-only guides
- IGN Guides produces moderately illustrated guides, the newest ones only available to IGN Insider subscribers
- GameSpot also produces online guides, but these are usually free to Gamespot Basic subscribers
- Wikibooks hosts many editable guides with varying degrees of illustration
- RPGClassics produce fully illustrated guides but only deal in RPGs
- Gameinfo aims to produce fully illustrated walkthroughs akin to commercial strategy guides
