What do you think of Gamefaqs?

[Steven]

All in all, a good place. Of course the current gen system boards are awful, but the older boards (i.e. SNES, Saturn etc.) are solid. The FAQs can be helpful and the 1000's of reviews can be fun to browse once in a while.

Never really understood all the hate people give this site. Just gotta know where to navigate and where to stay away from. Overall, much more good than crap. And if you avoid the crap, you can only smell the roses

[UnpluggedClone]

google 4 gaga

[DigitalSpace]

As I've said before, the FAQs are great, and the reviews aren't bad. But stay away from the forums.

[kupomogli]

Honestly, the more popular the game, the worse the people on that game's forum are. Also, they have so many dumb rules. You would think that these kids would want to go somewhere with more leeway but no. Then again, they're kids. They don't know any better.

Great Faqs and cheats but the forums are terrible and overrun by kids.

This is pretty much right.

I remember when I used to go to the RPG Maker 2 forums and also the Mobile Suit Gundam Encounters in Space forums. I was probably on both of these forums for around a month when the games came out.

The RPG Maker 2 forums were obviously us talking about different types of scripts, etc. Rarely it was some really bad topics, so it was pretty good.

The Mobile Suit Gundam Encounters in Space forum were everyone giving their input on all the missions throughout the game, how to get different suits and talking about the game. Usually none of the fanboy nonsense you see on the Gundam games that have Seed characters in them. "What is your favorite Seed character, etc, blah blah blah, random junk Gundam Seed sucks"

In two of the Mobile Suit Gundam Encounters in Space guides I'm one of the multiple people mentioned who gave input on them. http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/582582/35438 http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/582582/27681

[megasdkirby]

The FAQS themselves are extremely helpful, as they provide great information that would otherwise force me to purchase strategy guides.

The boards are the pure shit. I don't mind the administrators nor the mods, but I really dislike the actual members. When I used to go there, I remember having nice, serious discussions with other "good" members, but there would always be a little kid messing things up. The fanboy figths are stupid as well, and just gets annoying. It's as bad as the Ebay forums.

Every now and then I go to post something, just to se my karma increase. But that too I left behind, as it was qutie a chore to log on every day just to get something I will never actually use.

[BetaWolf47]

As far as a video game archive, the site is irreplaceable. If it went down, so much knowledge on video games old and new would be lost. You can find release dates, walkthroughs, codes, and boxart. As far as 5th-gen and older games go, I often use the reviews to gauge whether a game is worth buying or not.

As others have said though, forums are crap. They're the reason I'm here, actually. I actively posted on the Wii board every day, but there was too much fanboy wars going on to get a serious discussion going. It rubbed off on the community and even the respectable users, and influenced what they thought about a game.

That kind of community causes a bad chain reaction. A game can get rave reviews, and become one of the best games for a system. But then someone will bring out, "<Company> just made that game to pander to <demographic>. We should boycott this game to make sure <company> doesn't make more bullcrap like this." or something among those lines.

That will cause people who initially liked the game to go back and analyze the game. Not even play it. Just go back and look at the graphics, music, controls, and level design. It gets to the point where these people buy games just to analyze them, then pass their opinion back to the board, and argue about it until the next big game comes out. Worse yet, they consider that "hardcore gaming."

I eventually got sick of that and found these forums. Once I found these, I knew I could close my account on GameFAQs. Suicided the account and never looked back.

[crux]

I presume that those giving the forums of GameFAQs, as a whole, a bad name haven't delved much beyond the more popular forums. It's true that the forums of GameFAQs attract an incredible amount of juvenile and immature posters. But as others have pointed out, the forums of GameFAQs are comprised of an enormous web of micro-communities. Whereas there's some forums on GameFAQs that are torture to try to uphold a conversation in, I've known other forums there that have shown a great deal more intellectualism than any other gaming forum I've ever visited. The community is enormous (a fact dwarfed by the fact that the site used to delete every inactive thread - and still do on non-gaming boards) and as such is host to an enormous amount of diversity.

Of course, I'd agree with the assertion that it might not be worth navigating the forums just to find the more pleasant niches - it's a lot easier to navigate smaller videogame forums. GameFAQs deserves some of its detractors, to be sure, that doesn't mean that there's no value to be found in their forums.

Every now and then I go to post something, just to se my karma increase. But that too I left behind, as it was qutie a chore to log on every day just to get something I will never actually use.

As an aside - and I do know this from firsthand experience (and the fact that the website says as much) - it's only required to visit the boards to gain karma. There's no need to post. "Karma threads" and such are purely superfluous.

[Urzu402]

Have you ever known someone who was really intelligent and expressive in real life, but then when you talk to them online they come off as a completely different person?

Representing what you think/feel accurately through text is a skill - and until you develop it, you're probably going to stink at it. I know the way that I got to be at least decent at it was by being around and talking to people who were already proficient at it, in places like this. You may not even be aware of it, but over time it does have an effect on you. I've seen it happen with plenty of others here as well. Gradually, they just seem to get better at saying what's on their mind.

But before you can have a chance to do all that, you do have to sort of settle in to the community in question which, as you've mentioned, can be a pretty difficult adjustment. The problem with a place like GameFAQs is that you're in a constant state of that adjustment. GameFAQs isn't a community - it's a collection of thousands of micro-communities that operate mostly unaware of each others' existence. That means that every time you want to talk about a different game, you basically have to start all over again and re-settle into a new community.

So in terms of that "skill" I mentioned earlier, what you walk into GameFAQs with is usually what you walk out with - you don't really get a chance to improve at it there. That's why I think the average posting quality there is so dramatically bad. It's somehow even worse at IMDb, whose forums follow a similar model.

Can't Say that I have ever known anyone like that because I haven't talked to many people I know in real life online.

Most of the Social Boards are the communities though is the point i'm trying to make, to me the game boards are nothing more than discussion boards. I am pretty much auto accepted in to game forums, but I don't know if that is because of my high Karma. but I consider the Game boards to be nothing more than discussions I only go there when I need help with a game or something.

Can't argue with this lol. Because I don't know any of the other forums. but social boards on Gamefaqs are where the communities are at. also what I want to say is that there is no reason to even go to the Gamefaqs boards or you absolutely need to ask a question on like a new game or something and you want to find a Social Community to fit into. and then the Off Topic board here. Because to me the Off Topic board seems to be a separate community.

EDIT:

As an aside - and I do know this from firsthand experience (and the fact that the website says as much) - it's only required to visit the boards to gain karma. There's no need to post. "Karma threads" and such are purely superfluous.

You need at least one active post and visit the forums to get a Karma.
Whoops put that in the wrong spot.

[Snapple]

Most of the boards on GameFAQs are swill, but there are some pockets of great people. As long as I have Ad Block Plus and GameFOX, I can spend all day on GameFAQs.

These days, I mostly hang around Sports and Racing General and our social board. Sometimes I check in on the anime board.

Obviously, the FAQs are a great resource. I've even written a few FAQs myself, and I won $50 for one! Good times on GameFAQs.

[Damaramu]

The FAQ/Walkthrough section is damn near invaluable. The rest of the site can rot in its own special hell.

[The 1 2 P]

I started using them as my default FAQ guides during the Playstation 1 era due to all the import games I was buying. They are also a good reference for seeing when games were released and for what regions. And the pictures help for when I'm looking for specific games in the wild. I've never used their forums so I can't really comment on that.

[FireStar]

As for information, they are a irreplaceable source and the fact most of the guides are txt's makes viewing easy. Though obviously by this point in time user-made faq's with pictures and such are overdue.

As for the community, screw them. Too many kids that don't know how to talk to people.

[Arkhan]

Game faqs is a bunch of ignorant pole smokers acting like they know everything about whatever they happen to be talking about.

Usually, they know two things:

Jack and Shit.



They're also a bunch of crybaby wussies that complain about some of the stupidest things possible in games.

[BetaWolf47]

As for information, they are a irreplaceable source and the fact most of the guides are txt's makes viewing easy. Though obviously by this point in time user-made faq's with pictures and such are overdue.

Meh, I doubt they'll ever phase out high-quality, detailed strategy guides.

[Arkhan]

I think gamefaqs is half the reason so many gamers today are dumb and can't handle challenges.


They buy a new game, go to gamefaqs, get walk thru + cheats, and then fumble through the step by step how to with infinite health and go THAT WAS EASY.

[Kitsune Sniper]

No, that would be caused by the damn game stores PUSHING GAME GUIDES WHEN YOU BUY THE GAME. :P

[Shellshock!]

FAQs good. Also good are the advance search features for games, where you can query for lists of shoot'em-ups for a specific system, for example. The only site I know that returns those types of lists.

[Xian042]

The problem with a place like GameFAQs is that you're in a constant state of that adjustment. GameFAQs isn't a community - it's a collection of thousands of micro-communities that operate mostly unaware of each others' existence. That means that every time you want to talk about a different game, you basically have to start all over again and re-settle into a new community.

I second this, I used GF before this site, and yes, most of the forums are garbage. But there are some great groups of people on there that are passionate about what they do and say, and some of their conversatons are fascinating. The trick is finding them. If you built up your "karma" enough you can get into better social rooms. There is far less ignorant banter going on there, but it can take a few years of daily posting to get there.

as far as the game guides, yes they can be quite helpful, its also easy to look up data on games like release date, developer, publsher, etc.

[portnoyd]

I haven't decided if the GameFAQs forums is the anus, sphincter, rectum or armpit of the internet. It's definitely one of the four.

[BetaWolf47]

Problem with the rank boards (Idolatry and all that) is that the discussion is rarely about gaming. Plus, some really big trolls do make it to that level.

That also reminds me of how bad some of the moderators are. Just because they know jack **** about some of the games, you'll get your messages deleted and lose karma for being off topic, when any regular can tell you aren't. Also, clear, obvious trolls get away with trolling 95% of the time. Nintendo fanboys who spend 4 hours a day convincing the PS3 board that the PS3 is a failure, and PS3 fanboys who spend 4 hours a day convincing the Wii board that Wii sucks.