h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thank the gods for walkthroughs and the interwebs.

Last night (and for a couple of nights previously) we'd been stuck on Army of Two. We were on the high ground, but had 2 ladders, a staircase and a wounded soldier to defend. There were about 30 of them and they kept on coming up the ladders and the stairs. We thought we had to split up (as is quite usual in this game) and defend a couple of bits each. We didn't. What we *needed* to do was basically stay together near the soldier and just pick 'em off, it was hard work, but we managed it in the end. Thank you IGN.

That reminded me of the first ever time I had to use a walkthrough. The game was Ephemeral Fantasia on PS2. It was a role play game of sorts, the same 5 days kept repeating themselves until you'd 'discovered' all the characters and (consequently) most or even all of the map (you started just in one little town and had to do all sorts of things to get out of there) that could and would help you at the end of day 5. Simple huh?

Nope. The characters were only available to 'recruit' at certain times, on certain days, *and* you usually need to do something for them in a certain time period before they'd be willing to join you. I was lost, I kept repeating the same five days over and over and over. It was driving me mad. I didn't have a PC at the time as it was nearly 13 years ago, but I *did* have access to the internet through my cable TV package it *was* dial up, and did cost me a small fortune, but what the hey. However I could only find one place that had a walkthrough at the time and that was a site called intoliquidsky.net - the site is still there and the last time I looked the walkthrough was too (although it was very difficult to find)

Nowadays there are all sorts of places on the 'net that have walkthroughs, both written and on YouTube and you can buy dead tree ones as well, these are brilliant when playing RPG's and are a lot cheper than printer ink and paper when you're trying find and make recipes as in Tales of Vesperia.

Cheating?

I'm not sure, I don't think so.

After we'd saved our man on AoT we continued to play for well over 2 hours without a single problem. Sometimes you just need a liitle help.

I always felt that that was what was lacking in my life. Access to a walkthrough or at least some cheats.

I wrote this some years ago in the short shorts thread:

"Life isn't a rehearsal, it's the opening night."

If anything really annoyed him, that was it.
I mean, in the name of the celestial Helen Mirren, from AmDram in village halls to blockbusters in the West End, everybody rehearsed.
Yet here was God doing adhoc improv with a cast of four billion.
Well OK, he was a reasonable man and didn't expect to have a full technical, but a read through would have been nice.

Which is why I believe that life IS a dress rehearsal. We haven't seen Opening Night yet.

I keep practising...

I also think walkthroughs are a lifesaver. Thank goodness for the experienced geek who shares, right, Mags?

Indeed so, D.

There's many a time when I've just needed someone else to 'Show me the Way' (do you have an earworm yet?

Deb

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[Amy P]