[General Discussion] Playing with a walkthrough

It really depends on the game and the situation. Ideally, I like to play through once without a guide, then use one on a second play-through to try to do and get everything or (if applicable) get a particular ending. But if the game gets EXTREMELY annoying and I end up wanting to finish it just for the sake of the plot, I'll cave in and use a guide. Silent Hill 4 is the biggest offender here; when I reached the second half of the game and realised that I was going to have to spend the entire rest of the game re-playing old levels and babysitting annoying NPCs, I just said, "Screw this," and used a (plot spoiler free) FAQ to race through the rest of the game as quickly as possible.

In most games (especially when it comes to RPGs) I might glance at the side-quest section of an FAQ before heading off to the final boss, just to see if there's any extremely obvious quests I've missed. But I'll rarely use the guide for the game itself until I'm hopelessly stuck or annoyed enough that I just want to finish it as fast as possible. I don't like needlessly cheating, and far too many FAQs are riddled with spoilers anyway.

Jam it back in, in the dark.