How did you get information on games and cheats, back in the day? For me it was mainly through magazines like Nintendo Power. TV shows dedicated to games were also cool.

Friends/siblings and mags.
I never got any actual secret from TV shows, they always showed the most basic stuff like sub-zero's fatality.

>>11791603 (OP)
Friends and magazines. There used to be books at grocery stores that had cheats for games. I used to write them down in a little notebook as my mom was shopping.

Magazines, guides, friends (who were probably just regurgitating whatever they got from their mags/guides), and eventually the internet. Probably my earliest memory of using the internet for cheats/secrets was an Indian friend of mine looking up secrets in Super Mario RPG.

Alternatively there were the hotlines, though they were expensive.
I'm ESL so playing OOT was a bit hard for me back then since I wasn't able to read what was going on, or only had vague ideas.
The first time I called to the nintendo line in my country it was for help on how to makes Darunia dance by playing the saria song.
I remember the lady who helped me on the line was very sweet and nice, she even joked when I mentioned Navi to her, saying something like "oh, navi, navi".
The way the explained what I had to do was also very clear, and I felt like I was talking to someone who actually played and knew the game (even if maybe she was reading it all from a guide and never played the game, who knows).
I kind of felt attracted to this lady, still remember her voice. A weird but nice experience for me.
The second time was shitty, another lady picked the call, and this time I could tell she had no idea about the game, and just started reading from a guide like a machine, I couldn't even follow her instructions, I just solved the problem on my own by trial and error, the call was a waste. It was for help on the Silph Co. building of pokemon, the part with the maze and the directional pads.

>>11791603 (OP)
Friends, relatives, neighborhood kids. As much as it annoyed me as a kid, your classmates making up fake rumors for games was pretty SOVLFUL

also read plenty of mags and guides. Until I subscribed to NP, I would check out back issues from the library.

Also called the NP hotline a handful of times over the years. Definitely less than 10. I called the hotline around 1999 for help with Zelda 2 and to my shock they answered it.

>>11791603 (OP)
My library had a lot of those Prima "Secrets of the Games" books, NP back issues, and other similar material. They were always in my weekly rotation.

>>11791603 (OP)
If I was stuck in a game, I would peak at players guides at stores without buying them for the section I was stuck on.

>>11791603 (OP)
Internet, just like today. I remember looking up how to get through Jabu Jabu's belly in 1999 on the internet.

>>11791603 (OP)
My brother would go out into the wilderness (friends, classmates) and brought home information, mags and sometimes even games. We were poorfags but he had the social skill to convince other kids to let him borrow stuff.
I wouldn't go out because I am autistic.

>>11791774
Did Nintendo got you with the Triforce aprils fools?

Videogame magazines, watching other people play, one of those "How to beat NES games" books, and a few times calling up a hotline for help. Had a sub to NP, and I happily collected old issues of videogame and computer mags my friends no longer wanted. Electronic Entertainment Magazine, Game Players, PC Magazine, Next Generation, whatever. The book I got used at a yard sale, I honestly don't think I ever played or owned any of the games it offered advice and help on.
I called the NP helpline three times. Once because I didn't realize Bagu's house in Zelda 2 wasn't marked on the map, the second time because I couldn't find the hidden village, and the last time to ask about the "Chris Houligan" room in ALttP. Called the Tsunami Media helpline once to ask about the solution to a BS puzzle in Return to Ringworld for DOS.
Watching other people play was entirely underrated for learning stuff. I never knew about the first hidden 1-up in SMB1 until I was watching some kid play and he got it.

>>11791603 (OP)
i got cheats with Lycos, mostly

it wasn't until later that my brother/mom got us subscriptions to game rags

>>11791603 (OP)
Bookfairs at my school often had gaming related books.
I remember getting a guide for Pokemon, and it helped me get through rock tunnel and the rocket hideout

>>11791680
Mew next to the S.S. Anne was bullshit.

Other than that can't recall of anything. Maybe one time I entered a shop and the owner said he's clean cartridges with sand.

Why is it strange you ask? That shop was featured in the Nintendo power magazine, owned by one of the collaborators of it.

>>11791603 (OP)
talking to my friends

do zoomers even have "friends" nowadays? actual question. real flesh and blood, discord shit doesn't count.

>>11791603 (OP)
nintendo.com, unironically, and also mostly from my older brother's hearsay from his friends at school and summer camp.

I never knew ANYONE whose parents were uninvolved enough to let them call a video game "tip hotline". Every mother I knew would smack your hand if she caught you dialing one of those toll numbers, and they were right to do so.

One rare exception was the Skulljagger Insult Hotline, a toll-free number they put out as part of the massive pre-release hype campaign for that otherwise forgettable SNES pirate platsworder title (the hype WAS pretty fun though. there was a comic book and everything). I'm probably one of the few human beings on earth who actually called it, let alone remembers it. It was just a prerecorded message, where the titular pirate yells off a string of insults at you and then dares you to buy the game, but I learned the words "quivering bowl of lard" from it.

going to the newsagent and forcing myself to memorise the cheat i needed from those magazines. sometimes id take a pen and paper and copy them down in the shop. would love to pick up one of those old magazines that had thousands of ps1 cheats in the back pages, not those books like >>11791647 but the old mags

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LduKNxOhfdc

Had to look this up. Where I lived at, there were just magazines, but this is fascinating, I wonder if the employees were actually meant to play games, or just memorized responses/had some sort of cheat sheet with the answers.

>>11791603 (OP)
my cousins were 5 years older than me

I only knew about SMB3 flutes as a kid because of them, I don't even know how they knew about them since we lived in a third world shithole, we didn't even know English at that time