Universal Hint System (UHS)

A few years ago, while looking for some information on a game secret, I came across this very interesting site, the Universal Hint System, and ever since then I use it as much as possible. The general idea is that the site provides walkthroughs for games, but it does it better then all of the competition. For one, and least importantly in my opinion, they are all laid out in the same professional format; Which of course makes using it a lot more enjoyable and efficient. Secondly, the information is laid out in such a way as to easily allow you to use it for a specific puzzle or challenge, instead of the regular step by step guide for the entire game with the steps for any individual puzzle separated and distributed over many pages. Lastly, and most uniquely, instead of just giving you answers and direct instructions all solutions start off by giving you a series of hints until outright telling you the answer. As you might imagine, I love using this website for adventure games in particular and I would credit it for making the genre as a whole better and more playable.

In addition to the walkthroughs, the site does offer a few game reviews, a program that will download the hints and allow offline viewing, and will even pay anyone who writes new walkthroughs for them. It definitely does not have walkthroughs for all games, but it is surprising how often a game I am playing will be one that they have. That is all I have to say about the site myself, but I will leave you with a quotation from the site describing itself.

“The Universal Hint System gives you just the hints you need to solve hundreds of computer games. Unlike traditional walkthroughs, the UHS lets you select specific questions and view only as much information as you want -- from subtle nudges to full answers -- so you can have more fun solving the game on your own. Most of our available hints can be viewed with your web browser or can be downloaded and viewed later with the use of a UHS Reader.”

Note: I was not paid, propositioned, or otherwise encouraged to make this post, have the views that I do about the UHS website, or have any expectation of benefiting from the success of the site other then more quality game hints.