The world used to be so much cooler

An actual American call center rep? Holy shit

I once wrote a letter to Nintendo Power magazine asking for help beating a level in Lost Vikings, and I got a step-by-step walkthrough in return.

and your mom would beat you when she saw the phone bill.

The most personable and polite video game nerds in the history of mankind.

My neighbors used to be 3 guys who rented their stepdad's house...they were Nintendo phone-helpers...they got up around 2pm, got high and popped beers in the backyard, with tunes cranked, then in the evening they did their gig. A happy bunch.

My brother had a subscription to Nintendo Power and kept all of his issues pristine and none of us were allowed to touch them 😂 it was a magazine that went through games and levels and cheat codes

All I wanted to do as a kid when I grew up was write the walk throughs in the gaming magazines.

These were the holy grail back then

I actually used one of these lines (not Nintendo's specifically) ... from a PAYPHONE, that I had to walk 15 minutes to. THAT's how stuck I was. Actually worked. Used it twice. Got the answers I needed!

"The world used to be so much cooler." That cost him $7.99

Nowadays

@ooana I live near their headquarters and had several friends with this job.

Playstation has this as well. I called it for Duke Nukem and they were really helpful.

It was a great time to be alive. The 70's, 80's and 90's were really fun.

Actually human answering a call? Absolute fantasy

$9.99 the first minute and .99 each additional minute 🤣

I got into world of Warcraft when I came home from Iraq, was an escape i needed. It was early 2006, and this type of customer service was available from blizzard at that time. Took ten minutes on hold and you were talking to an English speaking non-retard.

What in the customer service is that. We can’t get a live person on the phone now.

I called the hotline!

You actually only need five hearts to get the White Sword. It seems like they were both actually talking about the Magical Sword, which actually does require twelve hearts. And it sounds like the guy was in the Graveyard, which is where the Magical Sword is.

my mother gave me stern talks having occasionally found a few of these calls on our phone bill...

There were also magazines and pamphlets that contained player guides. At least by the mid-1990s. I remember the magazines were also the only way to get mods since you couldn't really download them. I used to have a few GoldSrc mods on disk that came from magazines.

I remember calling this hotline about metroid lol, I was like 14.

I called it for FFII (FFIV) advice

They sure did! I maintained their phone system at the time.

Bro shit was way cooler once upon a time. Everything is so gay and retarded now it’s almost unbearable.

had that written down

I called this Hotline late 80s, it was a long distance call to the state of Washington. They helped me through a chapter of Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom 🍅

The level of politeness is something I wish we could get back, but I feel is gone forever

Today you would be talking to a guy in India

I was talking to my niece about numbers we used to dial like Time & Temperature and Dial-A-Song, which we actually called, but I forgot about this one.

You could also write them letters and they would respond, for free. Sometimes they would suggest back issues that covered what you were after and you could buy the back issues for a few bucks. They announced they were cancelling it so I wrote them and said I would cancel my nintendo power subscription if they ended the program and they responded saying it was happening so I cancelled. I was probably 13. Lost all my issues in an accident. Still sucks. |

My friend's brother used to work on one of those lines in the UK, around 1993 era. He was a king for about 6 years

Way before the internet, Nintendo Power was pretty much the most relevant part to getting tips and tricks on everything. Cheat codes especially

....I may have called it once or twice and collected Nintendo Power mags...