I track my achievements on
True Achievements, they have user submitted guides set up there, but I only use them if I'm completely stuck. There are also folks on TA that "boost" which is teaming up to complete achievements in multiplayer while taking turns. I've only done this once and it was for Sonic the Hedgehog 2's multiplayer achievement, since no one plays it online, ever.
Whether or not I use a guide/ faq depends on the achievements I suppose. Castlevania's are pretty self explanatory. Though I did have some problem last night with one and had to look up a youtube video on the proper route to take. That one you needed to destroy 100 items in a limited amount of time. I kept running out of time or not finding all the breakable items in the area. Took me about 2 hours to finish even after watching the video, there are prolly 102-105 items in the area and if you miss some on the route, you're screwed.
Most "gather x number of items" achievements I'll find a map for now a days... I tried for a year to gather the flags in Assassin's Creed without help and then after tons of frustration, I used a map that came in the official strategy guide, along with a website that showed up close shots of what you should be looking for. If I decide to 100% Crackdown I'll definitely be using a map for all the stupid orbs hidden in that game. I'm not sure I consider maps for item gathering chieves cheating. Since I'm still spending all the time and effort collecting them, plus the maps aren't 100% accurate anyway. ha
Multiplayer achievements are bitch though, and I mostly hate playing multiplayer matches. Though I do enjoy AC: Brotherhood's cat and mouse style mutliplayer game. I still need to do the 2 multiplayer Castle Crashers achievements, but finding ranked games in that is hard anymore.
