I was throwing out some useless memorabilia/junk and stumbled across a box of old game manuals obviously I had to start reading them instead of continuing the cleaning. Back in the day they really put some effort into these things hundred or more pages of lore, unit descriptions and other useless but cool stuff. Now days it’s just a small booklet with installation instructions and a few words about the HUD or something like that.
Am I the only one who misses useless information in book form? I would go as far as paying extra to get a proper thick manual full of lore with my games. How about you?
Where Have All The Manuals Gone?
What would they put in game guides that would justify them costing $20 if they had all the info in the manual already?
I remember back in day they used to have entire character back stories and random factoids in a nice 30 page manual. Now manuals are like 5 pages (Modern Warfare 2, I'm looking at you) and you have to buy limited editions to get "art books" to get what used to be in manuals.
I remember the old half life 1 manually that was easily 100 pages I miss those days
Bring back the mauel
I kind of liked reading manuals, but in this day and age they are pretty obsolete with the internet being a viable source for tips and tutorials (GameFAQs), or just installing the tutorial into the game itself. Not only that, but it saves them a bit more money and helps environmentally with less paper being used to make manuals. Nowadays I never bother reading the manuals for instructions.
I miss them too.
I also loved the manuals we got back in the day. I remember I'd read through them and look at them and study them over and over. I thought they were awesome. Unfortunately it seems most other people didn't agree with me as I am under the impression that a lot of people and possibly most people never read them, which is why I blame all the manual stuff being in the in game tutorials now, which leaves little reason to include a proper manual.
Yeah I've definitely noticed that they've shrunk over the years. I picked up Modern Warfare 2 and the size made me literally laugh. It's kind of sad as that game could actually use a bigger manual to understand the story as it's a little fragmented. Above poster is right though. As in game tutorials have become the norm, the manuals have lost their size.
If you want a game that could have used a bigger manual but didn't include it, check out Mass Effect. But it didn't need one. As the in game codex did a excellent job of keeping track of all the lore and races from that game. I wish more games would have something like this in them as it's an easy "to go" guide on everything the game has in it. I'm trying to think of a couple other games that had this in depth look at everything but nothing immediately comes to mind other then ME.
" I miss them too.Not to mention Civilization, SimEarth. Hundred plus pages with actual history and science in them.
...pic...
Now those were manuals. It all started to go south when Valve shipped Half-Life 2 without any manual and opted for a pathetic flyer with only the most basic information on it. "
I miss the longer manuals of the past as well. When I was younger, I'd always read the entire manual for a game after playing it for the first time. It kinda added to the 'being sucked into the world' aspect of gaming and made me even more excited to play the game again.
Yea I miss those huge manuals you used to get, probably the best manual I've got in recent times is the one that comes with The Witcher Enhanced edition, no so much the manual but the fact that it also came with a game guide.
Seeing that pic of the Baldur's Gate 2 manual brought back so many memories. So much lore, so little time...
Yeah, I agree, I miss the cool game manuals. There was some great stuff in the PS2 era (I liked the Red Faction one), but all of them have sucked so far this gen. Still, I thought the downloadable Metal Gear solid database, while not quite the same, was kick ass. Can we please get more of that kind of stuff?
" @ThePhantomnaut said:I mean the tutorial." Blame Halo. "Halo's manual wasn't Starcraft in size, but it was full color and had loads of story information. I don't know what you're talking about. "
I loved the old manuals, but I'm glad to give them up in favor of intuitive mechanics and good tutorials.
Ya I recenlty found my old snes manuals. D.K country 2 and Super Mario world manuals were so awesome color pictures big. Now we got 2 pages black and white crap :(
I miss the old days of getting a game and having to go to school the next day, eagerly sitting in class to run home and play it. Game manuals helped satisfy that insanity. Nowadays everything is simply, "Troubleshooting"/"Join XBL"/"Here's your only 3 pages to read". Modern Warfare 2's manual was heartbreaking.
" What would they put in game guides that would justify them costing $20 if they had all the info in the manual already? "Wall Posters? But the guides don't really make sense anymore with the internets and all. Google is free.
I miss them too. It would be cool to see a game released with an old school theme attached. Thick manual, instruction booklet, intro story, character bio's, and some other random awesomeness. Like a mini poster or CD sound track. I even framed my poster from the MGS3 guide.
But isn't digital distribution a good thing? I completely agree that the game cases of today are flimsy and cheap. Seems all the money was put into copyright protection. Which is still weak.
I also miss cartridges. But like paper, it's near useless when most people have color printers and internet browsing capability at a stone's throw away.
Manuals were cool, there were a lot of great NES manuals...
Manuals cost extra money to make, lots of people didn't bother reading them, practically speaking in-game tutorials are a better game-learning tool.
I miss nice manuals, but like disk artwork or box art they're really an unnecessary extra.
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