Intuitive Gaming

Games now are packaged with very slim manuals which skim over the bare necessities of how a game works, and why would they need more? Everything you need to know is done through the game itself. This isnt inherently a bad thing, it helps pull the gamer into the experience quicker, but I was thinking about the more complex games. How far are you willing to go to step outside the game, put the controller down, and get into the nitty gritty of the games rules and complexities before it gets to the point of being too much? or better yet, how far have you gone? Im not solely talking about game manuals, it could also be menu systems or background info.

Sometimes Bioware's games can be daunting in this regard. I've only played through one of their games which was KOTOR. Never did want to touch Baldur's Gate and the like. Even Mass Effect, which I still need to attempt again, throws a lot of info at you, in terms of learning combat and character development to weapon and armor stats and story info which there is TONS, the game even goes so far as to explain intricate details of technologies and sciences of items. Most of all that stuff is optional to look into anyway, but its something for me to at least check out if I want to understand whats going on in the world and story.

I remember when Star Wars Rebellion was released, it had a rather hefty manual. I read through the whole thing front to back, and proceeded to enjoy the hell out of it, even though it wasnt loved by that many. Ive also read alot in to the first 2 Fallout games, but enjoyed doing that. But turned based games turn me off now, I know a lot of people rave about Galactic Civ and Sins of a Solar Empire but it just seems too big for me, Ive also never even touched a Civilizations game.

I'd rather just play the tutorial.

This is why I hate BioWare games, especially Mass Effect. There's so much random shit going on that is never explained and it all feels so clunky and unbalanced. All BioWare should come with extensive in-game tutorials as standard.

Yea i know what you mean. Warcraft 3 had the best manual i ever bought, massive background stories and detailed explanations of all the classes, but nowadays they don't come around like that anymore.

Nowadays its sort of expected for gamers to search online for all the back story because usually there is a wiki page or some fan site and such with all the info. Its really just lazy on the developers side to not include a big manual explaining everything to players so they get the best out of their gaming experience.

I don't know man.

I didn't have any problem neither with Mass Effect or KOTOR. Maybe because I knew what I was getting into.
Things like the Codex in Mass Effect made me appreciate the effort the developers made in creating such a deep universe for the player to discover. I like how every little thing is explained in details and has is own backstory. And I understand why they kept all of this as optional, because the mainstory is pretty deep itself, it doesn't need to force feed you any more dispensional information.

That being said, I also miss the big ol' manuals.