Whatever happened to manuals?

Mal-Adjusted

Ten years ago, every game came with a manual or at least a booklet. We all remember them.
A age or two of introduction/story, a bit on the characters, weapons, locations. Hell, there's even be a fold out map if you were lucky (or a technology tree for Age of Empires)
Some games, like RPG's really needed Manuals (at least needed them more tham others did) and I remember the Manual for Star Wars: Rebellion being about 150 pages! Nowdays we're lucky to even get one on the disc as a .pdf.
I know they weren't crucial for most titles, but i enjoyed flicking through them, assuming i liked the game, the ad space in GTAIII was brilliant.
I suppose with the push towards online, there wasn't a place for them (or a better idea selling them later as "strategy guides", though we still get them on collectors editions of stuff.
Either way, they're a bit of fun from gaming's past, who else misses them or am i the only sad sap who bothered to read them ?

ShadowHearth

Cut the costs. Thats it. Usually you will just get a link to go online and check manual there.

magick

tutorials have taken them over. Though i do miss them, especially the super nintendo manuals, the art work in those were beautiful.

Dave_The_Sheep

Man, those flight sim manuals. My personal favourite description from an old Charlie Brooker review that stuck with me: "sufficiently bulky to crush a small dog". Damn right. And I loved them.

Captain Chaos

Games have been dumbed down to the point they are not needed anymore by and large. Still have my Falcon 4.0 manual from 1998, all 600+ pages of it.:D

briany

Manuals were great back in the day because of the glossy art work and storytelling. Sometimes a manual would be so involved that it became a half decent substitute for playing the game. With something like Civ, you nearly got more expertise at playing the game just by doing this.

Really, though, there's just not that much need for them anymore. Still, I think it's always worth throwing in a scan that's nostalgic to myself and maybe some of ye. This comes from the manual of Super Punch Out on the SNES.

ShadowHearth

The other reason too: they can sell you "the manual" in a form of collectors edition now too.

Remember original manuals in games like Diablo 2 and expansion lod. The boxes themselves were the size of collector editions now and had lots of goodies inside. Gta vice city on ps2 had cool manuals and map of city too.

Stuff like this was normal games inventory.

imitation

Ah the manual, time was half the game was the manual, after all you could get more than 8 colors onto paper !

richymcdermott

They have been replaced by god awful tutorial that explain to you for a hour and half that you push forward to move and press x to jump.

imitation

So who remembers back when you needed the manual to get past copy protection ? I definitely won't miss the days of turning to page 50 for word 20, or finding what code is on the bottom of page 25, or worst of all the unreadable and unphotocopyable glossy black on black.

Jet Black

The GTA ones were great. The manual had advertisements for the companies in the games and a map/poster.

RedXIV

I miss them too, Best part about coming up to Dublin on the train was reading the manuals of the games I bought on the way home.

Actually bought a game on adverts recently just to get the manual because I lost my copy years ago!

Morag

They are now sold separately as game guides
http://www.amazon.com/Elder-Scrolls-Revised-Expanded-Official/dp/0307895475

Retr0gamer

We can thank some bean counter that decided that giving customers a quality product was less important than cutting corners to save a few dollars. Most games need manuals but I recently got Dragon's Dogma and absolutely have no idea what I'm doing in the game and what the hell is happening. I'm picking up loads of random crap for a craft system I have no idea about. Even the manual included in the game is no better than the control sheets I used to get with review copies of games. Some games need them.

Even Atlus who usually do some lavish manuals with gorgeous art gave no manual with Soul Hackers, a game which really does need a demon fusion chart which came with every other Shin Megami Tensei game.

nesf

Manuals were, in general, going downhill for years though before they disappeared from the boxes. Now in fairness, most people have access to the internet these days so if you're playing a game you can usually find out manual level information about it fairly easily through the work of others (or people who played the beta laying out what they'd figured out when it comes to PC games).

I do have very fond memories of when I was a kid being driven home from the city and having the manual for a game out and carefully studying it and trying to immerse myself into the world before I got home and could install the game. Kinda defeated now by digital downloads and whatnot but it was nice back then.

briany

If you went back in time to the mid 90s and told people what we have now in regards game information, they'd bite your hand off to get it. Text walkthroughs, video walkthroughs, discussions forums etc. Theres so much info, they'd find it overwhelming. I used to greatly appreciate the walkthroughs in N64 magazine and I don't think I'd have gotten through OoT, for example, without one.

the groutch

richymcdermott wrote: »

They have been replaced by god awful tutorial that explain to you for a hour and half that you push forward to move and press x to jump.

Achievement Unlocked!

Kiith

I used to love going to Dublin to buy a game or two, and spend the train journey home reading the journal. I especially remember the Homeworld manual which had loads of background information about the universe, or the Warcraft 2 manual with it's fantastic art. Good times.

corcaigh07

Should be one coming with GTA V, they are great and awesome to look at the game map at your leisure.

Gatling

Use to remember hearing game staff telling younger customers and there parents that some manuals contained cheat codes and what not ,in hundred of ps ,ps2 ,psp and 360 games I've never found a code in any of the manual's

Kinda added to the excitement of a new game reading the manual as a new game loaded up for them first time

SherlockWatson

Jet Black wrote: »

The GTA ones were great. The manual had advertisements for the companies in the games and a map/poster.

Reckon that'll be the same for the new one, hope so anyway.

Jordan 199

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

Man, those flight sim manuals. My personal favourite description from an old Charlie Brooker review that stuck with me: "sufficiently bulky to crush a small dog". Damn right. And I loved them.

I still have the manuals for FS4.0, FS5.1, FS95, FS98 and FS2000 Pro. The 4.0, 5.1 and 2000 Pro manuals were thicker than 95 and 98 manuals.

Covers are missing on three of them due to a rebate program Microsoft were running back then.

imitation wrote: »

So who remembers back when you needed the manual to get past copy protection ? I definitely won't miss the days of turning to page 50 for word 20, or finding what code is on the bottom of page 25, or worst of all the unreadable and unphotocopyable glossy black on black.

Or the one for Microprose Grand Prix, a red sheet of paper with black text.

Canis Lupus

They've just dumbed down games to the point of not needing a manual anymore :P

nesf

Canis Lupus wrote: »

They've just dumbed down games to the point of not needing a manual anymore :P

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games?genre=2&type=All&platform=1

Skerries

Jordan 191 wrote: »

Or the one for Microprose Grand Prix, a red sheet of paper with black text.

what version did you have as I just checked mine and it doesn't have that as I thought it was the usual word 5 on page 6 sort of stuff?
Amiga btw

Harps

I used to pick up a game every time I went to London as a kid which was usually once or twice a year, I couldn't play the thing until I got back home so I'd spend the whole week obsessing over the manual to know every little detail about the game before I played it, good times

Loved the old fold out maps as well in games like GTA, it was great having to physically take our a map when you wanted to plot a journey

TPD

I still have the manual for Alex Kidd in Miracle World on the Sega Master System

Morrowind's was my favourite though, not for the manual as such, but for the map. Beautiful thing and very useful to have by your side while playing the game.

muppetkiller

I remember Airborne Ranger on the C-64 having to match up the correct picture on the screen with a certain page on the manual
(That game needs a re-make , actually all Microprose games do)

I still have "Their Finest Hour : The Battle of Britain" manual at home. Amazing little manual with the whole history of the battle with loses on both sides and spec sheets for the Aircraft etc.

Sephiroth_dude

I remember when a lot of pc games came with a big ass manual,those were the days .

hardCopy

You can't beat sitting on the bus home from Electronics Boutique and having a read of the manual. Great way to kill time until you could get to a PC.

penev10

Yes some manuals had pertinent information and some others had nice art but the vast majority were rubbish.

If it comes down to paying an extra fiver for a game just so I can have a small booklet to deliver health warnings and a quick run-down of the controls - eh, no thanks!

If you really want some valuable information about the game and some original artwork get the guide. I like having the choice not to opt in for this expensive extra.

Thecageyone

Games are still the same price without the manuals I find. I'd rather have it, for re-selling purposes mostly, hardly ever flicked through them, let alone fully read. But if you were selling used games, having a clean manual always helped get you an extra few quid.

imitation

Yeah, honestly I prefer a game with a optional tutorial to get you started. I much prefer to learn on the job myself, so I never had much interest in studying a 200 pagemanual. I used to love those manuals that had historical info in them or maybe a bit of story.

Another thing is manuals never really told you what you needed for complex games, often times they would be off the mark anyway, I guess because its a manual writer given some hurried notes by a programmer, it can't beat the experience guide you'd get off the net these days.

Thecageyone

You have to remember, manuals were getting slimmer and lacking in contents more and more over the years. At one time they were great! They'd have maps, full colour, the instructions were artistically presented, it was like a guide book for the game more so than a 'manual' - yawwwwwn ..

They used to use the old - saving paper, excuse, now it's - that plus more, they stick a pdf of the manual online, so it's out there ... just all text nothing fancy, they don't have to hire the artists to make the manual interesting or look nice, and of course, the savings onpaper, that only really benefits the company, not you.

And the game is the same price as it ever would have been ...

Jordan 199

Skerries wrote: »

what version did you have as I just checked mine and it doesn't have that as I thought it was the usual word 5 on page 6 sort of stuff?
Amiga btw

This is the one I have for the PC. Although there's a manual, you need the red sheet of paper to play the game.

Akrasia

I loved the manual for F-15 strike eagle II

It was class, gave loads of information about the different kinds of Maneuvers that fighter pilots use to get behind the enemy

I might just have a read of the manual and maybe not be a little bit less absolutely useless as a pilot on Battlefield 3

http://www.flightsimbooks.com/f15strikeeagle/

penev10

Thecageyone wrote: »

Games are still the same price without the manuals I find.

Game development costs have gone up exponentially though so the loss of the manual was surely to try and offset that fact.

Skerries

Jordan 191 wrote: »

This is the one I have for the PC. Although there's a manual, you need the red sheet of paper to play the game.

looks completely different to mine

excuse the condition of it as it got a lot of use and I think I was using it as a mouse mat at one stage

Agricola

Used to love reading the manual before you started into a game. I was never one to rush home and start playing like my life depended on it, even as a young lad. I'd often prefer to look at the box and read the manual the night before starting the game the following day.

Almost all the pc games I buy have no manual now. The fact so much is digital downloads doesnt help. Last one I remember reading and being very excited by, was the glorified slip of paper that comes with Red Dead Redemption on PS3. Reading about the things you could do, looking at the fold out map, thinking about all the exploring and random awesomeness you would soon discover was great.

imitation

Skerries wrote: »

looks completely different to mine

excuse the condition of it as it got a lot of use and I think I was using it as a mouse mat at one stage

Ahhh the memories, back when a straight up photo would do just fine for a game box !

In most cases I don't mind the absence of a manual but there are some games that really need one. I've been playing Defiance for the past week or so and on a number of occasions have had to alt+tab out of the game so I could google some pertinent information that in days gone by would have been contained in the manual.

Jordan 199

Skerries wrote: »

looks completely different to mine

excuse the condition of it as it got a lot of use and I think I was using it as a mouse mat at one stage

Yup, different packaging compared to mine. Car on the front of the box and manual is a Lotus 102.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Brilliant thread.

Standouts for me are the GTA games, Civ 2 and SNES era games.

I used to love reading the manuals on the drive home from a shopping trip, those were the days

Vojera

Mmmm, the smell of fresh game manual, that brings back memories!

I miss them. I miss that little extra info about the characters that had absolutely no relevance to the game but gave you an idea of what they were about.

I recently played GTA 1 on pc and damn did I miss that map. I used to have it spread out in front of me when playing on playstation. Pausing the game and tabbing to another window isn't quite the same

Zapp Brannigan

A whole three pages and no one mentioned the BG2 manual. That thing was a beast and I ended up reading that for a day and a half before I even installed them game!

check_six

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Games have been dumbed down to the point they are not needed anymore by and large. Still have my Falcon 4.0 manual from 1998, all 600+ pages of it.:D

Don't forget the huge map of the Korean pennisula that went with it!

The redone version of Falcon 4.0 (Allied Force) only has the huge manual as a pdf so learning how to do stuff like just firing up the engines from scratch involves jumping in and out of the game and referring back to the pdf and then trying to remember what you'd just read. A big pain.

It's not the same as having some warning light go off and leafing through the manual on your knee to work out if you are about to fall out of the sky/explode as you're still flying along.

Outkast_IRE

I Remember buying Caesar 3 back in the day. And it came with a book/manual that was about 200 pages long, covering every aspect and building in the game. It was class , happy memories

nesf

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

I Remember buying Caesar 3 back in the day. And it came with a book/manual that was about 200 pages long, covering every aspect and building in the game. It was class , happy memories

Unfortunately I went on to buy Caesar 4.

briany

It's not just manuals that have ceased to exist. It's other pack-in content, too, and it all added to the experience. It's moved somewhat to DLC or stuff on the disc, so it's not all bad but something of a loss from a collector's pov. Wish I still had my Killer Instinct soundtrack CD. :P

gizmo

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

I Remember buying Caesar 3 back in the day. And it came with a book/manual that was about 200 pages long, covering every aspect and building in the game. It was class , happy memories

Not for the guy who wrote the manual though...

penev10 wrote: »

Game development costs have gone up exponentially though so the loss of the manual was surely to try and offset that fact.

That's precisely the reason for their disappearance unfortunately.

Outkast_IRE

nesf wrote: »

Unfortunately I went on to buy Caesar 4.

I thought Pharoah was solid enough, caesar 4 was a bit meh, the only games out these days which remind me of it are Tropico. Tropico 4 being the highlight.