Favourite Game Manuals

Exclamation Marc

I really miss good game manuals.

These days it's just one sheets with controls, warranties or ads for PlayStation plus. I loved the days of picking up games in town and reading the manuals on the way home.

Some of my favourites from selective memory are GTA Vice City, Perfect Dark, Zelda, Super Mario World. Even Ready 2 Rumble and old WWF/EA games were great reading about the mad fighters or wrestlers. Whether it was that they were just funny (GTA) or gave more info on the story and/or enemies, they used to be brilliant.

Vice City's was incredible due to it being an advertisement for the fake city and I vividly remember reading it through after school study looking forward to visiting places!

I know they're gone now likely due to cost cutting, the existence of the internet and/or lack of interest, but have any of you any good game manual memories?

Homelander

Does anyone else get shivers down their spine thinking about running their fingernails along the glossy surface of those old Mega Drive manuals, ugh.

I used to love reading the manuals on the way home after buying, they often had big backstories, character bios, and information that set up the mood and tone of the game before you'd even put the cartridge in.

Kiith

I used to love going up to Dublin to get games back in the day, and then reading the manuals on the way home. Old school Blizzard games had great manuals, with Warcraft 2 being my favourite. Some of the artwork was fantastic. Homeworld, Baldurs Gate and many many more.

It just wasn't the same when they changed to just single sheets with online manuals.

CastorTroy

Super Metroid came with a manual/guide. That thing was massive.
I remember on Amiga, some of the manuals doubled as security. "Enter the 4th word on line 5 of page 104"

BeerWolf

Generally speaking, back in the days of old when PC games came out in boxes they were full of material. Those were great... especially those by Blizzard, such as Diablo 2's, Starcraft's, WoW's, and so forth. A LOT of lore, explanation of abilities, heroes and units, whatever.

Fantastic material to read over while on the loo.

TheValeyard

Baldurs Gate and Deus Ex had good ones. The Civ II was like an encyclopedia with reference cards. I think the Falcon 4.0 one was literally a handbook.

The manual for Civ 2? I think was like a mini encyclopedia.

Edit: Snap

Smiles35

The last of the C64 games was a release of Street Fighter II. I think I had the Megadrive already (or should have by that stage) I got it anyway and it was weighed down by a mass of inserts. I'd never seen so much paper come with a C64 game.

'Where in the World is Carmen Samtiago' was a memorable event. That came with an Almanac. A full sized book. Had loads of general info in, everything from American State info to weights and measure conversions. You had to use that to find info to complete the game.

I went to Burger King sat down and took out the Almanac for a marvel. A person that knew me came over to 'see how I was'. There I was holding this big blue book with a weird Megadrive game on the table, with not much to say for myself.

I really thought my mother would love that book seeing as she was always a font of general info herself. But I just got a couple of 'where did you get that?' looks and the book stayed were it was.

Ten of Swords

Tachyon the fringe

The manual is written like a tourist guide for the fringe region of space

SomeSayKos

The old Tekken manual was brilliant because of all the lore of the characters.
Also, I love the way game manuals back in the day on the character pages would usually list the blood type of the characters as if it gave them more depth.

Dcully

Travelling home from Dublin on the train after a day out buying games in the big smoke reading every bit of the manual
That was until i got Grand Prix Legends that manual was an encyclopedia.
I still have it along with the huge boxed version of the game.

Rattlehead_ie

If I remember correctly C&C:RA the manual may have had a break down of the units but then the best was it came with a Tech-Tree Poster.
Amazing scenes.

circadian

SomeSayKos wrote: »

The old Tekken manual was brilliant because of all the lore of the characters.
Also, I love the way game manuals back in the day on the character pages would usually list the blood type of the characters as if it gave them more depth.

As far as I remember blood type in Japan relates to what your personality should be like.

gizmo

Dcully wrote: »

Travelling home from Dublin on the train after a day out buying games in the big smoke reading every bit of the manual
That was until i got Grand Prix Legends that manual was an encyclopedia.
I still have it along with the huge boxed version of the game.

Ever see the manual for Falcon 4.0 from back then? If you'd bought that and taken it out on the train, you probably would have needed to buy another ticket for it...

Potential-Monke

All the manuals from the Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver series. Think it was the first Soul Reaver had a section on all the different vampire factions, and their own symbols. Loved reading them. Loved reading manuals in general. Pity they;re not a thing anymore. Don't think I've ever actually checked out an online manual, usually just refer to in-game.

Also liked the Mortal Kombat ones, simply because you could have it open in your lap with the moves list, none of this pausing and going into the inventory.

dreamers75

Any Ninty game in the 90s, getting the bus home from town and having a read thinking by the time I got off the bus I knew what to do.


Blast Corps >>>> my idea.


Altho the C64 did give me a life skill, I used to read the manuals during the 4 day load time for the games. I still do that now with anything, it came in handy when the kids were small at xmas.

Varik

Red alert 2.

Unwrapped a Christmas present and took the manual out before re-wrapping it and read that for about 2 weeks until I got to play.

Creamy Goodness

gizmo wrote: »

Ever see the manual for Falcon 4.0 from back then? If you'd bought that and taken it out on the train, you probably would have needed to buy another ticket for it...

It made a G.R.R. Martin book look like a pamphlet

Exclamation Marc

One of my all time favourites...

Look at this beauty for Super Mario Bros 3. Enemies, worlds, characters, bosses, items, controls with pictures. Its simply awesome.

https://www.gamesdatabase.org/Media/SYSTEM/Nintendo_NES/manual/Formated/Super_Mario_Bros._3_-_1990_-_Nintendo.pdf

Potential-Monke

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

It made a G.R.R. Martin book look like a pamphlet

Just had a look. That's an encyclopedia! Did it come with the game? For the same price? The 'quick reference' would put modern games to shame!

ERG89

Outside of the big box PC games

In terms of style I always liked the old GTA manuals on PS2 with the fake ads. A bit of efford put into it & the maps were cool even if you never used them.

Pro Evolution Soccer used to have a very thorough guide on all the controls which were handy, for me anyway.

Full of absolute fluff but as a kid I enjoyed the Pokemon game manuals.

I got a Quest Handbook with the Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition that was very thorough even if it was very text heavy for a guide.

Niska

Loved the old MicroProse manuals - especially the M1 tank Platoon one.

As well as gameplay instructions, it deals with Platoon tactics, and a large gazette of vehicle info.

Other great manuals include the Lucasart SCUMM games - the Indiana Jones and the alt Crusade came with a replica diary. The game had puzzles that relied on the diary to solve, and the correct grail at the end was randomized, and you had determine from the in game clues (which again pointed to the diary) which was the correct one. Or you would choose poorly....

Skerries

gizmo wrote: »

Ever see the manual for Falcon 4.0 from back then? If you'd bought that and taken it out on the train, you probably would have needed to buy another ticket for it...

I have the manual for the origianl Falcon and it wasn't as beefy as that

Nerdlingr

Beneath a Steel Sky - loved the comic, the box etc ...should still have it at home somewhere.

http://pixellationmagazine.blogspot.com/2012/06/whats-in-box-beneath-steel-sky.html

davetherave

The Manual for M1 Tank Platoon 2 on the PC was like field manual in itself back in the day, 280 pages all in.

Tactics, formations, stats for all of the vehicles and support weapons and aircraft in the game.

It had illustrations of a keyboard and what each button did for each screen you could find yourself on, each crewmember you could switch to, icons for what the different icons that would appear on the map stood for.


If we had Steam back in the day I shudder to think what my hours played count would have been