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.