Am I the only one insulted with 8 page instruction manuals?

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Just a small rant after getting the new Goldeneye game for Wii.

I'm just sick of getting these thin game booklets. Hardly good for my usual toilet reading...
Your thoughts?

[rapoon]

no, you're not. I'm mad as hell when I get an instruction manual that's less than 10 pages long (and 3-4 pages are
dedicated to credits or "notes").

I got Splatterhouse for the 360 (good game btw) and there's hardly any info on the combo's. sure it's fun
to figure combos out on your own, but fuck you, I want the layout. thou art not aloneth

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Maybe this just hints at the fact that modern "gamerz" are just 'tards that can't fathom more than a page of text without tossing any book aside.
Also another annoying trend is when a company has a multi-lingual booklet that covers multiple regions and cuts the total quality by about 2/3.

[Blackbird]

Yeah, I agree. It would be nice to see a manual that actually had pertinent information about the metagame for once. It would save me the trouble of going to LameFaqs.

Then again, many modern games excuse this somewhat by having lengthy in-game tutorials (for better and worse).

[Obiwanshinobi]

I found The Getaway manual useful as that fairly straightforward action game took a very non-console approach to teaching me how to play it.
But man, gotta miss the times of games like Arcanum or Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic coming with jolly BOOKS.

[njiska]

My favourite example is BlazBlue Continuum Shift. In Japan it had a 50+ page, full-colour manual with complete move listings and character bios. In North America it has four pages of crap information.

[Damocles]

Ever pick up an old DOS RPG? Holy shit.

This reminds me of a quote I saw from, I believe, a member around here...something along the lines of "Remember when strategy guides came with the games? Yeah, they were called manuals."

[Blackbird]

Ever pick up an old DOS RPG? Holy shit.

This reminds me of a quote I saw from, I believe, a member around here...something along the lines of "Remember when strategy guides came with the games? Yeah, they were called manuals."

Haha, yeah, those were some good times.

[MR_Soren]

Somebody eventually realized that licensing out the rights to publish a strategy guide and making money is more profitable than spending money to treat your players better. I miss useful game manuals.

The way I see it, these shitty 8-page useless manuals are conditioning us for the future when there won't even be a manual.

[Siren2011]

This reminds me of a quote I saw from, I believe, a member around here...something along the lines of "Remember when strategy guides came with the games? Yeah, they were called manuals."

Yeah, I miss those bulky manuals that used to come with adventure games such as King's Quest, Quest for Glory, and The Elder Scrolls series. They would have so much rich detail about the game world and its denizens, the social classes they belong to, etc. In many cases, developers put more labor into making one fucking manual than all the Wii shovelware devs put into their games combined. It goes to show you how passionless and money-driven our industry is today. In ten years or so, when I've tracked down and played every masterpiece videogame worth playing, I swear to god I see myself saying "fuck videogames" altogether.

[Zeron]

Atleast a 8 page manual is a manual plenty of PC games I buy I just get a disc, piece of paper with the CD Key and thats it

[maxlords]

Somebody eventually realized that licensing out the rights to publish a strategy guide and making money is more profitable than spending money to treat your players better. I miss useful game manuals.

The way I see it, these shitty 8-page useless manuals are conditioning us for the future when there won't even be a manual.

Well....that would be fine...except they've mostly stopped making strategy guides too since no one bought them....

[Ex-Cyber]

I'd assume that they're just cutting costs to get that extra few percentage points of margin. Software publishers have done the same for years, even for much more expensive software packages. You can spend $4000 on a piece of software and just get a PDF or HTML manual.

[Ghegs]

To be fair, when you're dealing with work-related software digital manuals are better just for the convenience of Ctrl-F.

[Jeneki]

My favorite is when a game comes with a gigantic instruction manual, but then when I flip through it, it's actually only 8 pages long but in every language known to man. And over half of those pages are just warnings, disclaimers, and copyright info.

DVDs used to come with full-color booklets about the movie as well. These days about the only thing I ever see in them is a standard "download the latest firmware" disclaimer, or maybe an advertisement for some other show (to cover up the giant recycle-shaped holes in the plastic cases). It's especially insulting on those premium priced $40+ MSRP Blu-rays; If you're going to charge a price that silly for one movie, at least give us something cool to flip through with it.

[Ganelon]

I honestly don't really read manuals nowadays so while I have fond nostalgia for huge booklets, it's not a big deal for me anymore. I would prefer that all details actually be on a manual instead of on the internet though since game web sites are notorious for disappearing.

[guigui]

I definitely agree with you Pixel_Outlaw.

"Shitty manual + 20-minutes-immersion-breaking-tutorials + separate guide site/video/books" is the new standard in gaming world. Hello you guys game developpers, I CAN READ AND ENJOY IT !

[Blackbird]

The way I see it, these shitty 8-page useless manuals are conditioning us for the future when there won't even be a manual.

Pretty much. The industry is trying to phase out boxed games altogether in favor of making every game a digital download. Obviously, you aren't going to get a manual with a download (perhaps a readme at best).

[Siren2011]

The industry is trying to phase out boxed games altogether in favor of making every game a digital download.

Allow me to take this opportunity, dear Blackbird, to lament the loss of the big, cardboard PC game box of the 1990s --sometimes coming with a flap on the front that contained pics and information about the game on the inside. These days we're lucky to get a freaking ugly plastic case the size of a Goosebumps book, with a sheet of paper draped over it for a cover.

Oh and don't forget the wallet/sleeve CD holders that came with a few games (TES Redguard and Grim Fandango come to mind). Those are basically extinct in this day and age.

[Despatche]

digital manuals are really cool

if they could focus on making those mean something, the digital era will feel a whole lot better

[dunpeal2064]

I miss Working Designs

[louisg]

I miss old computer game manuals too. I remember Six Gun Shootout coming with a manual that explained how the rules worked internally, and didn't Civ 1 come with a mini encyclopedia?? And then there were the Infocom games that came with cool props which sometimes were even part of the gameplay.

It's definitely the end of that era; pretty much everything is electronic now.

[louisg]

(so, is the new Goldeneye good?)

[ZOM]

I miss them too, especially the Japanese computer stuff that came with manuals filled with extra stuff like piano sheets, colored maps, additional magic-charts and/or stat-charts, etc.

Also, floppy sleeves. Full colored floppy sleeves with artwork. Sexy stuff.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Try the Wii Call of Duty manuals. It took me a while to work out World At War, having never played a CoD prior to that. No in-game tutorial isn't helpful but... the manual is 50% generic epilepsy warning, "here's how you hold a Wii remote and connect additional ones" then 25% "these are the controls, this is the HUD" and finally 25% "if you need help, call this number" type garbage.

The Goldeneye manual is brilliantly detailed by comparison. But yeah, I hate them.

Red Steel 2 has a terrible manual too, as like CoD it offers little explanation as to what's going on but at least you get in-game training segments.

On the flipside is Corporation for the Mega Drive (Cyber Cop for the Genesis). The manual is insane - forget the first few hours of gameplay, you'll need that to memorise the sodding manual!

[kid aphex]

this is exactly what happens when your hobby gets taken over by business, and used to exploit the mainstream (ignorant)

once capitalism* (and the economy of efficiency) get a hold of something, quality (measured by me as artistic novelty) falls right out the bottom of it

*sorry, capitalism

[kid aphex]

also, the sin and punishment 2 instruction booklet was great.
to have any hope of understanding the game's "narrative", you had to have read the instruction manual
and even then...

[ZOM]

...The manual is insane - forget the first few hours of gameplay, you'll need that to memorise the sodding manual!

Try Falcon 4.0's manual.

[Ruldra]

AFAIK you can go and pilot a real plane after reading Falcon 4.0's manual. It shows how much effort game companies put into manuals back then.

Nowadays we're lucky if the manual goes beyond explaining the menu options. It's all about saving costs.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I think this recent Dtiod video is very fitting for the topic. http://www.destructoid.com/f-e-a-r-3-is ... 4372.phtml

I love manuals and always read through it before I play the game. But stat / control cards are also very useful as a quick reference for any info I might need on the fly, those should be mandatory in ever boxed set, because for some games ill end up having to write out the data onto paper myself, which is BS