It was like buying an album and reading the lyrics along with the song. Yeah, I feel old now..
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Buying a new game and reading the manual used to be so satisfying.
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So true. Also loved when they included real life versions of the ingame maps or additional lore.
this took me straight back to when I was a kid playing zelda with my brother and a neighbor gave us something similar to this but from the game zelda ocarina of time
Aye, those were great days. Also sniffing a new manual! Lovely.
Miss these days so much! and writing notes down in the back of it.
Reading that shit on the way home was the bomb. The mix of anticipation and preparing yourself for success.
I dunno. It’s a game. It shouldn’t need a separate manual.
Except when they lied to you because a change was made just before they started putting it on disks or cartridges.
Lol never read the manual even as a kid. Never understood why anyone would when controls and whatever story there may be is in game. Its just a waste of paper
I used to read the manual on the way home from renting a game and ibwould get so hyped to play it. I miss that.
People are looking up everything and blasting through games anymore, missing all the discovery. And then bitching because the game wasn’t longer or they got too overpowered. Yeah, when you find every secret you can get to online you might skew the game balance a little, dolt.
Ill take a manual over these incredibly annoying tutorial levels every game has. So much quicker to just read what i need to know
The manual that came with Ultima Online – The second Age was 👌
Yeah Earthbound has the best manual.
Brand new smell of the manual, and reading through it while inside the car. Oh the nostalgia.
I read the manual for Warcraft 3 the whole time I was out shopping with my mom the day we picked it up. It was a blast and the reason why when my friends asked “why are we doing this?” in wow that i typically had an answer.
I am so happy that board games still have the manuals. So satisfying to read them
This is why I only by physical (even if there really isn’t manuals anymore…) something about the boxes and all of the contents in it are so amazing.
Frontier had: blueprints, a Star map, a thik Manual with Story bits. A Story book. Another smaller Story book.
My literature for the ride home
I always sat and excitedly read the manual on the way home. When I got my license I developed the routine of buying my game and then reading through the manual in the parking lot before even thinking about driving home to play lol
Never forget what they took from us.
The manual for Homeworld was a damn novel and I’m so sad that I lost it.
Oh man I didn’t know I missed this.
The [Twisted Metal III manual](https://oldgamesdownload.com/wp-content/uploads/Twisted_Metal_III_Manual_PS_EN.pdf) had a section with little bios for the drivers with a picture of them with their vehicles. I remember being excited to see the driver of Darkside, my favorite vehicle. There was a picture of his Rig, but he was absent. The caption below read:
“Mr. Ash does not reflect light so he can’t be photographed.”
I thought that was the coolest shit I’d ever heard of. I think it sparked my love of grimdark in general, right then.
I’m fine with the change to everything being digital.
I just wish the care were taken to explain things properly like was done in those manuals.
Some of them were practically books.
I used to love these as well as strategy guides.
They should really bring these back.
Used to read the manual on the bus ride home from the game shop pre Internet days.
My brother and his friends always wondered how I knew all the weapon combos in Vigilante 8. Because I read the handbook, baby!
Metal Gear Solid was my favorite
I believe this is one of the appeals of the game Tunic. There’s little guiding but the game provides you with a manual which you gives you the information you need and clues to solve puzzles. I haven’t played it yet so can’t confirm
Reading MGS’s manual for ps2 was something else.
I was quite young back then, but the game felt like it had so many mechanics, the manual was the training you had to get before being deployed in the jungle.
grab that thang while i poop before popping the disk in first time every time
Hell yea. The original Diablo manual was rad, so was the Warcraft II booklet.
Blizz had top notch lore and art.
I loved reading the manuals. Back in the DS era, I disliked using my R4 because it meant that I couldn’t have the physical manual.
Also loved sniffing the pages of the manual.
You can thank valve for doing it, just like loot boxes, gambling and dlcs.
I miss old days without steam.
I stopped feeling nostalgic when this was posted fifty times ago
Nothing can beat the size of the Sim City 2000/3000 game manual. Usually 150 pages.
The Waecraft 3 manual was a full paperback book.
Reading a manual was one of the best ways to hype yourself up for the game, it not only gave you background information on the game’s setting, characters and history, but important details that fed into things like gameplay mechanics. It got you excited and primed to play the game without feeling like a boring training manual.
It’s just not the same when you can download a game. And even if the game comes with a manual, it’s not going to compare to the greats back in the day, plus no one is ever going to bother reading it on their computer screen.
I think their loss is one of the reasons why so many players bounce off of games that don’t have in-depth tutorials: they just download the game and expect everything to be explained to them.
When I was a kid I used to read the manual on the bus on the way back from whatever store I’d been to.
Miss those days
Reading the gaming manual on the way home from the store was amazing
Meanwhile, kids these days: “Manual? What you need a manual for? You put the disc in the console.”
I know it helps save on wasted paper but man, some games went so unnecessarily hard on those.
Jane’s flight simulators had the best manuals by far.
I remember reading the manuals from RPGs like Neverwinter Nights, TES Oblivion, World of Warcraft etc. They were filled to the brim with cool lore stuff and I absolutely loved reading them back then.
Nowadays I only get a piece of paper telling me to buy a DLC if I’m lucky 😭