Sometimes I see people nostalgia posting about how they miss the days when games came with manuals in the box, but tbh it's so much better now that games explain how to play within the actual game
Also like. For a lot of these old games, they didn't even put the story inside the game. You had to read it in the manual!
@lizardsquid i think the coolest thing was not the manuals themselves, but rather any extra stuff they used to provide
i have a copy of the manual for "crisis in the kremlin", a DOS game about managing the USSR in its final years, and it basically gives you a pretty solid (with very slight mistakes, and remarkably fair for a product made in the US) course on russian and soviet history
or the GTA games' manuals, which were styled like in-universe guides to their respective regions and had detailed fold-out poster maps
@rnd @lizardsquid yeah, pulled a few out to photograph for the other place & the fallout 3 manual styles itself as an in-universe surveillance guide
@lizardsquid sometimes wish newer games would calm down once you're a decent way in. Replaying AC origins & every time I jump in the water it reminds me of the swimming controls (jump button is up, crouch button is down)
@patterfloof personally as someone who puts games down and then picks them back up several months later I usually appreciate the control reminders, but jump and crouch for up/down in swimming mode seems excessive
@lizardsquid maybe they can have a "show me the controls" menu, but sometimes the constant reminders feel too much
@lizardsquid i sort of want both tbh. for some games the manual is just a wiki now huh
@lizardsquid yeah setting up lore in the manual was fairly common