Best game manual?

[Unkillable Cat]

My favorite manual is the Sonic 3 manual. I was grounded from the Sega for a month after I bought it and didn't get to play it, so I read the manual over and over for a month. This was when I was 21

How does one becames grounded at 21?

Incest, I'm guessing.

As for the topic, I recall the Red Baron manual being a good read. It's thick and informative AND contains real-life WWI trivia and knowledge, like telling you how to pull off an Immelman turn.

Fallout 1 and 2 have been mentioned, they're good reads.

Stonekeep manual... can't remember if the manual was good, but the huge novella was certainly entertaining. Starglider 2 also has a novella, except that one kinda spoils the story, IIRC.

(On that note, NEVER read "Official" book adaptations based on video games, they're never good. Never. They're never even half-decent reading, they're just a waste of time. There are no exceptions to this rule.)

The Discworld games have useful manuals. Not too long, not too short, and of course loaded with Pratchett-related humour. Know of any other game that lists "fully-functional cranial hemisphere" as a system requirement?

Finally... Legend of Faerghail. It features a 100+-page spiral manual that lists all the spells in the game (the game had about 6 spellcasting classes) and plenty of lore and background to go with each one. Shame the game doesn't quite live up to the standards of the manual.

Now I want to take the topic and turn it around... what is the worst manual you've ever read? Let's ignore the "reference card"-type manuals or the 6-page pamphlets detailing epilepsy warnings in 25 different languages. No. Real Manuals.

Off the top of my head I can think of the Eye Of The Beholder manuals. Half of them are irrelevant lore text about areas that you'll NEVER set foot in (and in some cases make no sense whatsoever) and while the other half goes into detail about how to use the interface and and how the game mechanics work, a good chunk of the information is either vague, missing vital information or just plain wrong.

 

[mindx2]

Great thread topic!

As mentioned, the Fallout manuals and Darklands are good. Dusk of the Gods was great with the "mythological history". All the Infocom manuals I have are wonderful reads, which one should expect from text adventures. I also enjoyed all the Ultima manuals, up until VII part II. They always felt like they came from Britannia and you were reading it's history book. Not necessarily a manual but the Wing Commander schematics are pretty neat as well.

(On that note, NEVER read "Official" book adaptations based on video games, they're never good. Never. They're never even half-decent reading, they're just a waste of time. There are no exceptions to this rule.)

Wrong. I enjoyed Peter Telep's Descent novels quite a bit. It definitely made what was a simplistic premise interesting and enjoyable.

 

[Erebus]

I do miss the old days, when you got real manuals with your games.

Arcanum's manual is an entertaining read, which made me expect the game to have a better atmosphere and a more interesting setting than it actually did.

Quest for Glory 3's manual was pretty funny.

I found BaK's manual quite interesting, even though I hadn't read the novels yet.

Now I want to take the topic and turn it around... what is the worst manual you've ever read? Let's ignore the "reference card"-type manuals or the 6-page pamphlets detailing epilepsy warnings in 25 different languages. No. Real Manuals.

I still remember with amusement the manual of Bard's Tale 3 : Thief of Fate. It had been translated into french by someone who obviously sucked at english and tried to manage nevertheless with the help of a dictionary. The result was hilarious.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

How does one becames grounded at 21?

Incest, I'm guessing.

The manual for Donkey Kong 64 was funny, Cranky is presenting the game's features to you in a very bored tone and takes every chance he gets to complain about the new shit.

I have a little of a trauma of game manuals, here in Brazil they are horribly mutilated. Baldur's Gate 2 was reduced from a huge corebook to a little 60-page booklet. And the translation....well, let's just say they understood the "Drow" Race as if was "DrowN", thus they are refered "aquatic elves"....

In hindsight, it's pretty lulzy that the translator thought the PC's brother got beaten to death for being a paparazzi

 

[ImmoralMechanic]

IIRC the Fallout manual had a pancake recipe and various tips on how to survive in a wasteland.

It had a bunch of recipes, all from Tramell Isaac's mother IIRC. (He's the artist who originally designed the fallout boy)

+1 for Arcanum manual being a thing of beauty but fairly useless for looking up stuff in.

Has anyone ever exceeded the Infocom game manuals? Leather Goddesses of Phobos had 3D comics and scratch and sniff cards.

Gallery here, pdfs for most of them here.

 

[felipepepe]

I do miss the old days, when you got real manuals with your games.

We all do.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Wrong. I enjoyed Peter Telep's Descent novels quite a bit. It definitely made what was a simplistic premise interesting and enjoyable.

Then those are the only exception in a genre that's been a cesspool of "literature" for roughly 20 years. But it wasn't until Descent 3 that they actually tried to have some semblance of a story going on...

And speaking of Ultima manuals... I like the Ultima 8 manuals for how they try (unsuccessfully) to make you think that the lack of weather or constant dusk is an integral part of Pagan. A rather neat way to cover up the de-evolution that took place between Ultima VII and VIII.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Falcon 4.0 had a great manual. The same for M1 Tank Platoon. Lots of background, tactics and technical information. Too bad that both games are set in a period that doesn't interest me.

From cRPGs I loved the Fallout's and Arcanum's manuals.

 

[The man who wasn't there]

Some more that haven't been mentioned:

Grand Prix Legends. Lots of interesting background info on the 1967 Formula 1 season; also includes detailed driving and setup tips for each track.

DCS A-10C Warthog. Best flight sim manual since Falcon. The Jane's Combat Simulations manuals were great, too.

Airborne Assault: Red Devils Over Arnhem. Included a pretty detailed history and evaluation of Operation Market Garden.

All the Gold Box manuals. Really enjoyed looking up paragraphs, finding maps, sketches, longer texts, etc.

Zak McKracken. Hilarious.

 

[kingcomrade]

My favorite manual is the Sonic 3 manual. I was grounded from the Sega for a month after I bought it and didn't get to play it, so I read the manual over and over for a month. This was when I was 21

How does one becames grounded at 21?

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Airborne Assault: Red Devils Over Arnhem. Included a pretty detailed history and evaluation of Operation Market Garden.

Too bad that the BftB manual has much less history included.

 

[Lord Chambers]

I suppose with a rye critic's eye I have to vote for Arcanum's manual, which in my limited experience, was the most interesting manual as a piece of literature and art.

But if I were to name the manual I had the most awakening moments with during my influential years (which many posters are unable to keep from tainting their rye critic's eye), it would be DaemonsGate. Give that link a little time to simmer, it's a 50 page PDF. In particular I enjoy the skill descriptions page 7 of the PDF (not page 7 of the manual), the "example objects" on page 13, and most of all, the history of the setting from a character within it on page 34. This is just like the device in Arcanum's manual where the history of the races is presented from an industrial era scientist. The mythology, history, and contemporary lore of the Isle of Hestor are relayed to you by elders of Joruli Point as if you had pulled the volume off a shelf yourself. It's killer, especially as a middle schooler. And at the time, completely made up for the incomplete game.

If you do decide to read along, I encourage you to take a peek at the map that also came with the game. That way when you read about the isolating factor of the Border Peaks you can, like, see it.

 

[potatojohn]

Aces of the Deep manual is brilliant. It has like 120 pages of sweet submarine history and tactics and like 40 about the game
M1 tank platoon 1 and 2 had similarly great manuals
Falcon 4 ditto
Terminus ditto
Starshatter: the gathering storm has a very pleasing manual too
Fast Attack is pretty good

Anything other interesting/educational manuals?

 

[felipepepe]

Necroing this for the best manual ever made by men: Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch.

Fucking 340 pages, with listing of enemies, magic, equipment, locations, lore, plus fables of the land. All with fantastic art by Studio Ghibli, and available as a hardcover book on the collector's edition. It's used by the character in-game, and is written as a book on the secrets of being a wizard, instead of a game manual.

Full manual here: http://imgur.com/a/lyoth#0

 

[forumvisitor#451]

System Shock 1

Manual with Reference Card

https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=128.0

 

[deuxhero]

Pokemon Red/Blue. Entire thing has a really work in progress look where sections look like they were taped in or attached by paper clip. Also has a walkthrough for the first leg of the game to introduce you to the, at the time, unique mechanics.

Saints Row 1 also had a really cool manual where it's notes by an undercover cop (which is some pretty heavy foreshadowing) and has a similar feel to the Pokemon manual with stuff pasted in and handwritten notes.

 

[warpig]

Space Hulk - it had a lot of cool Warhammer 40k lore, I didn't know WH40k back then and I thought this all is made up just to add atmosphere to Space Hulk.
Wing Commander games - aside from the pictures of spaceships some of them contained short stories. Armada was realy cool, I remember there was a story about a human pilot captured by the aliens.
Strike Commander - the whole manual was styled to be a magazine for mercenary pilots called "Sudden Death", there were ads for various arms dealers, weapons etc, interviews with pilots, pretty neat idea. Subwar 2050 did a similar thing.

 

[Melan]

and

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Space Hulk - it had a lot of cool Warhammer 40k lore, I didn't know WH40k back then and I thought this all is made up just to add atmosphere to Space Hulk.
Wing Commander games - aside from the pictures of spaceships some of them contained short stories. Armada was realy cool, I remember there was a story about a human pilot captured by the aliens.
Strike Commander - the whole manual was styled to be a magazine for mercenary pilots called "Sudden Death", there were ads for various arms dealers, weapons etc, interviews with pilots, pretty neat idea. Subwar 2050 did a similar thing.

Mechwarrior series did something similar.

 

[Morkar Left]

The Wing Commander and Privateer ones were great.

Elite and Frontier manuals came with novellas and the manual was written like an ingame technical manual. Great stuff.

I-War 1 was great, too (The pseudo science was fantastic).

The Magic Candle

Burntime for its addendum over radioactivity and fallout.

The Starflights were a good read, too (mostly amusing ingame writing).

Darklands and several other were already mentioned. Similar, but less huge was the Pirates manual. What I really liked about the Microprose manuals was the history education value they had. I wish something like that would make its comeback.

Basically all manuals which are written as ingame knowledge are always entertaining to read.

 

[Morkar Left]

Gallery here, pdfs for most of them here.

Thanks for the links! I didn't know there was a James Clavells Shogun textadventure!

 

[warpig]

Mechwarrior series did something similar.

The only Mechwarrior games that I had legal copies of were the "Mercenaries" spinoffs of MW2 and MW4, but I can't really remember anything interesting about the manuals. There was a bit of lore in the MW2 one but not much and the MW4 one was very rudimentary.

 

[JudasIscariot]

My Sid Meier's Covert Action manual is pretty sweet. 90 pages long, has some nice little story bits where Max is working on a case, notes from the designers of the game, etc. Pretty hefty too

 

[Azrael the cat]

My favorite manual is the Sonic 3 manual. I was grounded from the Sega for a month after I bought it and didn't get to play it, so I read the manual over and over for a month. This was when I was 21

How does one becames grounded at 21?

I can only assume that Tywin Lannister is his father.

 

[Abelian]

This is not as impressive as some of the other examples, but I liked the scrapbook look of the Interstate '76 manual with notes on the margins. Below are some examples.

Spoiler