Are printed game manuals still worth all the effort, or are digital instructions the way forward? Dan Parmenter ponders this important question.<\/p>\n
‘Home Improvement’ was anything but a memorable TV show. In fact, anyone forced to watch more than a couple of episodes will remember that it was actually just ‘Full House’ lurking under the flimsy guise of power tools and pseudo-masculine grunting noises.<\/p>\n
But one thing I do remember from that prime example of American sitcom drivel though was the SNES game: “Why, because it was an awesome game that I should’ve played back in the day\/should download right now for my emulator,” I hear you ask? No, because the game purposely came with absolutely no instructions whatsoever.<\/p>\n
All the assistance the player received was a splash screen which said, “Real men don’t need instructions.”<\/p>\n
16 years later, and probably more concerned with pressure from environmental fundamentalists than the desire to remain manly, dev giant Ubisoft has recently gone a similar route (well, sort of) by announcing their decision to bid farewell to the printed instruction manual. Tree-hugging gamers worldwide surely rejoiced at the news, but their dreams of green gaming were cut short only a few days later when even giant-er game dev Nintendo firmly stated that it had “no plans to move away from including paper instruction manuals with our packaged software.”<\/p>\n
Now I’m not particularly concerned about the devastating global impact a few tiny manuals will have on the lifespan of various endangered rainforest species and the like, but I do think Ubisoft’s thinking and attitude is a lot more selfless and responsible. After all, all these electric cars and tofu and whatnot would be for nothing if everyone didn’t do their part, however small; and yes, I’m glaring at you Nintendo, what with the no-doubt zillions of tons of plastic wasted on the no-doubt zillions of Wii peripherals littering game store shelves.<\/p>\n
And who even reads a game manual nowadays anyway? Most games feature quick tutorials upon first play, and even if they don’t chances are that strong\/weak attack is bound to triangle\/square respectively, the triggers are undoubtedly for aiming and reloading, and x will almost always make your character jump.<\/p>\n
So why am I not entirely convinced about our paperless-instruction future? Call me nostalgic or just plain old, but I can’t help but recall some of the great experiences I’ve had over the years with game manuals. Who can forget those classics where you’d have to go to page 4, paragraph 3, word 8 to find the code to bypass copy protection? (Or photocopying such a manual to lend the game to your friends?) Or even reading a bit of back-story not present in the game, or checking out some awesome art or concept designs?<\/p>\n
Nothing was quite so awesome for me as the code wheel included with Rocket Ranger, an 80s classic adventure that plagiarised The Rocketeer and became a firm favourite across multiple platforms. To get from place to place in the game, the player would have to calculate the exact amount of jet fuel required by using the code wheel, and getting anywhere without it was impossible. Years later, of course, the Internet rendered this particular form of protection obsolete, but for a short time there was a great thrill in owning the original wheel and lording it over those too cheap to own a proper copy.<\/p>\n
There was also something geekishly impressive about flight sim manuals. While not a big fan of the takeoff-then-fly-for-3-hours-then-land formula, these hefty tomes that were roughly the same size as a real pilot’s instruction book gave these games a great sense of technical prowess and difficulty. And nothing said ‘hardcore’ like those printed cut-outs that were placed over one’s keyboard because it wasn’t humanly possible to remember every key assignment.<\/p>\n
And who can forget the intricate glory of manuals like the one found in GTA: San Andreas, a tourist guide and map that made you realise just how much love and attention must surely have been put into the game long before you even inserted the disc? It’s that kind of consideration that can make a simple game into an entire experience.<\/p>\n
Overall, it’s hard not to feel a tad ambiguous about this whole thing. Even though the last time I actually needed to look something up in a game manual was sometime last century, I can’t help but feeling like I’d miss these poorly-printed, badly-translated pieces of gaming history if they were gone. What will we thumb through while our game installs? What will game devs do to fill up content in collector’s editions? And where will we get our seizure warnings?<\/p>\n
One thing’s for sure though, with manuals disappearing and physical retail games headed the same way, if we’re not very careful about seemingly mundane things like a little printed manual, a tangible representation of our love for gaming may soon be as distant a memory as any episode of ‘Home Improvement’.<\/p>\n