The Worst Game Manuals

[slip81]

As I was looking through the manual for Major League Baseball 2K5, I realized that it was actually pretty crappy. It doesn't give a full explination on all of the controll (there is less than one sentence on maximum sliding, a feature talked about in the ads), and out of the all the different modes of play it mentions all but the main one (Play Ball), in a passing sentence in the beginning of the book.

So I invite you all to share your opinions on the worst game manuals.

[SoulBlazer]

I agree with you about that manual. Thank God the tutorial videos in the game were helpfull. :) At least the manual for EA's MLB 2005 was good.

It's not really a MANUAL, per say, but I laughed my ass off the day I got the guide for Dragon Warrior II in the mail from Enix. You could get it by sending a form that came with the game a few bucks for shipping. The English was SO BAD in that thing -- it was downright AWFULL! There was a sheet of corrections in the front of the manual that had like 20 lines on it! LOL

[Griking]

Well of course game manuals are shitty, that's how they get you to buy $20 strategy guides that you otherwise wouldn't need to buy.

[klausien]

The new KOF 02/03 comp on PS2 has an awful manual. It is text only and has no character bio info. Just a bare bones interface explanation.

[joshnickerson]

3rd party NES and Gameboy games usually had horrible manuals

[digitalpress]

Well of course game manuals are shitty, that's how they get you to buy $20 strategy guides that you otherwise wouldn't need to buy.

I was thinking the same thing. Manuals have become not just utilitarian but seemingly intentionally vague.

Another more honorable reason couild be that most games have on-screen help and instructions, if not a full tutorial. Manuals have become less necessary.

I didn't think either of the two baseball games I bought this year: MVP or ESPN, explain the special modes properly. Neither game even tells you the difference between GM Mode and Franchise Mode, something that someone new to the games would have to learn by themselves.

[Chainsaw_Charlie]

the worst i've seen was Final fight 1 for the snes(blah) i only got it so i could complete it

[davidbrit2]

Gran Turismo 4. Practically everything in the game ends up being an undocumented feature. Compare this to Gran Turismo 2 which came with TWO manuals, with about 50 pages each. And the fact that the interface has a few glaring unintuitive aspects to it doesn't really help any. At least the game itself is still freaking awesome. Heh.

[jslithy]

The Ultima 6 manual really sucked, especially considering how good the manuals for the rest of the series had been. It didn't even tell you how to save the game. I'm sure I'm not the only one who hit Ctrl-Q to save, only to exit the game...

[Graham Mitchell]

I can't believe none of the Capcom NES manuals have been mentioned. Those are truly the worst I've ever seen. Bionic Commando's manual doesn't tell you how to play at all. It makes no mention of how the bionic arm works at all. The instructions for the first Mega Man devotes about 10 pages to pictures of all the baddies with no description of them. On top of that, it doesn't even mention the gimmic of the game (the fact that you gain other robots' weapons when you defeat them) or even how to change weapons. I even think it tells you that B jumps and A shoots (backwards!!) and that Start is the pause button (I suppose it works in theory, but it's really select).

Section Z doesn't mention anywhere that you have to find the smart bomb or crush/crash ball, and even if you do figure that out, it doesn't tell you how to use them.

What were they thinking?

[Iron Draggon]

The absolute worst are the ones written in Japanese! I can't even read them! :P

[Dangerboy]

My favorites are the "copy and pasted" version manuals that no one at the company bothered to check to make sure it was geared for the right system.

The PlayStation game "40 Weeks" cover still bears the comment meant for the N64 version (rather odd that a PS game would be featured in "Official Nintendo Magazine") and one of the shootin games....I think Maximum Force...has illustrations of the Saturn Gun and Sega Controller in the PSX Manual.

Laaaaaaahaaaaazeeeeeeyyyyyyyyy.

Jason

[Richter]

The new KOF 02/03 comp on PS2 has an awful manual. It is text only and has no character bio info. Just a bare bones interface explanation.same with the 00/01 compiliation

Fatal Frame on the XB was pretty bad. Most of the descriptions asked for buttons found on the PS2 version. "Hitting [Square] ..."

[Gapporin]

The PlayStation game "40 Weeks" cover still bears the comment meant for the N64 version (rather odd that a PS game would be featured in "Official Nintendo Magazine")

Y'know, that's what I thought when the game first came out. LOL

My favorite manuals are the ones that are so hammy, it often goes for over the top cheese (see "Skate Or Die" for the NES, as well as many other, but not limited to, NES games).

[Cirrus]

Another more honorable reason couild be that most games have on-screen help and instructions, if not a full tutorial. Manuals have become less necessary.

That's what I have been thinking. Honestly, I rarely find it necessary to pull out a manual in most cases lately. Most new games do a good job of explaining themselves as they go. I suspect that the manual will go the way of the dodo in the next few years.

The only games I see needing manuals now are games like Baldur's Gate (PC), etc, which have long lists of spells, items, etc.. that need to be referenced.

[esquire]

I hate the Majesco manuals for their Genesis releases. Cheap paper and B&W covers.

Equally detestable are the non-manuals for PC games. I'm talking about software publishers who are too cheap to print a manual and instead put it in a pdf file. What good is that? I can't open it while I'm playing the fricking game! This is even more problematic when the pdf file is like 50 pages. Yeah, I'm gonna print out 50 pages and waste printer ink. Just make the manual available in print form. For $50, we deserve that much.

In contrast, some of my favorite manuals are by Working Designs (simply beautiful), KOEI (their Genesis manuals are some of the most detailed I've ever seen) and 3DO (PC games such as the Heroes of Might and Magic Series).

[Daria]

The new KOF 02/03 comp on PS2 has an awful manual. It is text only and has no character bio info. Just a bare bones interface explanation.same with the 00/01 compiliation

Fatal Frame on the XB was pretty bad. Most of the descriptions asked for buttons found on the PS2 version. "Hitting [Square] ..."

Yeah that was... odd...

[SamuraiSmurfette]

or howabout Culdcept PS2's error-filled goodness
editor's note in a text box: "What goes here?"

[Xantan the Foul]

Culdcept's Manual was pretty sparse, and the descriptions for the cards almost seemed intentionally vauge sometimes.

I vote for bigger manuals and less "in game" tutorials (unless you can skip them).

[Falcon]

Gran Turismo 4. Practically everything in the game ends up being an undocumented feature. Compare this to Gran Turismo 2 which came with TWO manuals, with about 50 pages each. And the fact that the interface has a few glaring unintuitive aspects to it doesn't really help any. At least the game itself is still freaking awesome. Heh.

I noticed the same thing. Either they assumed everyone knows about the game, or just got lazy.

[davidbrit2]

Gran Turismo 4. Practically everything in the game ends up being an undocumented feature. Compare this to Gran Turismo 2 which came with TWO manuals, with about 50 pages each. And the fact that the interface has a few glaring unintuitive aspects to it doesn't really help any. At least the game itself is still freaking awesome. Heh.

I noticed the same thing. Either they assumed everyone knows about the game, or just got lazy.

I'll bet the former inspired the latter. I'd imagine someone trying to get into the series at this point would be very confused.

[robotriot]

I agree about GT4, and would like to add Steel Dragon EX for PS2 to the list. The manual pretty much explains all the options, but not how the actual gameplay works, I've seen this quite often recently :/

[StealthLurker]

Game manuals for the SuperVision portable are highly laughable. :D

[Poofta!]

at least console games are still getting manuals, they started skimping on PC manuals in the last 5 or so years. half games dont even get one.

then again, i remember the TG16 manuals, and they are rather worthless.

[Aussie2B]

Well, no good example come to mind when I think of poorly written manuals, but I pay a lot of attention to the actual physical quality of manuals. I think the previous generation was just piss poor in this regards. It seemed an extreme oddity to find a PlayStation manual that was actually in color, and most N64 manuals weren't any better. Half the time when a N64 manual was in color it still lacked much of any screen shots or artwork, and Nintendo would use that generic yellow cover over and over.

It was so disappointing after all those beautiful glossy SNES manuals. The Super Famicom manuals rocked, of course, but even the US manuals were usually extremely cool, loaded with (original, not crappy redone American) artwork and tons of useful information.

This generation seems a bit better than the last from what I've seen, but I don't have enough games to really pass any judgment on entire libraries.