StarDestroyer.Net BBS

So - in response to them being useless, lets have the counterpoint...

Homeworld had an awesome one, Homeworld 2 needed an awesome one.

LOMAC did (hell the goddamn PDF version that it said was on the CD wasn't I got it off the internet) and the Il-2 series needed big ass mofo ones. Pretty much all flight sims in general need manuals.

Mechwarrior 2, by far
Independence War
Klingon Academy

Lords of Magic SE, Swat 2 for some reason had a good one, Pharoh, Homeworld, Moo2, Ground Control(loved it).

Toejam & Earl had a hilarious manual with the creature listings.

Not a manual per se but I always love when they add a map like they did with Baldurs Gate or Rome Total War. Was very handy indeed

Fallout 1 and 2. Pretty funny and helpful. Civ 3 too. Woe of me to understand faster the mechanics of the game without the almost 200 pages (or more, can't remember now). Simple and straight to the point.

Microprose always made great (and extremely detailed) manuals, Dynamix for its flight simulators (I still have Aces of the Pacific and Aces Over Eurrope because of those).

Battlecruiser Millenium/gold - That game needed a manual, what it had was longwinded and not helpful at ALL. I've always disliked Derek Smart, cudos to his programming and 3dgfx abilities, but I've felt, from reading his forums, he's not a nice guy. I'll wager he has a rtfm t-shirt, for every day of the week. Shame his manual was crap...

The Age of Wonders series had pretty spectacular manuals, as does Dominions II: The Ascension Wars. And iirc Space Empires IV also had a big, fat manual with lots of neat stuff in it (never seen that game, but it's what I've heard).

Edi

Like Dead Ghost said Fallouts. I would like to add most of Blizzard's older stuff does as well. While WC3 expansion had a shit manual at least WoW tried....though could've been ten times bigger.

For the Fallouts? It needed them for a bunch of things, and the history they added was great.

For Blizzards? Pure history and fluff. It actually made things that in the game make sense beyond "I'm evil goober A...me ughum no likey likey youz!!"

Blizzard has had good manuals, although Reign of Chaos was a little lacking the manual department.

R:TW could have had such a kickass manual, but it sucked. Bah.

Huh, what game was it that was recently released that had Penny Arcade cartoons in the manual?

X-COM: Terror From The Deep and Apocalypse had freakin awesome fluff-stuff packaged along with the games....Microprose even had someone write up some official fics and such to detail the time between the first two games. That's above and beyond the call, right there.

i liked the manuals Square included in the final fantasy games before FF7 came out. nice and big size, and often times included a foldout map in the box as well.

Mmm...I recall Starflight having an awesome manual, but I'd have to go find it to be sure. I've got it packed away somewhere.

Sid Miers original "Pirartes!" included enough actual pirate tactics that it let you beat your opponet like a real pirate of the age would, (now if they had only given you options for chain shot, and throwing grenades before boarding.....), but the manual and the maps, and the history was great.

The fallout manuals

X-wing a tie fighter

I liked Zelda: Ocarina of Time's manual. You didn't really need it to play the game, but it had great pictures, and plenty of them too. SimCity 3000's manual was great too. And huge As was the original the Sims one. I don't think the EA, DVD-case, version of the game had that one. It just wouldn't fit.

InnocentBystander wrote:I've always disliked Derek Smart, cudos to his programming and 3dgfx abilities, but I've felt, from reading his forums, he's not a nice guy.

He's also a lying SOB, who claims to have a PhD when it's nothing more than a piece of paper from a degree mill.

Star Control II had an awesome manual. Aces of the Pacific was great as well.

The Dragon Warrior I & II cart for GBC had a nice, detailed manual and came with a seperate world map.

F-19 Stealth Fighter. I don't know what I would have done without all those cool tactics, and how to avoid specific types of radar, etc. Also Gunship, with the auto-rotation thing. Very cool, very necessary.

Dalton wrote:Huh, what game was it that was recently released that had Penny Arcade cartoons in the manual?

World of Warcraft, but that was actually the Prima strategy guide, which was bundled with the LE Collector's Edition of the game.

Isn't another of Derek Smart's problems is that he's also crazy?

The Eurofighter 2000 Version 2.0 manual; it's 300~ pages long, and it's
a very fun read; very fun, because it describes the Eurofighter itself
as well as the game mechanics...