Once I got Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for my birthday, I just so happened to do something (don’t remember what) to get grounded from TV/Nintendo for a month. I read that manual so many times over the next month. Not sure I ever actually beat that game.

I remember when games had swag. I still have a cloth map from one of my games.

Remember when games had a cool box, with a manual and full color booklet with the story and basics of the game, etc. Now they bring nothing, just a disc. Same with movies, a dvd used to have all these features, documentaries, Easter eggs, interactive menus and commentaries. Now you pay for a Blu ray and it brings nothing but the movie

The PEGI16 when you were 12 was the most thrilling part

As a child with motion sickness brought on by reading in a moving vehicle. I still did this but then got too nauseous and had to lay down.

Also the car filled with cigarette smoke with the windows up didn’t help.

Back in the day we’d buy games based on the vaguest idea of what they actually are. My parents would take me to the store and we’d get anything that looks cool enough. Best we can do is read a little bit about it in a magazine.

When games had manuals… Now I’m sad :(

Probably my most-memorable manual of all time. This era was next-level with the manuals. With Police Quest 2 (pictured), you couldn’t access the game without the manual, as it’d show you a mugshot and you had to match the picture to the name in the manual:

fuck, some of those games had gorgeous manuals.

I still have the guide that came with Earthbound. I read that thing through so many times as a kid. I think my parents bought it new on clearance because it didn’t sell and I was having a rough year.

Still remember the night I got it. It was a nice summer night, there was a block party on our street. My parents wanted to stay later than usual but let me go home to play. The adults were only one house over, but it felt like growing up getting to be home alone.

That opening sequence felt like it could have been my life in a different reality. It took a few years for me to finally beat it , but it felt like growing up with the characters in a way.

I feel the guidebook had a lot to do with my memories. It was so cool how it was presented as newspapers from towns along the way and it being a tangible object added to the immersion. Seriously a great gaming experience I can’t ever replicate.

I miss when games were physical and I actually owned them.

I miss being able to hold them in my hands, to examine the cover, to read the back.

I miss being able to crack it open and smell that plasti-ink-chemical smell that had been sealed inside from the factory with the shrinkwrap.

and yes, I absolutely miss having manuals to read.

Yesterday I came across my old Icewind Dale box. The manual is 130 pages with tiny print.

I had also put the Forgotten Realms Archive manual in there, which is 368 pages - but to be fair that’s for all 12 games.

The manual for Diablo was awesome. Wing Commander III had two in that gorgeous box, a technical manual and a game manual.

Best memory of this is reading through the Morrowind manual while my mom did her shit.

…get home play the game, take a bathroom break… bring the box and manual to the bathroom to read it more.