Games with the biggest manuals

[RedxDecember]

I love the games with the big fat manuals. There's just something in me that loves reading about the story or the enemies or the weapons. Red Dead Redemption and Halo 3 both had some of the biggest ones, and the Fallout 3 manual was big too. Is there any game you've had with a huge manual?

 

[Zantos]

I think if you get Rift at retail it has an informative novel accompanying it. Luckily I just learnt everything I need to know from a bunch of drunkards. It's getting really interesting.

 

[Vern5]

I think X-Beyond the Frontier and all of its sequels have had huge manuals that ended up telling you almost nothing.

However, the best manuals ever made for games are always Blizzard manuals. Seriously, Starcraft, Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2's manuals were great. Not only were they instructional but they all had tiny novels included within them that provided backstory for every race and/or class presented in each game. Plus, the manual artwork by Chris Metzen is hard to ignore.

 

[Worgen]

you really missed the days of old when pc games had nice huge manuals, new one cant come close, both fallout 1 and 2 had really good ones, star control 2 had a great one, stonekeep came with a novel, there are many others but I cant think of them right now

 

[Iwata]

By far "Apollo 18", an official NASA simulation game from back in the day. The manual was hundreds of pages long, and had to be thoroughly studied, since you had to pass an exam to play the game. If you passed it, they'd let you in the simulator... inside the game. Only after that would they let you play an actual mission.

No, really.

 

[00slash00]

the baldurs gate games had pretty big manuals, but then again, those were pretty huge games

 

[ChildofGallifrey]

The 'Witcher' games had pretty good sized manuals. Not too many around anymore. Sucks because I love reading them.

 

[thenamelessloser]

Fallout 3 was like 30 to 50 pages? Seriously, topic creator did you ever play a game that had a manual that was hundreds of pages instead of dozens?

LIke someoene said PC games used to have huge ones. Fallout 1 and 2, A lot of the Dungeon and Dragon games had huge manuals, (except Planescape: Torment strangely enough) Arcanum, and many other games. I loved Arcanum's manual btw which is probably my favorite. I love in the back how it goes into some scientific ideas about how elves, humans, etc came about and how it contradicts the orthodox view points of both magic users and scientists. I love the scientific experiments in the beginning of the manual and how magic interferes with the laws of nature. Don't remember how much it actually helped with playing the game but it was so cool I didn't care.

But I guess console games never had large manuals to begin with though.

 

[DustyDrB]

My copy of Neverwinter Nights 2 Baldur's Gate 2 has a manual longer than any of my Vonnegut books.

Edit: Wups, mentioning the wrong game there.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Diablo 2 Manual from the battle chest.

It's soo thick I don't think I've ever read all the way through it.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Earthbound wins easily. Followed by FFVI

 

[teqrevisited]

I think the thickest manual I've got is the WoW original one. About 5mm thick.

It's quite interesting to flick through and reflect on how outdated the visions they had for each of the classes is.

 

[niqw]

Apollo 18's manual was over 230 full-sized (as in 8.5 x 11) pages, it's almost legendary for game documentation. I know some of the manuals mentioned have more pages, but they aren't full-sized. Most stuff from the BioWare/Interplay days is typically pretty beefy for this day and age, though.

 

[Iwata]

Apollo 18's manual was over 230 full-sized (as in 8.5 x 11) pages, it's almost legendary for game documentation. I know some of the manuals mentioned have more pages, but they aren't full-sized. Most stuff from the BioWare/Interplay days is typically pretty beefy for this day and age, though.

I mentioned it earlier in this thread, yet people keep putting out these puny attempts to dethrone it!

I miss that game...

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Apollo 18's manual was over 230 full-sized (as in 8.5 x 11) pages, it's almost legendary for game documentation. I know some of the manuals mentioned have more pages, but they aren't full-sized. Most stuff from the BioWare/Interplay days is typically pretty beefy for this day and age, though.

I mentioned it earlier in this thread, yet people keep putting out these puny attempts to dethrone it!

I miss that game...

<link=http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.485>Here's one that can dethrone it; Falcon 4.0, 576 pages long. That was not a typo; this thing is legendary for being an enormous manual.

Edit: Actually, it was a typo. The real count is 579.

 

[Iwata]

Apollo 18's manual was over 230 full-sized (as in 8.5 x 11) pages, it's almost legendary for game documentation. I know some of the manuals mentioned have more pages, but they aren't full-sized. Most stuff from the BioWare/Interplay days is typically pretty beefy for this day and age, though.

I mentioned it earlier in this thread, yet people keep putting out these puny attempts to dethrone it!

I miss that game...

<link=http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.485>Here's one that can dethrone it; Falcon 4.0, 576 pages long. That was not a typo; this thing is legendary for being an enormous manual.

I have that game as well, but mine had no manual, except a PDF version. Now I feel I'm missing out!

 

[RedxDecember]

Fallout 3 was like 30 to 50 pages? Seriously, topic creator did you ever play a game that had a manual that was hundreds of pages instead of dozens?

LIke someoene said PC games used to have huge ones. Fallout 1 and 2, A lot of the Dungeon and Dragon games had huge manuals, (except Planescape: Torment strangely enough) Arcanum, and many other games. I loved Arcanum's manual btw which is probably my favorite. I love in the back how it goes into some scientific ideas about how elves, humans, etc came about and how it contradicts the orthodox view points of both magic users and scientists. I love the scientific experiments in the beginning of the manual and how magic interferes with the laws of nature. Don't remember how much it actually helped with playing the game but it was so cool I didn't care.

But I guess console games never had large manuals to begin with though.

Sorry about that

I have stuck to console games mainly.

 

[kidd25]

big read is always good for me.

 

[Annoying Turd]

Games used to have all these cool stuff included in the boxes. Back in the days of ultima.

When I bought WoW at launch (had one of those orc boxes) the manual was thick.

 

[falcon1985]

Falcon 4.0. The entire opperations manual for the F-16 plus airbase ops maps for bases in southern europe and korea. Yeah, not getting through all that in a day.