First thing I remember looking up online were Game Genie codes for the Genesis games I had. Then I put everything I found in a document and printed it out. I had many, many pages of codes, cheats, and tips from GameSages and other places, then also annotated when I would experiment with the codes to produce better codes. The very first thing I searched was more likely than not Sonic, but I looked for everything I had, even down to LaRussa Baseball 95.
This would have been 1997.
The manual that came with Ultima VI: The False Prophet was my favourite. At least, the one that came with the boxed version for DOS. Iâve seen a scan of the flimsy pamphlet that came with the SNES version and that doesnât count.
I encourage manual-enjoyers to bump my old attempt at a thread if youâre so inclined: When itâs fun to RTFM
Fun episode that one - always nice to hear the dirtbag being beaten, and what must be one of the fastest lightning rounds of all time!
Also we need more snake facts, because they lead to very funny jokes. They are hissterical.
The large CRPG manuals of that era were so good at creating a vibe and adding lore. Even the borders of the Ultima 6 manual are setting a tone. And going from the root and mortar/pestle to hair with mushroom to a spider on the bottom left is well done.
The Forgotten Realms manuals felt like supplements for a table-top game, which means they have the art, but they also have full tables of statistics, stat blocks for new monsters, and other features. Other games statted out some funny things for players as well. Here is a reputation chart for monsters from Phantasie III:
Comparatively, I think Ultima 6 is a master class of being experience-driven over stat-driven in its compendium. Their bestiary has pictures at the top and bottom, and plain textual descriptions putting the player in the role of adventurer.
Once it was obvious the panel could name non-Japanese horror games for days you shouldâve just moved the goal post until they mutinied lmao.
He thought he was gonna catch us out but it was not to be. I didnât even get to mention Obscure, Cold Fear, Dead Island, or the âtechnically westernâ games like dead rising 2-3, neverdead, etc. (or any game made in the last 10 years lol)
or Devotion! at least I donât think I heard it mentioned
Is Superhot a horror game?
on connrrrâs q i would like to add rockin key art for cut content. shit you just never see in game. like the tx-88 in the nes metal gear.
i miss the unsolvable mystery
Like others have already mentioned, I definitely looked up cheat codes immediately upon accessing the internet for the first time. I also remember typing all my favorite interests (sports, videogames and anime basically) followed by .com and hoping there was a corresponding website. I think this was back in '95, and I can say with almost certainty that there was no dragonballz.com yet. But I was far too young to claim the domain. I did try to create my own DBZ geocities website though haha.
Oh and anyone remember how excruciatingly slow the load times were? It was like magic when DSL arrived and pages loaded seemingly instantly.
wario is sardinian
That manual directly led to me crashing my car in high school trying to use its lessons in real life
I remember it being in just the normal version of the game though!
I think watching my older brother play NBA Jam was my first interaction with basketball, therefore I guess it got me into the real sport? It wasnât something my family really watched on tv growing up and I didnât really play it much but everything I currently know about the sport comes from that game. I could never get on fire IRL.
Same with Skiing and Ski Free.
Segaâs officially licensed games of the Olympics also got me into olympic sports. Sydney 2000 got me into Kayak Slalom and and Javelin. London 2012 got me into Keirin and Synchronized Diving. Tokyo 2020 got me into Speed Climbing. I wish we got a Paris 2024 game so I could get into Breakdancing.
Also does American Gladiators count as a sport? Because the SNES game made me want to get jacked, grow a mullet, change my name to something like Laser or Nitro, and hit people with big q-tips.
The SSI Gold Box Games typically featured a manual with a lot of the D&D rules to help you understand the game and what the various numbers mean, but also a Journal, because the game disks didnât have enough room for all the text needed for the game, so if your exchange with a character or monster had more than a couple or so lines of text or the description of a room or event was similarly longer, you were directed to read entry # from page p# in the journal for the full text. So the manuals were actually pretty nice, because they had so much D&D info but also all this text from the game.
There were also a few PS1 and Saturn games which had extra thick cases to accommodate extra thick manuals. These are a pain because those are like 1 or 2 mm too thick for single CD slots on CD racks but feel silly to waste a double-sized spot on.
that era definitely had the most plastic case sizes across the board (maybe famicom and NES had more cardboard style cases).
Saturn had regular, slightly thicker, double CD, paper sleeve, âcd singleâ size, and the big boy US cases.
PS1 had regular, much thicker, double cd, paper sleeve, and big boy US cases briefly. Not sure if PS1 ever did official cd single size releases.
I never saw a CD Single release. So it was a mini CD in those rectangular plastic cases?
In parts of the EU, the official PlayStation magazine came with demos, released in cd single cases. These actually started with the same catalogue numbers as released games, which I suppose is a close to a cd single case as you can get.
Hereâs a full list of the UK demos. Takes me back that!
Ah, sorry - thereâs a few types of CD single cases, and I mean the ones that are like 1/3 the width of a regular CD case.
protomen very good, Iâve never even played megaman but they make compelling work
gta2 manual had a map of the whole city
mgs1 manual lovely presentation
The Video Game Acoustic Covers thread here has replaced game cover bands for me
