Who here reads the instruction manual(s) in video games before playing?

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ananag112

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Reading the instruction booklets in video games (or most electronic products for that matter) is one of my favorite parts of buying the game. I read the instruction manual cover to cover before playing any game. I have found the games these days have shorter and shorter instruction booklets. Back in the SNES days, games like FFIII had huge instrution manuals and that was one of the reasons I loved it. Now the books are short, and most of the time they are black and white. This made me ask myself why they are doing this, and one reason I came up with is that people don't bother reading the instructions. That is why I ask you all if you read the instruction manual(s) in games before playing them.
 
If I only have a little bit of time, I'll read the manual instead of playing the game for 10 minutes.
 
[quote name='zionoverfire']No, I always try to play the game first. Most games seem to have a tutorial that expalins things a lot better than the manual anyhow.[/quote]

That's true, but for some reason, it gives me great satisfaction to read the instruction manual in video games and mostly all electronic equiptment. Sometimes you can tell the quality of a game by the quality of the instruction booklet.
 
I never ever read it before playing the game itself. I usually read the booklet in whole after spending some time with the game.
 
It depends. If it's a sequel to a game in a series that I'm familiar with (like Ratchet & Clank) I most likely won't even look at since I already know the control scheme. Then again, I went through the San Andreas guide pretty thoroughly, just to read the fake ads and see who the voice talent was.

With a series that's new to me, yeah, I usually read it through before I play.
 
yeah, it depends with me as well, if I'm a passenger on the way home, I'll read though, otherwise, I'll usually glance at it when I get home.

In both cases, I usually read it until they describe something that makes no sense, then I'll play for a while and read though it after, when I know where everything is.

cinder
 
reading is so last decade... get with the program, its 2005.. people dont read anymore.

jk, but i dont read mine.
 
Nowadays I raaarely take the instruction book out of the case, unless it is a confusing game and want to look at something in there. Back when I was younger and in the day of SNES I would always read the instruction books just for fun. The best being Earthbound, but chrono trigger, SoM, and all the square games had good artwork in their instruction booklets.
 
i agree with ya up ther.e..games have tutorials..i only read the booklet if theres nothing else to read on my way 2 the potty..
 
Console games: Usually no
PC games: Yes; usually they are more complicated control-wise, plus it gives me something to do during the installation.
 
I thought manuals were for women and old people. :lol:

Although I did have a RTFM moment with Splinter Cell (the original) played through to the final 2 or 3 missions before finally reading the manual and learning you could zoom in with the standard weapon. Doh! Here I was sneaking to within spitting distance of lights in order to shoot them out when I could have picked them off from 10x farther away with the zoom. :rofl:
 
Wubb, I thought I was the only one who had that happen to them in Splinter Cell. Either that, or we are the only two brave enough to admit it. Oh, and MGS Twin Snakes, when I realized after the game was over, that I could have used first person to beat Revolver Ocelot a lot easier. I usually read the books, but being busy, not always, and not like I used to when I was younger.
 
I usually flip through them....especially sports games when each button gives you a different command. However, most games now have an IN-GAME tutorial....like NFL Street 2
 
Yeah, i do it right when I open the game. I don't get the people who don't do it either. I remember playing Mystical Ninja on my friends N64, and we were both switching the controller every 10 minutes trying to beat the game. We were probably 3/4 of the way through, stuck on one of the bosses, when I say "have you read the manual?". He of course says no, so we go to check it. We find the "super laser killing move" in the manual, that we both had no idea about. It made beating the game a whole lot easier.

Moral of the story: READ YOUR MANUAL!
 
I usually read them after a few minutes of playing. I always miss something - I just started playing SSX3 and I played for probably 6 or 7 hours before reading the instructions. Before I read them I had no idea you could actually link tricks together. I was wondering why some of the trick challenges were insanly high scores... :oops:
 
Usually after I purchase the game I open it up and take a look at the disk and ill read the manual on the ride home if im not driving or on the walk to the car.
 
When I was little I'd read the instructions on the way home from renting a game. I loved it.

Now I'm the one that drives to rent a game, so obviously I'm not going to be able to read it on the way home...unless I'm at a stop light or something.
 
Yeah the toilet does it for me, after I have already played the game. oh and wireless controllers are also great!!
 
Most of the time no, on the rare times that I do it is usually after I beat the game, just to see if there was anything I probably should have read before hand. Only time i've had a shit that could have been handy moment was when I read the Halo manual quite awhile after I beat the game and found out I could have switched grenade types with the little button.
 
yea, i read about the whole manual before playing...although i dont go to the credits etc. :p

but yea...i'm the same with OP most of the times...unless i got it in a trade, which i usually pop in the game to see if it runs properly, THEN i read the manual :p
 
Sometimes I read them on the shitter if I have nothing else to read. :) Or I read them if I can't figure out to do something, like save.
 
[quote name='gmzone']Wubb, I thought I was the only one who had that happen to them in Splinter Cell. [/quote]

Ha! It actually adds a nice wrinkle of difficulty to the game. I figure you could probably beat the whole game without zooming, which would be a nice challenge for a SC expert.
 
Hardly touched any of my game manuals. The most use for a manual is just to figure which button does what. But I usually figure it out by playing anyways...
 
I never read the manual unless I get desperate because I can't figure out the controls since it doesn't have any control config on the game (which is absurd in 2005 to have games like that) ... I will even go ahead and try gamefaqs first to see if I can find something on the controls so I don't have to go through the manual :)
 
I usually do flip through the manual before playing. Then, sometimes I'll give it a more through reading, and sometimes I don't.

Though, with games I'm already familiar with (like San Andreas), I didn't even flip through the book for the first couple of hours.
 
I rarely look at it before playing the game itself, and if so, its usually just previewing the weapons / items to see what they do, or glance at the controls. I look at the controls page for some football games if I forget; I switch through ESPN NFL series and Madden a lot, even though I can look it up in game.
 
The only time i ever catch myself reading the manuals is when riding the city bus or on the crapper. Other then that, no I usually dont read the manuals.
 
ill sometimes skim through them on the ride home, or while im waiting to get to play the game (say someone else is playing it or something else at the time)....but usually the manual wont even make sense to me until i play the game, then ill go back and read it to see if theres any special somethings that ive missed or didn't know that i could do...etc
 
I used to read them back during middle school and high school before I got my driver's license. Now I usually don't read manuals unless I need some help, I usually look through them some time after I play the game.
 
When I was younger, it was a ritual of mine for me to read the manual immediately, while my older bro began playing immediately. Now, I buy so many games, that I usually only read about 1 in every 5 manuals before I end up selling or trading the game.
 
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