I like to get nostalgic sometimes.  What I'll do to bring back memories varies from time to time.  This time though it was my old PC game manuals.  There are some good ones in there.  Some that I spent hours reading and learning from.  A lot of these games were out before the Internet was around, so all you had was their manuals to help you out.

Well I thought I'd share some of my favorite manuals with you.  Maybe they'll bring back some good memories for you as well.  Enjoy! (click on any of the pics below to enlarge them)

The Doom II Strategy Guide

Ah yes, let's start with the best of the best.  The Official Strategy Guide for Doom II.  This hardy strategy guide ran over 200 pages and helped me out with lots of levels and ehem, cheats.  The nice thing about this guide was that it included a top down view of every level, including all the secret areas and secret levels.  And although this wasn't the manual that was included with the game, it was still a nice guide that GT Interactive put together.

Duke Nukem 3D Level Design Handbook

"It's time to kick ass and design levels!"  Well that's my quote anyways.  To me duke Nukem 3D rates right up there with Doom.  In a world of first person shooters that took place in weird future type settings, it was nice to finally be able to play one in a real life setting.  But we're not here to talk about the game itself.

I'm kind of ticked that I cannot find the actual Duke Nukem manual, but this Level Design Handbook is just as nice because I probably spent more time designing levels then actually playing the game.  Again, this was back before the Internet was popular, so this book was the only way to learn every trick to Duke Nukem's awesome Build editor.  This was another thick manual with over 200 pages of level design tips, tricks, and how-to's.  Included lots of pictures and even came with a CD of custom made Duke 3D levels.

Earthsiege

One of my favorite mech games ever.  While the two manuals above were not actually included with the game, this awesome manual was.  I hate to say it, but in terms of boxing games and creating manuals for them, publishers have gotten cheap.  Now a days when you buy a PC game, you're lucky if the game discs even come with a jewel case or a manual.  It's sad really.

This was a fancy manual.  It even had the spiral binding on the side.  Now that's something you don't see on today's game manuals (if you even get a manual).

Half-Life

One of the best games ever.  Half-Life's manual wasn't too great or anything, but since the game was so awesome I decided to include it anyways.  The cool thing about this manual though was the inclusion of some sketches and concept art.  I'm also a fan of seeing how a game was created, and going through this manual for the first time kind of showed that.

Anyways, I have a lot more game manuals that I'd like to go through, but the above four are my favorite.  While looking through my old game manuals and boxes, it kind of saddens me to see a lot of PC games today moving away from nice jewel cases or detailed manuals, and instead opting for small DVD case style boxes, paper sleeve CD cases, and postcard type manuals that really only show keyboard controls.