Where Have all the Manuals Gone To?

I was going through some old game stuff of mine and came across the original manual for Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn. It sits in front of me as I type. It’s a frickin' monster! Like a book.

Back then, games were more than just an interface thrown together over the latest Unreal engine in a half assed manner. Granted, that’s not entirely fair to say, and BGII did re-use the infinity engine… but still, games were legends out of the box. It wasn’t a sales thing as much as it was a gamer thing because gamers weren’t casual about their sport. It wasn’t a Friday night two hour flick at the closest. But I’m not just talking about a time investment. I’m talking about energy and passion. Back then kids didn't get bored of a game in a month only to then lose it a month after that; or trade it in for a few bucks and Gamestop because the quality of the content really is that mediocre. Back in the day, people, at least that I knew of, didn’t trade/sell games. Why? Because I still play many of them to this day. I wouldn’t give up my copies (I have several…) of BGII for anything… Games had a lot of heart, a lot of background, a lot of meaning and connection to the gamers, high replay value, and, of course, big ass manuals that explained everything, from how to play the game, to a brief history of the making of the game, to the background story for the game.

I must admit I never read the “how to” parts of the manual but I absolutely loved reading about background story elements for the diegesis’. The character bios in the BGII manual, yeah, I would read all of those. I read all of Volo’s little random notes about whatever. I would read about Amn… I loved that stuff. (PS:T was sorely lacking in the manual department. Maybe that is part of why it failed commercially.. back then if there was ever a genre in which a big manual was required that genre was the role-playing one. RPG’s needed to have big manuals)

So here we are now. The prices of games have crept up from the previous and long standing high of 50 bucks a pop for newly released goods to 60, and yet we fail. I haven’t played Dragon Age yet… but I will. How’s the manual…

Expansion

I've decided to diversify. Expand beyond PS:T. Why? Because PS:T is effectively dead to the world at large. In fact, it never really lived except within the hearts of a select few. But at the end of the day I don't think anybody reads this blog and I used to falsely maintain that such didn't really matter ... I lied. It does. If it didn't I would write off-line. But for some reason, it matters. Maybe my writing isn't up to par with the bloggers who have readers, but I know that my topic of choice, PS:T, isn't really helping either and while I can't wake up tomorrow suddenly as a blogger extraordinaire, I can maybe write for a larger audience. I'm not "selling out" however. PS:T always is and always will be the best game ever and I will write about it often but I will also write beyond PS:T. I am determined however to stay within the realm of video games. So I may blog about Modern Warfare 2. Or Bioshock. Or Unreal Tournament... whatever. But I will maintain focus on video games. So if you happen to "like" video games you might find something of interest on Prime Material. (the name stays, for now) You don't even have to like PS:T... you should; but you don't have to.