cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13809164
Ignoring the lack of updates if the game is buggy, games back then were also more focused on quality and make gamers replay the game with unlockable features based on skills, not money. I can’t count the number of times I played Metal Gear Solid games over and over to unlock new features playing the hardest difficulty and with handicap features, and also to find Easter eggs. Speaking of Easter eggs, you’d lose a number of hours exploring every nook and cranny finding them!
l am pretty sure he talks about pre-online times (which were also largely pre-home-console times).
The instruction manual of my first bought game, a flight simulator on the Atari ST, was basically a printed pilot crash course.
I also had some thick copied instruction folders from the more… unconventional acquired games, often because the copy protection was like: “Enter the 5th word of the 13th line on page 54!”.
I remember pouring over my grandpas falcon3.0 manual.
Also a DOS manual he had. On one hand it was cool but on the other, things are so complex that they wouldn’t fit into a manual. And they go out of date as soon as they are printed due to changes.
Mine was the first Falcon game!
Also, my first Linux distro in 1997 came on CD and had a nice Linux introduction book l still used as a quick reference years after l had moved on to newer releases.