When was the last time you read a game manual?

I only read them when I'm writing a game review, and that's to make sure I didn't completely miss something. My habit of never reading instructions comes directly from my college day habits of obtaining almost all of my computer games from pirate sites. Half the time you couldn't get the full program let alone instructions, so I just fell out of the habit. Besides if I could figure out how to play Civilization without instructions I sure as hell don't need them for Halo or Frogger 3D.

So why include instructions at all? With some obvious exceptions, I think the need for instructions simply points to design flaws. It's like having to explain a punch line. If you have to, you're doing something wrong.

Cross-town rival and all-around great guy David Thomas's latest blog post touches on this too, though he seems more against the idea of those useless "Notes" pages in the back of the instructions. Brian Crecente

Read the Manual

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