Ico is an awesome game. It has a fantastic, immersive atmosphere. It has a simple, but well-told story. The gameplay makes sense. Aside from it's shortness (less than two hours on second playthrough here! Not speedrunning!) there is very little wrong with it. The only thing you really need to know before playing are the controls, which are easy enough to find in the options menu.
Which is good, because the manual is atrocious.
Sure, it tells you the controls. But it decided that it wasn't done talking, and went on to give you the story, characters, and every location in the game, in the order they are met. In a game which relies so heavily on story, with a sense of wonder and exploration (even if there isn't really any exploration), this is a bad move. I was lucky enough to get a copy without the manual. Knowing almost nothing about the game, I was awed by it. Upon later reading the manual online, I'm sure it would have had a lesser effect on me. Not much lesser, but I'll never know for sure.
I suspect what many people forget is that, like it or not, the manual is part of the game. As such, it should be designed just as carefully. Never mind the fact that few people will read it. Having a well-designed manual shows an attention to detail that gamers can respect.
Yes, I'm aware the manual for Sun on a Stick is a user-unfriendly text document, but my excuse is that it's five years old. My better manual design shows with The Underground. There isn't one. I decided to leave it to the player to decide what the goal is. Providing a manual would have compromised the game's design. Viewed in that light, it becomes rather obvious that a manual is a definite part of the game it is attached to. As such, it deserves to be considered in equal measure to other parts of the game.
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I was annoyed when I bought the Xbox 360 version of MW2 and found that the manual had practically nothing in it. Compared to Bungie's manuals for Halo games (which are full of information) this seemed more like an easy way for them to save time and money, and it essentially gives you the controls and warranty information - that's it. 3 and a half pages long in total.
ReplyDeleteBut... you bring up a good point that I hadn't thought about. I still think they were fairly cheap in that they couldn't provide a semi-decent manual, but I can see how that is also an advantage. I love the game, and having not played any Call of Duty prior to this (not even MW1) I was awed by the gameplay and the story line.
I can't remember the exact total but I think I've played just over 6 day's worth online so far, plus the time spent to finish the campaign.
On a side note... the fact that it actually tells me how long I've been playing is a bonus - not many games do that and it's an interesting statistic.
You're exactly right. Just making a manual small isn't really the answer. If a small manual feels "cheap", then there's still something wrong. If the game's manual really should be small, designers shouldn't just slap something together. They should put some care into it.
ReplyDeleteOn the flipside, if the game calls for a large manual, they should go for it. But it isn't good to put lots in just to make it look like you've put some work into it, when putting thought into it is much more important.