Items13The creator’s order
  1. 1StarTropics (1990)StarTropics (1990) 8.7/10 on IGDBReleased Dec 1, 1990The original NES package gave you a letter from Uncle Steve to hang on to. In Chapter 4, a request for a radio frequency sends you back to that paper to uncover a hidden message. Keep the letter or the official electronic manual handy and let the game tell you when to look.0
  2. 2F-Zero (1990)F-Zero (1990) 7.7/10 on IGDBReleased Nov 21, 1990Read the comic at the back of the original Super NES booklet before starting a race. Takaya Imamura's Captain Falcon story ends just as a race is about to begin. It gives the driver and the futuristic circuit a life outside the cockpit, which is easy to miss when you go straight to the starting…0
  3. 3The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984)The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984) 6.9/10 on IGDBReleased Sep 14, 1984Infocom teaches its text adventure with a sample exchange and a little map from an invented scene outside the game. Try reading it before typing your first command. You'll see how a short instruction and the game's response can suggest a next move, with Arthur Dent's own predicaments still waiting…0
  4. 4EliteEliteThe BBC Micro game's Space Trader's Flight Training Manual addresses you as the newly qualified pilot of a Cobra Mk III. Read the docking and trade sections before your first station visit, then browse the spacecraft pages for the wider world behind a few lines of wireframe. It is a manual you can…0
  5. 5Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004)Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004) 8.2/10 on IGDBReleased Nov 22, 2004MicroProse's manual puts the game rules beside the fictional memoirs of Captain Sydney. Read his account of taking a sun sight, then turn to the example that asks whether a captured merchant ship is worth keeping. The booklet also has separate sections on life in the West Indies and the six eras…0
  6. 6EarthBound (1995)EarthBound (1995)Released Jun 5, 1995The original American box included a Player's Guide that reads in places like a newspaper from the towns you visit. Open the Onett Times before heading into Onett, and save the town maps for when you want a nudge. The paper copy even included scratch-and-sniff cards, another way the package carried…0
  7. 7Super Metroid (1994)Super Metroid (1994) 9.2/10 on IGDBReleased Mar 19, 1994Start with the Super NES booklet's opening pages on the Metroid menace if you want the history behind Samus's return to Zebes. The later pages introduce the planet's regions, giving places such as Brinstar and Norfair an identity before you have pieced their routes together. Skim the maps and…0
  8. 8Marathon (1994)Marathon (1994) 8.0/10 on IGDBReleased Dec 21, 1994Bungie's original Macintosh manual opens its story section with a shuttle approaching the colony ship and a voice on the radio interrupting the routine. Read that sequence before looking through the control pages. The booklet turns the moment before you take over into a short piece of fiction and…0
  9. 9Gran Turismo 2 (1999)Gran Turismo 2 (1999) 8.2/10 on IGDBReleased Dec 11, 1999The North American PlayStation edition's Reference Manual draws a traction circle to show why braking and turning put demands on the same tires. Read the diagram, then run the same corner twice and notice what happens when you change when you brake. The explanations of understeer and oversteer give…0
  10. 10Homeworld (1999)Homeworld (1999) 8.4/10 on IGDBReleased Sep 28, 1999Read the original Windows manual's Historical and Technical Briefing as if you were about to board the Mothership. Its account of the clans on Kharak and the archaeologist who finds the Guidestone gives the fleet's search a personal and political history. The illustrations and technical notes make…0