atari2600land's Blog - No manuals required

RSS Bot · June 17, 2006

I like games where you can just pick up and play them without having to know much. Games like Super Mario Bros. series, Mario Kart series, Tetris, Sonic, etc. But looking at my Atari 2600 selection, there are very few games like that.

For example, Blueprint. How do you play that? I don't know. What do you do in Skateboardin'? How do you even start playing Ghostbusters? Sure, I could look up the manual on AtariAge, but at this stage, it's a moot point. I'm already disinterested in the game. For the longest time, I thought the highest anyone could get in Pole Position is about 10,000 points, until I discovered when I pressed down on the joystick, you actually can finish the practice lap!

I suppose why I like games like Asteroids, Breakout, Freeway, Realsports Football, Video Pinball and Ms. Pac-Man are because they don't need manuals. And back then, they didn't need them either. Anyone can see the object of Pac-Man is to eat the dots. Anyone can see that the object of Asteroids is to shoot the asteroids.

Another point is this: In the early days of Atari 2600 game-making, they weren't thinking about the concept of used video game stores. 25 years from then people going to get these games and not having a manual. People lose manuals. Almost all the NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis, Dreamcast, etc. in used video game stores don't have manuals. Why? Most people misplace them.

Which is one good thing about today's video games: They can program the instructions right in the video game. I've seen it with Tetris DS, Puyo Pop Fever, and to a lesser extent, WarioWare and Super Mario 64.

I've lost almost all NES manuals I had. I thought I had a SMB3 one a few years ago, but when I started looking for it, I couldn't find it. I have about a dozen SNES instruction manuals for games I don't even have anymore. I have nearly all my N64 games I bought new with manuals.

So, in conclusion, I am a lazy slob who doesn't like looking up video game manuals on the internet and doesn't like challenges.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...&showentry=1645