Anyone ever miss those good old game manuals and reference books from the nineties? I just happened to find my old Age of Empires 2 game reference book (200 pages of A5. The size of an average novel. ) and started thinking about how boring and useless modern manuals are. While still less than 10 years ago they used to be big and bulky manuals with every piece of information you could possibly need, now they are just thin pieces of paper with installation instructions and basic keyboard commands.
Those old manuals were interesting and you could literally read them for hours. Some had lists of all weapons and enemies, some gave valuable backstory for places you visit ingame. Those were the good old days.
For example, taking this Age of Empires 2 Gold edition guide, it has 50 pages of tips and guides on building your empire and trading, and other useful things like battle strategies. Then it had all information you could ever need on every unit in the game, long pieces of text about their historical background and technology trees for each and every one of the playable nations. The manual practically covered everything that was in the game.
I bet that many of you have spent time doing something like reading Descent 3 manual on a toilet. Still, only a very few games offer us such a luxury these days. Some games like Neverwinter nights 2 or such have long (and quite good) manuals on the game discs, but they just aren't the same as the old printed copies. Anyway, there are some that still make those kind of manuals, such as the X-series.
So, what do YOU think about modern game manuals and what kind of fond memories do you have of good manuals?
Edit: corrected a lil' mistake.

Any manual with over twenty pages, with around four or five devoted to back story in the game, with toilet readable value.

Oh yes, most of modern wannabe manuals are just installation instructions, some shit about support and that's basically all (at least here in Slovakia, they are divided into Czech and Slovak part, both are the same, they are just translated).
As have you nentioned, some games have right 'n proper manual in PDF format on the CD/DVD, so we have at least something.
I can remember on manuals from Guild Wars campaigns, which besides installation instructions and explanation of game basics contain texts about lore, notable characters and enemies, etc.
EDIT: typo

Yeah that's quite usual...

I rarely bothered with the manuals. A well designed game should be intuitive enough that you can learn the basics as you go. Those massive Microprose manuals always seemed a bit of a waste, really. Like the massive boxes they came in.
Furthermore, I like the fact that I don't need a warehouse to store my games in.

And when the manual has more informations, it is full of translation fail.
Dawn of War 2 manual is such example. I couldn't believe that Czech CD Projekt didn't use google translator instead of a thinking human.

Thier Finest Hour had Their Finest Manual to go with it. Frankly the book was worth the price of the game as well, taught you everything you needed to know about flight, deflection shooting, force organisation and had cool historical perspetives from actual pilots. It was clearly a labour of love.
The Microprose manuals were equally awesome, best military game manuals I've ever seen and they also went into force organisation and unit/squad tactics

You know what I really miss, something that a lot of people scarcely think about nowadays?
Hint books. Not strategy guides or walkthroughs, hint books. These were little books that gave you progressively more specific hints on particular puzzles or obstacles, which helped nudge you towards the solution without spoiling it completely (unless you wanted it to).
A typical hint book entry:
How do I kill the suit of armor on the first floor?*
- You'll need to punch through its defense somehow.
- Your regular weapons won't work. Try something different.
- Something heavy.
- Check the rooms upstairs for something you can use.
- The very heavy statuette is in the upstairs bedroom. Throw it at the suit of armor.
Walkthroughs are just so... blatant. It's a lot more satisfying to figure something out for yourself, but we all get stuck sometimes, and a little clue to help you along is a lot more fun than just being told the solution.
Happily, today we have UHS Hints as an alternative to GameFAQs, though their library is far from comprehensive. I always check them first.
*Bonus points if you can name this game without looking it up.

I couldn't agree more. When I get stuck on a game I don't want the answer to the puzzle. I want a little hint. After that I can just think that "Oh, ofcoarse. Why didn't I think of that before. It's so simple".

Whoa...it's still alive and running? I thought it was dead already. I remember using this for playing some adventure games, and I like that the software can embed maps or screenshots within the hints.

Falcon 2.0 <3

Good god man! That was like, three hundred billion pages thick!
You know, plus or minus a page.

Enhanced edition of the Witcher. Im not sure what the normal version had but the enhanced edition contanined a short story from which the game was made. A walk through (Including a list of ALL the potions and such) plus a normal manual that isnt to small either.
I love you CDProjekt RED :D
Even Special editions of games oftain come severly lacking items i can hold in my hands. If they are expecting people to pay upwards of a extra $50 they really should add some more.
Oh and PDF manuals are horrid, i just cant get into reading them. Give me a real copy any day of the week.

I have normal version of The Witcher and it contains manual (about 60 pages), walkthrough and the short story too.
IIRC the Enhanced Edition is just the same as the normal edition + patches, some fan adventures, two official adventures and some extra stuff.

It's even better then!