Topic: Who misses game manuals?

Hands down, best gaming manual for me was Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb on PS2, because the manual was Indy's journal.

The thing has to be seen to be believed. There's handwritten notes in the margins, comments from characters like Marcus Brody and Henry Jones, Snr. (neither are in the game, but they're apparently happy to grade your combat stance) and three pages of era-appropriate classified ads in the back, for fedora hats and bullwhips. All the gameplay instructions are uniquely written and illustrated (there's maybe one screenshot in the whole thing, to show the HUD, and even then it's weathered to look like an old-timey photograph). It's a thing of beauty. I spent almost as much time pouring over every detail as I did playing the game itself.

I seem to remember all LucasArts games of the PSone and PS2 era having decent manuals. After a detailed breakdown of your weapons, abilities, characters and controls, they'd also do location profiles and some even gave short walkthroughs on the first ten minutes of the opening level, just to get you started and comfortable. It felt like they cared and wanted you to have fun, rather than just going "Here's the game, bad luck if you're rubbish."

SEGA also need mentioning because, at the top of every manual's first page, it said "Thank you for purchasing this game! We hope you enjoy it!" It's the little things that mean a lot.