Yeah, this post is going up majorly late, but at least it’s going up on a Thursday. The reason for the slacking is that I was at a funeral all day, so I’ve been busy with that, and not been bashing out an article. To use an Americanism, “So sue me”. Ugh. I feel dirty now after using that. Anyway, onwards with the article, and the specific topic this week, as I’m not doing a review, I’ll be looking back at something that isn’t really present nowadays, but was majorly present in ye olde games. No, I’m not talking fake difficulty, although I could do that as a subject one of these days with how bosses were cheap bastards back in the day (and are nowadays at times, Sonic 4 I’m looking at you!).
I’m talking about elaborate game boxes and manuals, and to a lesser extent, box-art, this week. The whole game package as it were. Y’know, something that retro games had, that seems to be lacking nowadays except in collectors editions and even then, only in some collectors editions, which is a shame as some collectors editions are really good, and yet others are really lacking (Looking at you, Perfect Dark Zero, although maybe that’s a bad thing to point out, as that was a bit of a Not Very Good Game anyway.). I think this process started around the days of the Dreamcast and PS2 and has carried on today. I can remember the days of getting a new game, usually an N64 game or a PC game, and either in the car or sitting at the desk when I got home, reading the instruction manual, usually of a size with which to effectively club errant siblings if they interrupted precious gaming time, all the while waiting for the game to install.
Surprisingly, Age of Empires had one of the sturdiest boxes and manuals with which to dish out beatings
These moments of reading through the manual usually gave me an insight into how the game world worked, what I’d need to do to win, and gave me tips and hints. In the case of RTS games, it also told me what units I’d need to utterly crush the enemy. In short, it built the world for me whilst the game was installing or loading up. The box art itself was usually iconic as well, like with Lylat Wars/Starfox, showing Arwings and the Great Fox being bad-ass in space.
Uh... so... yeah, less bad-ass than I remember...
Take a game like Left 4 Dead, to give a modern example. The box itself is tiny and flimsy, like every other DVD-style case, and the cover art is bland and uninspiring. A hand with the thumb missing, to symbolise being Left 4 Dead. I c wut u did thar, Valve. The instruction manual is also shoddy, with two pages of controls, a brief overview of the survivors, the heads up display of the survivors, the HUD of the Infected, and a brief explanation of the Special Infected’s abilities. Other than sentences explaining the menus, the differences in game mode, the manual is pretty much useless. It doesn’t explain the story, doesn’t explain that the characters have special abilities, such as Francis taking less damage from fire and friendly fire, and that he reloads shotguns faster, or that Zoey is the pistol and sniper expert of the group. None of this is explained in the manual. There’s also no section about the different weapons in the game, which sucks, as most old games would take the time to explain the different weapons and suchlike. Some, such as the first Final Fantasy, would even include maps and bestiaries, something that you only get in the strategy guide nowadays.
Decent size for hitting younger siblings, shame about the extra price tag
I shouldn’t have to fork out an extra 20 quid or so on top of the money I’ve paid for the game, just to get information that should have already been in the manual. I know that there’s this little thing called the Internet around nowadays, and that I can just get all my information from it, in theory anywhere that my iPhone gets an internet connection, but it’s really not the same as sitting down with a manual and reading it from cover to cover. Plus, with the iPhone, there’s always the danger that I’ll get distracted by something shiny or by boobs, which is always awkward when you’re on the bog, having a dump and reading up about what troops to send to their doom first. Or maybe that’s just me.
One of the earliest things I learnt about CnC from the manual: Run from these. Fast.
Another thing I miss that I haven’t really covered much, is decent game boxes. Not just flimsy plastic DVD-style cases, but actual solid cardboard cases that you could throw around with impunity, bouncing off walls, the cat, the brother, and you know at the end of your attempts at setting some kind of new Olympic Box Throwing record, the box and game would be fine. Try that with a DVD case nowadays, and you’d be lucky if the whole thing didn’t just explode violently, throwing your game skywards if you were lucky, trash bin-wards if you were unlucky. Sure, the cases were massive, but they were a status symbol of sorts, bragging rights if you so choose. As you didn’t get the box with pirated games, only the CD case and maybe an envelope if you were lucky, they were an icon, a declaration that yes, I have spent my hard earned, or my parents hard earned cash, on this item. Look at it. Admire the box and the art adorning its cover, for it is glorious, and fully capable of stoving your skull in if you win more than me at it.
Sure, my modern games collection nowadays is just about two and a half feet big, but in ye olde days, that would have been, ooh, 3 PC games and about 4 N64 games. Which is a bit of a pathetic collection. Having tons of PC games and N64 games meant that you could also build impromptu box forts. Try doing that with game cases nowadays, I dare you to. And speaking of modern games, whats with the mainly lackluster box design?
Lastly, anyone got any requests for the game review next week? If so, leave a comment here, and I’ll work on the request that interests me most. Otherwise I’ll work on a game that was released on the PS1, Windows, the N64, the Dreamcast, and the Gameboy Colour. Now what could I be playing? Cheers!
