On the flipside, my formative video game experiences involved reading the instruction booklet to a new NES game, cover to cover, while being driven home from To

On the flipside, my formative video game experiences involved reading the instruction booklet to a new NES game, cover to cover, while being driven home from Toys R Us. They were essential to knowing how to play and appreciating the storyline. The Atari 2600 was no different: You needed the manual to know what the weird symbols onscreen meant, or what the switch settings would do for that particular game. Of course, things were different in arcades.