Maniacal Machinations: Useless Stuff In Guidebooks

Being the lazy perfectionist (weird combo, eh?) that I am, I bought a guidebook to Mass Effect so I wouldn't have to play it twenty times to get everything . . . Anyways, while I was flipping through, I noticed something: there's a lot of useless shit taking up space! This ain't the first time either. This seems to be a trend in guide books.

First comes the bestiary. It'd be one thing if it told me HOW to kill the damn monsters, but no. Instead, I get to see the fifty variations of the original five fucking monsters that the creators just recolored to make the other five billion. To top it off, I get to read all the painfully bad names they had to BS for the variants too. This ain't Pokemon, folks. I couldn't care less if Geth Troopers evolved into Metal King Slimes if all I have to do is kill them.

Next come item lists. I dunno about you, but seeing all the game's weapons lined up in neat columns with their stats next to them BORES THE SHIT OUT OF ME. Weapon comparisons would be nice to have during the actual walkthrough, but sticking all of them alphabetically in some index does NOT help me at all!

Also, I can't help but wonder why guides stick the game controls in the front. I mean, if someone needs the guide to tell them how the controls work, they were obviously too lazy to read the damn manual. Is it too much to expect people to know that pressing up on the controller makes you move forward? Are my standards too rigorous for the common man? Is it too much to ask for people to know that "a" means yes and "b" means no? If not, then why the hell do we have this crap in guide books?!

After that comes the introduction. Why is it necessary to tell me something that I find out in the first ten minutes of the game? While i'm on the subject of plot summaries, guidebooks also tend to throw in all sorts of plot details and spell out every fucking thing that happens. Assuming that i'm only glancing to get through the harder parts of the game, all this fluff gets in my way! Are steps too much to ask for? Does everything need to be in a novel-ish format? I don't read games, damn it! I play them!

Character Profiles: Oh yes, I REALLY need to know how tall my characters are, their hobbies, and their genealogy. I REALLY give a flying fuck that what's his face likes a hot steaming bowl of shit for breakfast. Thanks for this oh so relevant info.

Useless menu descriptions: I think I know what "attack" means, thank you very much. No need for a paragraph defining it . . .

In short, just give what's necessary, god damn it!