There's a few things a game can do to let you know, right off the bat ,that you're about to partake in a very special product of love. It could run in dts audio. It could run natively in 1080p. But if it has a manual, you know you're in for some ish.

Honestly, I hate that no one even tries with manuals anymore and it's almost offensive when all you get is a few grayscale pages telling you how to turn on the system, what the HUD means, and the legal boilerplate. It's mostly the content, as a lot of games that have gray manuals manage to pull out something special, like the comics in MGS4's, or the propaganda and art style of the Killzone booklets.

edit: and Vivi, that was amazing