On Audio Logs

[Tarrker]

All my friends are always asking when I'll get an XBox 360 and log into XBox Live or when I'll be buying my first PS3 so they can play bland, fps game #13 with me over THAT network. The answer would have to be when they actually manage to make a game for either that I give a damn about. I'm just happy that I'm not the only one who remembers the days of the C64 and Atari. I mean, remember Mail Order Monsters? That would be an AWESOME game with today's graphics and technology. Not to mention that the multiplayer capabilities would be an instant sell. Or how about MULE for god's sake? People loved that so much that there's home brews of it on the internet. Yet, you will probably never see it as a new release. I'm still waiting for a new release featuring a gourmet chef riding a praying mantis and wielding a gun that shoots velociraptors


P.S.
No I don't own a Wii either....

 

[DeadAccountMoveAlong]

I'd like to see a mainstream game these days about a man in a top hat jumping down a toilet.

The sequel to the critically-acclaimed Fun Space Game: The Game?

 

[Mr Companion]

No progress report on your Unity space game? Please don't say you have given up already.

My thoughts exactly! I was quite interested. Maybe he has nothing interesting to report yet.

 

[mstickle]

Too bad you never played ODST, Yahtzee, or you could have mentioned the spectacular execution of audio logs in it. The story is related to the plot, and actually does have ties to the main plot, but is more about a character you never see (duh, audio logs) who has plenty of personality. She is trying to get to her father at the ONI Building, avoid the corrupt police commissioner who wants to rape her, and just not get killed. Oh, and

Spoiler

The police commissioner gets ripped to shreds, literally, however, he kills her father.

And all of this is explained by the Superintendent AI being in control of the city, therefor allowing you to get them via it.

I have to agree. ODST was a spectacular example of audio logs done right. In fact not really being a fan of audio logs it was still my favourite part of the game, but I suppose it was more like a radio play rather than a log. The final log even had me choked up it was done so well.

 

[LetmeLive1337]

Yahtzee says: The singular advantage of audio logs is that you can play them while you're doing something else, hence why games like System Shock 2 and BioShock had a hotkey for activating the last log you picked up. Although roaring monsters and gunfire have a nasty tendency to drown out the words, so I always ended up sitting in a toilet waiting for the tape to finish anyway.

Um, isn't this the immersion you've been speaking of the past little while? "Holy shit, I just found this audio log/diary that may give me a clue to what the hell is going on, but I better make damn sure my ass is covered before I take the time to read/listen to it so I can glean every last tidbit of information from it". That sure sounds like immersive gameplay to me!

 

[PiCroft]

The thing that annoyed me about voice logs, even is SS2, DS2 and especially in AvP was that it didn't make much sense in most cases and often didn't provide much exposition. In AvP, the emphasis was on collecting shit, not on understanding shit and since there was nothing to understand, we got audio logs about Private Nobody bitching to her audio note-taking gizmo about how the rookie (you) is getting wet-nursed by whoever the fuck was holding your hand. Thanks, Private Nobody, I feel closer to you already.

The other thing I don't understand is when they make these logs when they are about to die. Who is together (or pathetic, depending on your viewpoint) enough to record some meaningless "We're all going to die" horseshit when slavering monsters are battering down the door?

And don't get me started on written "we're about to die" notes.

 

[Kross]

I don't think the point of his article was that the story told by audiologs was uninteresting or unwanted, but more that the method they are sprinkled throughout the games doesn't make sense from an immersion standpoint.

Why are there dozens of tape recorders laying around? Why are they all significantly shorter then the capacity of the device they are stored on, especially when some are ongoing stories from the same person? Why are some of the stories from situations where a person couldn't reasonably make a recording, or about topics that a person would really have no reason to record and leave in a random spot? Not that anyone would likely want to sit down and listen to an entire 30 minute recording all at once, but the issue of "not fun" is a separate one from "doesn't make sense within the setting".

Dead space was pretty good about mixing in text based logs for places where audio didn't make sense. Most of the audio recordings were in appropriate places from what I remember, and mostly made sense in context (there were a lot of lab environments), even if the content of some was a bit of a stretch to be recorded.

It's certainly not a game breaker, and having the extra plot is a great thing for the people that want it, but that doesn't mean the concept couldn't use some more effort integrating into the otherwise immersive games they are found in.

See also: Chest high walls. GREAT in a cover based firefight for you to shoot over, but really hard to do while selling the realism of the battlefield.

 

[everfreeDragon]

And don't get me started on written "we're about to die" notes.

I think Oblivion did a good job averting this, one diary you find on a Fighters Guild quest that sent you to a Troll infested cave had a final entry ending with "I hear trolls." This gives me the image of him putting the diary down after that and making his last stand.

OT I found I agreed with this a lot, I personally love audio and written logs in games if they are used well, I find myself collecting a few then checking them all out at once when I wish to take a break from actually getting anywhere.

 

[angel85]

THANK YOU for that "man with one eye wearing VCR earmuffs" crack at FPS games, I've been saying that for years and everybody just calls me a whiner. The only game series I play where logs are in any way important is the Metroid Prime trilogy, there the logs not only provide exposition but also hints at where to go next, not counting the object scans that tell you about the various nasties that want to slurp your tasty bounty hunter filling out of your battle armor and how to stop them from doing that. I think the closest thing to what you were talking about in this article was the beginning of Prime 2 where you scan the fallen space marines' bodies to see their last log entry. Their last words combined with the scenery make that part of the game kinda haunting, even before some of them come back to life as space zombies. Uh...the zombie thing isn't as cheezy as it sounds once you learn about what's going on on Aether.

 

[RandV80]

Yeah, not much point to audio logs if you have to open a menu to play them. Fallout 3 did that too. It didn't over or inapropriately use them, but you had to go into your pip boy to hear them.

Other than that it depends on the game/setting and how you use them. Metroid Prime for example, did great in game story telling using only text, where you scan alien languages and feed them to your HUD. It was also a nice touch how it wasn't just after the fact recordings, but as you progress in the game you start coming across priate logs detailing your infiltration.

 

[lupis42]

The best audio logs I've seen in a game were the voicemail messages from the original FEAR.

 

[ThisIsFiveEighteen]

I like how Fallout 3 handled this. There were audio logs, slips of paper, and information on terminals that you could read and listen to, and as a result of the setting, most of the audio logs or terminal messages were centuries old.

 

[PiCroft]

I don't think the point of his article was that the story told by audiologs was uninteresting or unwanted, but more that the method they are sprinkled throughout the games doesn't make sense from an immersion standpoint.

Why are there dozens of tape recorders laying around? Why are they all significantly shorter then the capacity of the device they are stored on, especially when some are ongoing stories from the same person? Why are some of the stories from situations where a person couldn't reasonably make a recording, or about topics that a person would really have no reason to record and leave in a random spot?

I was actually going to make a point about Thief, and how well done that game did note-based exposition, so since you brought up the point I fully agree.

To be honest I always found audio logs to be quite awkward, especially when they are found away from dead bodies or not in a locker or room belonging to its owner more than a handful of times. I always preferred written text.

In Thief, you found diaries next to beds, on dressers or on nightstands in people's bedrooms and offices, written by ordinary folk about the local goings-on which both gave clues to immediate goals and useless but immersive and interesting trivia that gives background story on your location or the wider political setting.

Notes were left in cubbyholes designated to the owner of a warehouse, left in "in" trays on desks, books were in bookshelves or drawers and so on. Or they were death threats issued by thugs and pinned to doors with daggers so you knew they weren't screwing around. They were all well-written and concerned topics that made sense.

I always found audio logs to be less "sensible". I can't really think of a word that describes it. Partially because of the capacity issue already mentioned, but perhaps because I'm still such a fuddy-duddy that I can't quite grasp everyone carrying around audio recorders and actually using them as often as they seem to be used in games, or using them in leiu of actually talking to someone. Bear in mind this is coming from a gadget freak, so make of that what you will .

 

[RJ Dalton]

You know, text logs never bothered me that much. In fact, I really loved them in Deus Ex. You didn't have to read them (except when they contained password information, which in that case you found the info quickly and even then didn't need because the game usually had other ways of completing the objectives), but if you did want to take the time to read them, you could find out so many interesting things about the world and what was going on in it.

 

[THGhost]

Yahtzee does realise that you CAN play AVP whilst listening to it's audio logs, right? Obviously not...

 

[duchaked]

Too bad you never played ODST, Yahtzee, or you could have mentioned the spectacular execution of audio logs in it. The story is related to the plot, and actually does have ties to the main plot, but is more about a character you never see (duh, audio logs) who has plenty of personality. She is trying to get to her father at the ONI Building, avoid the corrupt police commissioner who wants to rape her, and just not get killed. Oh, and

Spoiler

The police commissioner gets ripped to shreds, literally, however, he kills her father.

And all of this is explained by the Superintendent AI being in control of the city, therefor allowing you to get them via it.

haha that was great
I remember having one left to find, and it was in a bloody corner on the other side of town


but generally I don't bother with collectibles
I guess the audio part of it should make you WANT to get them
like the intel in CoD, I might go collect them all, but it's for an Achievement (or two) not so much the intel themselves

 

[reg42]

Holy crap, I got quoted. Nice!

OT: Yeah, I've never really been a fan of audiologs to be quite honest. It just annoys me that I feel compelled to sit there and listen to one on the off chance that the story might be expanded on (which is never is), while all I want to do is something other than looking straight forward. The worst thing is when a monster shows up and you how have to start the recording all over again, in case you missed something.

 

[TraumaHound]

As a few have said here, the audio/video logs from Halo: ODST were a great addition to the storytelling. However, what I disliked about them as well as *all* audiologs in the games mentioned here, is that one has to ferret out all the damned things to get the additional story bits the devs included. I played through ODST but I don't think I found half the a/v logs. I'm sure I can dig it up online somewhere but ultimately because I had to hunt them down I just wasn't going to spend my gametime killing Covenant and looking for the eggs the Bungie-rabbit hid around New Mombasa; I'm not going to play it through again just to find them all, either.

I'm playing AvP right now and have a FAQ opened to help me find the hidden audiologs (though I missed a few from the beginning level.) I doubt I'll go back to find the ones I missed, since I'd have to start over (or maybe just replay certain sections?) and they don't seem to be adding much to the story (unlike the ones in ODST.) Still, cool hearing Lance Henricksen voicing Weyland.

Reminds me, I should pick up the "Millennium" DVD full-series boxed set.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I remember the first audio logs I experienced were in the CD version of System Shock 1. They were good because they not only advanced the story but because they contained clues to puzzles and stashes of goods. The player was rewarded for acting in character and paying attention to the clues in the environment.

Audio logs fail when they are like Doom 3, not making sense and also sounding like "Oh no, he took away my chainsaw and he is using it on meeeee!"

 

[CopperBoom]

*snip*I remember early in elementary school when those small hand-held recorders aimed at kids (forget the name...something-boy) came out, EVERYONE had them and recorded the most random stupid shit.
So, it makes sense to me I suppose. Conveniently good timing, but still explainable.

The Talk Boy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anjyiO754hU
"Hi kids, we're home early."