Question of the Day, March 12, 2010
- Thread starter The Escapist Staff
- Start date
It depends. It's hard to commit to reading in-game books on a plasma TV, since (as you may or may not know) it's not good to have a static image on a plasma screen for very long.
It also depends on how deeply I've already been immersed into the world. For instance, I found myself much more interested in all the little notes to find in Fallout 3 than I was to read the little bits scattered around Oblivion. I loved Oblivion, but at no point did I feel like I was missing out by not reading all the extra texts.
I'm reminded of Myst, where for most of the game, the diaries in the library were almost literally the ONLY thing you had to piece the story together. I enjoyed that a lot.
It also depends on how deeply I've already been immersed into the world. For instance, I found myself much more interested in all the little notes to find in Fallout 3 than I was to read the little bits scattered around Oblivion. I loved Oblivion, but at no point did I feel like I was missing out by not reading all the extra texts.
I'm reminded of Myst, where for most of the game, the diaries in the library were almost literally the ONLY thing you had to piece the story together. I enjoyed that a lot.
I love RPG's that try to expand the backstory of their worlds, so yes, I'll generally read the copious amounts of information on every little insignificant detail of the game (except in the case of Mass Effect 2, where alot of the codex entries were repeats... I was a little disappointed by that)
I'm a backstory whore. Currently pouring over every little tidbit in the datalog in FFXIII as it comes up. Pulse and Cocoon have a delicious backstory, and I love how all the characters are connected together in the 13 days before the game starts.
God, I love them so much, so damn much. I was distraught once I'd read them all; I want morexavierxenon said:
Theoretically, I want to read everything. But I can't stand poor writing, and, let's face it, plenty of game writing is poor. So I generally start off by reading everything and if it makes my eyes (or ears, in the case of audio logs) bleed, I stop.
I read at the very least the first few I encounter. If they are generally bland and uninteresting, or listening/reading to them is even the slightest bit inconvenient, I don't touch any further ones.
For example:
Done well: Bioshock. Audio diaries were all very interesting and added great depth to Rapture.
Done poorly: Aliens vs Predator. The Audio diaries were decent enough in and of themselves, but as soon as a scripted event went up and someone talked, it canceled the playback and the process to restart it was mildly annoying.
For example:
Done well: Bioshock. Audio diaries were all very interesting and added great depth to Rapture.
Done poorly: Aliens vs Predator. The Audio diaries were decent enough in and of themselves, but as soon as a scripted event went up and someone talked, it canceled the playback and the process to restart it was mildly annoying.
Depends on the presentation. I really appreciated the presentation in Bioshock with the audio dairies and radio transmissions that were fairly well acted and gave tantalizing glimpses into the larger drama going on in Rapture. Much of it had fuck-all to do with what you were doing, but it was just background stuff. Even better is listening to them did not stop the game. you could listen to the tapes while beating people to death with a wrench. After that, I don't think I could patiently read a wall of text anymore. I don't care how vital it may be.