Audio Logs are terrible.

[Treblaine]

I haven't read the thread yet, but I totally agree with your OP. Except of course that one bit about Bioshock.

We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.402772.16641399]

You may find I am not criticising these games for their lack of writing, but the importance of writing in their narrative and how it is that which holds back the game, not the violent combat nor it's frequency.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

I haven't read the thread yet, but I totally agree with your OP. Except of course that one bit about Bioshock.

We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.402772.16641399]

You may find I am not criticising these games for their lack of writing, but the importance of writing in their narrative and how it is that which holds back the game, not the violent combat nor it's frequency.

Er, yeah, I did find that. Relax, I was just agreeing with your OP. It wasn't disingenuous. No need to drag that other thread in here.

 

[notyouraveragejoe]

I always loved the audiologs because they, to me, made the game even creepier. Just listening to someone saying creepy stuff (I WANT TO TAKE THE EARS OFF) and having to walk around a dark area brought tension to a max. It won't suit every game. It worked in Bioshock because I felt that the point of Rapture was to be scientifically and morally free. So a lot of people who had kept diaries would be pushed to getting audiodiaries since they would be the "Upgrade".

 

[Treblaine]

I haven't read the thread yet, but I totally agree with your OP. Except of course that one bit about Bioshock.

We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.402772.16641399]

You may find I am not criticising these games for their lack of writing, but the importance of writing in their narrative and how it is that which holds back the game, not the violent combat nor it's frequency.

Er, yeah, I did find that. Relax, I was just agreeing with your OP. It wasn't disingenuous. No need to drag that other thread in here.

Well yeah, best not cross the streams, it would be bad.

But saying on, err, this thread, what did you not agree with about Bioshock? It was pretty much my prime example of a game that utilised audio-logs a lot but didn't use them very effectively when they were an important part of the gameplay.

 

[Detroit]

Wearing blinders must be pretty comfortable.

 

[Treblaine]

Wearing blinders must be pretty comfortable.

Did you post in the right thread? I don't see the relevance.

I'd rather have audio logs, than chunks o' text logs.
It's terrible storytelling and If I wanted to read that much, I'd pick up a book.

Is the problem the "Text" or the "chunk o" part.

Developers make mistakes with texts that any non-game developer who specialised in text would never do. Things like broad columns of low font size often serif text, that's just hard to read and not to forget the content, it's taking "information dump" to the extreme.

I'd wager even you, Tomfoolery, would like and seek out text logs if they were laid out with actual care rather than just made out of obligation in a hard to consume form.

I know it may not seem like much, but I read all the notes I found in Resident Evil series and enjoyed them... but the notes in these modern games like Farc Cry 3 and Skyrim... euurgh. I think the difference was Resident Evil focused on the clearest text presentation and limited the number of words on a page and on a line.

 

[FoolKiller]

I dunno...


Some of the audio logs in Borderlands where pretty damn hilarious and interesting.

Absolutely...

Anyone who has played the games and heard the recordings of researcher Patricia Tannis will laugh their asses off at how she goes from a basic researcher studying stuff on Pandora to bat shit. But for her it is more of a natural thing since researchers actually do keep audio logs talking to themselves in diary format.

 

[Treblaine]

Matter of taste. If it is kept brief then yes, it can be enjoyable. And I agree, Resident Evil was good about it.
Enough to keep you intrigued but not text heavy.
Skyrim's books aren't worth reading, unless you enjoy scrolling through copious amounts of lore.
Another example would be the dream journals in Lost Odyssey. Some of those were 10 pages or so.

I rarely make a habit of looking for text logs and such in games.
However, I did enjoy collecting audio tapes and notes in Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker.

Yes, developers could do with learning how sometimes, less is more.

But even better they could learn to segment their text heavy content.

I remember Metal Gear Solid, in the starting menu there was a "briefing" option that brilliantly covered the backstory to both MGS1 and the previous Metal Gear games that covered a lot of detail yet kept the attention of my 11 year old ADHD mind. It used both a series of hyperlinks and an index, you didn't just have to "read all of it" you could follow a tree of bite-size chunks that added up to way more than I could have consumed had it all been one solid line. It would seamlessly combine the text and mostly audio-based interrogation scene into one narrative, it would give you a reason to read a text by the well voice-acted audio-file expanding out the knowledge tree.

You could see the tree unravelling and could ignore paths that didn't catch your interest, then go back and look at them later.

And this was a throw away feature for Metal Gear Solid, and it was brilliant. I see it's applications outside a "Briefing" role, it could also work for all the information you have found, you don't have to read it as soon as you get it, but in an "investigation session" reviewing everything you have together.

Ultimately, the game medium needs to take advantage of how it is a GAME and not a book. It is a computer simulation, that gives incredibly freedom of expression. If you have something you want to say in text, the idea that you have to construct it like a published book is the wrong way to go.

The most important part of audio or text logs, is that they should be optional. Not used to tell the narrative, but subtly add to it if the player wishes to know more.

Agreed, this is true for many aspects of gameplay but arguably of greater importance here with supplementary narrative than anywhere.

Though I agree that audio-recordings and notes should be important to a game's narrative, they should be optional and be read because the player chooses to read them.

 

[Vicarious Reality]

I liked the audio logs in Doom 3

Bioshock is a bit annoyingly talkative

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I like them, especially in Arkham Asylum/City , but then I'm the sort of person who likes text heavy rpgs and stuff

I think how good they are depends heavily on the writing.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

I think Dishonored was bad about this, what with the 'spy master' villain keeping incriminating evidence that would get himself executed just lying around.

It was hardly lying around; it was in a locked safe. But yeah, there's no reason for him to record it in the first place.

 

[Detroit]

Wearing blinders must be pretty comfortable.

Did you post in the right thread? I don't see the relevance.

Haha, how very fitting of you to say that.

 

[Bestival]

I honestly never was too bothered about audio logs, mostly they don't even register with me, good or bad.
One game where they did was Vampire: Bloodlines. Grout rambling on about his vampirism is great, and those recordings made his mansion one of my favorites in the game.

 

[Treblaine]

Wearing blinders must be pretty comfortable.

Did you post in the right thread? I don't see the relevance.

Haha, how very fitting of you to say that.

Explain yourself!

What does me questioning a design element to do with me wearing blinders? How am I even figuratively not taking a wider view of things?

That's two low-content posts in a row with zero discussion value.

 

[Treblaine]

I liked the audio logs in Doom 3

One thing you can appreciate right away is that they are well acted... but they don't fit.

Doom 3 is supposed to be an atmospheric game and you get these calm relaxed tones of cost-benefit reports that jars with the "tech-hell" theme. And while the story of a device running without power and consuming someone's arm is dramatic, the drama is sucked out by the inherent mode of the delivery.

This could have been uncovered with much greater significance, it could be an element of the gameplay how some machines are "possessed" and a gameplay element is where you have to reach inside one of these machines to get a special item needed to progress. But as far as I'm aware that doesn't happen.

 

[G-Force]

Looks like your main issue is with the execution of audio logs as opposed to their existence.

If you look at it on a big picture, many games are straying away from having flashbacks and traditional cut scenes as they break the flow of gameplay. Having a dialogue scene or a flashback takes control away from the player while an audio log allows them to continue gameplay at their own pace or simply skip it. You reference the codec system as a great example of information being given but you have to recognize the huge flaws it carried.

1. Long breaks in gameplay with the player being a passive entity
2. It literally "froze time" where snake and the NPC could have a lengthy conversation about a boss's weak points all before a sniper's bullet can reach you.

If you're gonna play the logic card then audio logs make way more sense than codec conversations

 

[Treblaine]

Looks like your main issue is with the execution of audio logs as opposed to their existence.

Yes, but "I don't have a problem with audio logs but feel they are poorly applied" doesn't make for a very snappy thread title.

You need to grab them in the first 10 characters.

Also, I feel Audio Logs have been used to such the extent of cliche that it's vary safe to categorically avoid the idea of using "logs" at all for exposition.

If you look at it on a big picture, many games are straying away from having flashbacks and traditional cut scenes as they break the flow of gameplay. Having a dialogue scene or a flashback takes control away from the player while an audio log allows them to continue gameplay at their own pace or simply skip it. You reference the codec system as a great example of information being given but you have to recognize the huge flaws it carried.

1. Long breaks in gameplay with the player being a passive entity
2. It literally "froze time" where snake and the NPC could have a lengthy conversation about a boss's weak points all before a sniper's bullet can reach you.

If you're gonna play the logic card then audio logs make way more sense than codec conversations

I very much agree that cutscenes break gameplay. Even though gameplay must be broken, especially very long games where it's impractical to play through in one sitting.

Having a dialogue scene... takes control away from the player

My idea is to have the player work as an external observer/listener to the dialogue that is used as exposition. So they are in control of their character to keep listening or stop listening. And a certain level of autonomy should be allowed, we can't be too reliant on the silent protagonist though I see how useful a mute (can't speak) or stoic (doesn't want to speak) character can be.

The point I was making with Codec was it's high standard and method of presentation, not all aspects of the Codec.

I don't want codec simply to be copied whole, but there was a reason - that in MGS - that the Radio paused the gameplay and the positive aspects of Codec can be taken without needing the pausing gameplay aspect.

I see the problem with codec how there is a disconnect between the world being frozen or not. They are speaking to you as if the outside world isn't frozen yet the boss you are fighting is frozen.

Directly communicating with another character like over a radio, even if it's just a once sided conversation, that should be live. However what could be paused is IN your inventory, you select the radio, select who you want to call and with what topic (if any) but for the conversation to begin you have to leave the pause-state of the inventory and either rung, fight or hide.

One aspect of the Codec as opposed to the Radio in Bioshock is contextually activated dialogue. Example being how you could do something, equip something or be somewhere and call a certain person to get them to say something unique. But it was a bit random.

This could be expanded where the player character to give some indication of curiosity when they do something, that's the cue that going into radio there will be the option to make a new call. But you don't have to. It's your choice.

It's quite simple. You look at a sign that says "Landmines" and you can in your Radio item-page you have the option to ask your "weapons expert" character or "local knowledge" character about Landmines, or you could call them just in general for an update.

The radio in Bioshock was a bit too Spartan, there was no way to call them about anything and they'd only ever call you on very set pathways.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

I think that audio logs are best suited for an environment that demands exploration or a hostile one. The one I'm most familiar with is AVP 2010, and the logs in that one were very well-acted and added to the atmosphere. I'd even go as far to say that the game would have been far more interesting if you were experiencing the story depicted in those audio logs, being a civilian on-site desperately trying to survive this environment where your friends have been killed by your employers or one of two excessively hostile alien organisms that you have never known existed.

But back on point with the audio logs, I think that AVP could have used them far more effectively (rather than being one of very few shining points) if it was a game based around exploration. It would make much more sense if you were going through the environment and trying to understand it. You come across all these documents and logs while going though the labs and personal quarters of those who have disappeared. That way, there is a context for the logs rather than being scattered around in nonsensical locations such as the middle of a hallway for the sake of easy discovery.

For example of a good audio log in a bad context, there was a very touching and personal log in AVP 2010 describing a husband and father dealing with the fact that he had failed to save his wife from a facehugger. It painfully describes how when he cut it, it melted her face in front of him, killing her and there was nothing he could do to stop it, eventually driving him to insanity and suicide. It was driven and delivered with real conviction, but it was at the bottom of a set of stairs in the middle of nowhere that lead to nothing useful. It makes no sense as to why or how it was there so there is a disconnect that is not the actor's or log's fault. If you found it in the private quarters of a family, where it had been evident that there was a struggle or the abrupt end to a normal day, then it would have really meant something. Imagine if you found it in their bedroom, peaceful for all but an acid burn on their pure white linen bed.

As for alternate methods such as bugging and listening in, Splinter Cell comes painfully close but only takes full advantage of it on two occasions over the course of 6 games. You'd think a game based around technological espionage would involve more bugging and such.