What's the deal with audio logs?

I remember most of the gaming press hating on Halo 4's audio logs as a narrative idea but why is no one bringing up Bioshock Infinite's voxophones? Some parts of the story can be seen in a completely different light if you have the right voxophone. So what's the deal?

As much as I love Bioshock Infinite's storyline, I must admit that I'm annoyed that most of the crunchy parts can only be heard through audio logs. Especially if you try to make sense of everything. I also don't like to scavenge hunt every nook and cranny and use a walkthrough or guide to find them.

I would have prefered to have everything outright revealed during the storyline, and have the audio logs adding to them. Because right now, there's no way to get a good grasp on the whole picture without having those logs.

What I didn't like was that sometimes you'd pick up a voxophone at the same point the story is progressing naturally, so you'd have Elizabeth saying things in the background while you're listening to the Voxophone.

While I've not played Halo 4, I do like Bioshock's Voxophones, they reward players who explore with additional bits of story and bring more depth to the world while you're still getting the main part of the story through playing the game itself.

Only thing I didn't like about the voxophones is that they didn't carry their own little personal stories like the logs in previous BioShocks. Those mini-narratives were great.

I like them. They provide the game with a good way to provide you with tons of information out of context which is 90% of the fun in BioShock Infinite and are a meaningful reward for exploration. I can see how it might suck if you're not a thorough sort of player though.

You could... you know, not listen to the voxophone until the story bit is done? I'm not sure about consoles but on the PC you don't even have to access the menu to do so, just wait until the air is clear and press the "Most Recent Voxophone" button when you're ready.

@starvinggamer: I'd often pick one up, continue to explore and then trigger a story sequence. But yeah, it's mostly my fault.

That's my single biggest complaint about the game. It seems like Elizabeth's dialog takes place over every other piece of audio.

The problem with Halo 4 was the recordings were video's you COULDN'T watch in the game. You had to quit the game and go to Halo Waypoint to actually watch them. I believe that was the main reason for people not liking that presentation. in Bioshock Infinite however you can listen to them the moment you pick them up or pause the game and view them from the menu.

@beachthunder said:

You beat me to it.