What I'm going to do from now on is keep my phone next to me with the Destiny companion all ready, and just read it there whenever I unlock one. Tried it tonight on the last Mars missions, it felt like a much more complete story. You get to read about Vanguard responses to your actions and analysis of whatever you saw in each mission. It really does feel like an incomplete story without these, and I definitely won't be doing it any other way from now on.

Not absolutely. I'm one of the most vigorous critics of the terminals in Halo 4, but my complaints about them not being in the game have to do with the fact that they are presented as actual terminals in the virtual world, and if you step up to them, and can interact with them, you should be able to view their content in that space as well. (I'm also not a fan of produced cut scenes presented as found objects and not looking like found objects in their execution, but that's a different issue.)

I'm a fan of text--I think that the different form activates different parts of our imagination, so I like the Grimoire cards in concept, although I've read only a handful at this point. Postmortem's post convinces me that I should read them sooner than later, but I won't interrupt gameplay to do so, and this ties in with my developing thoughts about Destiny.

The last few nights I finally got to play some extended sessions with friends, and my gosh, it's a different game. Solo the game is vaguely disappointing, but with friends magic happens. More stuff is clicking all the time, but the problem with always playing with friends is that it's harder for me to get my story fix. I find myself taking my headphones off during cutscenes and NPC dialogue because it's natural for people together to talk and unnatural for them to be silent. I've stopped myself from saying stuff while my ghost is talking. It takes concentration NOT to talk. So it seems like Bungie is building this story and world at least partly outside that space because the gamespace always should be a social space. We're already waiting on each other while we run Tower errands, and I don't want to read cool story info while people are talking in my ear. This wasn't an issue playing Marathon, and seldom an issue playing Halo.

Bungie has made many unconventional decisions with this game, and it might bite them--perhaps it already as, looking at metacritic (or Cody's hyperbole)--I worry about that only because it might affect their ambition moving forward. I suspect what they're aiming at something rich and long-lasting that will reward the hardcore, but will still be fun for the majority. Given that most FPS players don't even finish campaigns, maybe it's the right choice to have these cards outside the game. We story-oriented gamers may be the outliers.

I'm a long way from giving my verdict, but I guess my hope is that if this game seems less than what we're used to from a narrative point of view, it's because it's one piece in a large mosaic we've seen very little of. I do tend to be overly optimistic about Bungie's games, though, I will admit.

I find it a bit insulting that 343 Industries got tons of flack for pulling this with Halo 4's Terminal's and Bungie is receiving very little complaints for pulling the same thing.

In my opinion it wasn't the same thing. And it's insulting how?

Because reviewers/people think that Bungie is too venerable of a studio to make a mistake like that. They are perfectly fine dicking all over 343 for doing it though.

Yeah, there might be bias there. I'd have to accept that they are comparable mistakes to really buy into that, though. 343 have said that it wasn't the plan to have the terminals outside the game. I haven't seen Bungie say that Grimoire cards were intended to be viewable inside the game. I think Bungie already tries our patience in the Tower, especially when you have indecisive teammates (like me!). My theory is they wanted to limit activity that couldn't be done together.