EGM scores. Some pretty big games.

[A Black Falcon]

They both use text in a "find-it-yourself instruction manual" manner.

What the heck? BG's story presentation has nothing at all in common with MP! BG has a classic PC RPG story presentation. That is, there is a main linear story that you cannot avoid. In addition, there are numerous details that help flesh out the world that you can choose to explore or not (mostly in conversation choices, looking for more people to talk to, getting all the responses out of the civilians of an area, doing more sidequests, etc). But the main story is not optional. It's similar in Fallout, except it gives the player more choice... which is in fitting with its more freeform game style. Yes, there is a main story you can follow linearly if you wish, but it allows you to wander off, skip areas, etc. if you want to do that (but it is always clear where the next major story point is). Of course it's also got plenty of optional quests, conversations, and some readings that add more gameplay hours and flesh out the game, but they aren't required to understand the basics of the story. Just like Baldur's Gate.

Metroid Prime of course doesn't have that. If you don't look for the story you will get virtually nothing. I don't understand at all how you could call them the same... it makes about as much sense as saying that MP has the same kind of story presentation as Eternal Darkness because ED also has optional segments (looking at objects for more details) that help explain the story more that you can avoid if you wish! :S

Oh, and I have no idea what a "find-it-yourself instruction manual" is.

Obviously, as games are a visual medium just like movies are. Games can directly copy movies while books can only offer inspiration and technique.

I'd say that while that is somewhat true, there is also a sense of scale -- movies are short. Games are long. Books are also long. So for storytelling and stuff books can be better influences... especially for things like RPGs or adventure games...

There was still hundreds of hours of recorded dialogue in the game.

True, there is a lot, and it's pretty nice. I was just saying that it stands to highlight how the aliens quite definitely do not have that. Does it increase immersion? Yeah, probably a little bit. It's hardly a required thing, but it's a nice touch if the developer can do it decently.