Sam & Max’s next episode, Abe Lincoln Must Die!, has some of the most beautiful scenes Telltale Games has created. The White House and its surroundings are up there with some of the best 2D work in LucasArts games like Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max Hit the Road. That makes it all the more sad when terrible fonts are chosen for the signs and posters in the game.
Call me crazy but when the White House has a blue sign with “The White House” on it in yellow Curlz letters, it cheapens the whole scene. Curlz is that cute font that people pick from the little drop-down menu in a greeting card wizard. Appropriate uses include things like this or this (love you Mom!), but you shouldn’t put it in a game.
(The sign appears much bigger in-game, but it’s the only screenshot available.)
There are much worse cases. The Sims and Viva Piñata use Comic Sans MS for all their interface text (or in the case of Viva Piñata, a slight variant of the font). Comic Sans MS is pretty much the scourge of typography. Using it for an otherwise great-looking 
game is a bit like painting the Mona Lisa and — pleased with the results — carefully laying it on the floor, pulling your pants down and taking a big dump on it, perhaps in the shape of a smiley face. Sure, you can still see the Mona Lisa, but you’re totally distracted by all that shit.
I couldn’t think of another analogy. Sorry.
The question is, do people notice good typography in games? I think they do, at least subconsciously, and it’s often a cheap thing to fix. Some games have amazing typography which makes them look twice as good. It may even become the brand identity. For instance, Grand Theft Auto uses a freeware font called Pricedown for its logo, but unlike the above examples, it’s a fairly well-made font. It’s become very closely associated with the series, due to its proper use in (already great looking) loading screens and credit sequences. Could you imagine any other game using Pricedown for its logo or interface?
Further reading: I complained about fonts before in this thread on Idle Thumbs. Nothing like recycling old content.
It’s worth noting that Ray Larabie, the designer of “Pricedown” was one of the lead graphic designers at Rockstar for a few years before and a few years after the GTA3 period. I imagine having him there helped explain why their branding and typography in general were so tight for a while there.
Jake
February 16th, 2007
That’s a really interesting factoid. I take it that’s Larabie of “Larabie fonts”? I remember digging through that website for cool fonts years ago. Maybe back in 1997-8.
Marek
February 16th, 2007
Yeah that’s him.
Jake
February 16th, 2007
Comic Sans draws out the murderous impluses engrained in my designer head from exposure to years of poorly-expressed whimsy in Power Point presentations. So.. much… hate!
Jordan
Jordan Dennis
February 18th, 2007
The repeated abuse of Comic Sans in my previous office forced me to print out and post several “Ban Comic Sans!” posters:
http://bancomicsans.com/home.html
We were offering it as a font choice to clients for their web sites FFS!
Wrestlevania
February 19th, 2007
I do tend to notice good typography, but I don’t notice bad typography, it’s just a nothing to me.
The Sam and Max example looks intentional to me, as using that font on the WhiteHouse is absurd…
Lawrence
February 19th, 2007
I hate recognising fonts in games. It kinda cheapens the whole experience for me. Especially if it’s comic sans.
I do like it, and notice when a font is made just for a game or franchise. It has to work though. The Mortal kombat font comes to mind. In the first two games they used a really balanced font, and it worked very well, but it’s design changed and degraded along with the quality of the sequels. And now it’s just awful.
Yannis
February 20th, 2007