Last week I finished reading the Blood of Elves and enjoyed it immensley. For some reason I had the urge to play The Witcher EE, which I did. The content of the game that was now now familiar seemed to me to be taken much more seriously and real, therefore I've been enjoying the game even more. Some of my role playing decisions have been altered as I've thought things like "this does not seem like witcher's work." I have also read The Last Wish and I am hoping beyond hope that the other books of Andrzej Sapkowski are to be translated into a language that I can understand.
I started thinking if this type of enhancement has happened to me before, which it did with some of the older Sherlock Holmes games. I read the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books well before I ever played one of those games. The same could be said for Wing Commander.
However most of the Star Wars books did nothing for me in terms of enhancing my gaming experiences. Maybe an exception in Rebellion due to the amount of expanded universe characters in that game.
Has anyone else found some kind of profound enjoyment with a game after reading a book that is related to it? If so, which ones and in what way? Does anyone have any suggestions for some of the other franchises ie. Mass Effect books or Doom series or anything at all that should be read as well as played? Is someone just cashing in on a popular name from another medium? Can anyone think of some books or characters that should have video games?
Too many questions.
Thanks all.

I always thought the Night's Dawn universe (Peter F. Hamilton - The Reality Dysfunction) would be a brilliant backdrop for a game.

I guess it counts to have read Forgotten Realms novels before (re-)playing games set in FR? Unless you mean games and books that both tell the same story, so to speak.. It still gives something extra to the experience when you run into powerful characters in-game when you've read about their most famous adventures beforehand.
There are also quite a few novels based on the Starcraft and Warcraft universes. I've been told they are of varying quality, however, so I haven't tried them myself, but if you loved the games I bet you'd appreciate the novels that go a bit deeper into the details of it all.

reading the discworld series before playing discworld games is good, discworld noir in particular since it's the most discworldy of the games

nobody mentioned Dune yet, so I am.
Dune, mother farkers!

Dune was a fantastic book, I'm ashamed to say that I did not know about the game.
The Discworld Noir sounds intriguing.

Good one. Discworld Noir(and the others) needs to appear on GOG! :)

Dune had an old fairly obscure adventure title. You should be ashamed of not knowing Dune II though, which is the mother of modern 4X RTS! Very enjoyable.
I liked both reading The last wish and playing the The witcher for the same reasons you mentioned.
Neuromancer: book turned adventure game in 1988. I loved the book, and I know many praise the game but I found it considerably awkward and hard to figure out.
Circuit's edge: based on George Alec Effinger's "When gravity fails", this 1990 action RPG is one of my favorites of that time (never beat the game though).
I wrote about this once, and here's me repeating it: there should really be a modern adaptation to Neuromancer and their sequels. The only game I think actually captures the essence and atmosphere of Gibson's novels is Shadowrun (for the Mega Drive or Genesis), thanks in great part to its story, setting and specially to its very interesting matrix-hacking interface.

I have that book sitting on my bookshelf and have yet to read it. I think I tried once but couldn't get into it at the time. I may need to pick it up again.

The original Dune game wasn't that obscure, it was fairly well known. It was based more on the movie than the book, though, or at least it incorporated "weirding modules", which were unique to the movie.
You're right about Dune II, though. It's a game everyone should know. It pioneered the RTS interface that we all know today. The only thing it really (REALLY) lacked, was right-click commands.
I actually liked the original Neuromancer very much. I've played both the C64 and the Amiga version.

Now I really, really feel shame for not knowing such and influential title. Even though I've only been PC gaming since '02 there is no excuse for that. :(
I will be looking into those games though.
Thanks

No need for shame! the fact you're here means you're interested, and theres no way that everyone knows about every game genres origins... I've been a PC gamer for about 20 years, so I've seen a lot come and go, but I'm sure there are things I won't have heard of!
I think in the case of Dune II, Westwood Studios followed up later with Command and Conquer, which has made more of a name for itself, especially with all the sequels. Basically though each version is an elaborate re-packaging of Dune II. (although the C&C games are now made by EA, which is a bit of a shame.)

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games is based on the book [url=www.cca.org/cm/picnic.pdf]Roadside Picnic[/url] (pdf) which is worth a read.
There's also a movie.

Very cool ZamFear, thanks for the links.