Does a good job at explaining why without major spoilers. I'll see if I can highlight the most relevant bots of the blog if you have no time to read it all right now.
the amazing execution of its novel focus on story and character interaction would create a classic, inspiring the direction of the genre for many years to come, largely manifested through Bioware’s games. You can still plainly see its influence today in titles like Mass Effect and CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher. If you haven’t played Torment you might think those games improved upon this old codger - you’d be wrong.
This is where criticism of Planescape Torment’s combat system stems from, it’s not as good as some of its excellent contemporaries. But it’s still fast, it still requires plenty of deft thinking and strategy, there’s still a fair range of spells – which look awesome – and there are points in the game where you will have your limits tested, such as the intense duel with Trias, or fighting your way through grim prison of Curst. It’s a combat system that is at the very worst adequate, at best, moderately fun
Yet even if you end up absolutely repulsed by the combat, it is a minor facet of Planescape Torment, an ancillary gameplay element, and for that reason, easily forgivable.
The game is largely comprised of story exposition and potent decision making embedded into the expansive character interaction and dialogue choices,... would be a problem with most games, largely thanks to the poor writing so prevalent in the medium. But Planescape Torment isn’t “most games”; in this case it’s where it shines, brighter than any other game to date. In Torment you don’t just watch the story play out, it’s not a passive experience, in Torment the gameplay is the story. The lack of cutscenes and such does cause it to feel like an interactive novel a lot of the time, but a great one. It’s exceptionally well written, employing a classical English style (including oldschool slang); consistently eloquent, even poetic, frequently clever and funny despite the bleak setting, and always appealing.
While overall more compact than Baldurs Gate, the characters are consequently fleshed out better, and far more distinct to one another. They are all highly original, whimsical, and captivating both in aesthetic and in personality..... what truly sets the characters apart is just how believable they are. These are highly fantastical characters, they don’t talk in the relatable fashion like a Nathan Drake or Ashley Williams might, and that’s the point.
the carefully constructed dialogue sequences force you to really think your conversations through with them, they won’t start divulging their life stories to you right away, and say and do the wrong things and they may not ever open up to you, or worse. Likewise, the romantic relationships are very difficuilt to come by for that same reason (I mean shit who DIDN’T bang Ashley in Mass Effect?). These guys won’t just stick by you no matter what and act according to your exact volition, greatly undermining any sense of investment you might put in them or palpability they may possess. There’s no blatantly highlighted ‘good’ way of talking to everybody, and then quest to complete after saying a certain amount of ‘good’ things, leading to a lay, because in reality there is no clear cut pathway towards such a thing, people aren’t that simple (unless they’re hillbillies, or Collingwood supporters).
This same aspect permeates into the story and questing aswell. Black Isle does a tremendous job of injecting the game with moral ambiguity that along with the quality of the writing keeps every conversation engaging and dynamic.
I had just finished playing fallout 2 when my classmate lent me his copy ('99/'00 if I'm not mistaken).
So awesome! The story is A+ yes, but what really hooked me up was the female characters/npcs' portraits. Good material for my pubescent imagination lol.
I do not agree with the comment about Collingwood supporters I being one of them so I have more evidence than you and less baised! Other parts I do agree. PST is very well written in the sense quality of dialogue shine through. In many other similar RPGs, you see a couple 'real' responses whilst others are just fillers. In PST every choice in dialogue are equally well written and sometimes important. Oh, and I'd like to comment that the voice acting is also top-notch for a game!
On October 26 2010 06:22 AbsentLover wrote: Baldur's Gate 2 has the most compelling and complex story ever told in a video game. And the best villain, Jon Irenicus.
I really wanted to like that game, i tried twice but unfortunately for me I am just not used to the top down diablo style view and it's unappealing to me, probably due to the move from console to pc gaming came way later like when I was in high school and those kind of gameplay choices had gone out of style =[. Nothing I love more than a good story...I thought Mass Effect 2 had an amazing story that was perfectly intertwined with the gameplay and pacing. The ending scenes were some of the most powerful in any game i've ever played
I'll give another vote for legacy of kain. Unfortunately the story spans like 5 games, 10 years and hardly anyone has played them all. But it was a pretty damned good story.
I have PST (which I got from gog), but I haven't had time to play through it. I downloaded it a couple years ago and got a ways through it, but now the prospect of having to do it all over again has me down.
On October 26 2010 08:11 -Sleet- wrote: Final Fantasy 7 anyone?
you're telling me you actually understood the story the first playtrough? the worrible engrish translation ruined the story for me (nonetheless great game)
I might be called insane for this but I loved the horror game Harvester, it was evil, twisted and hilarious, and the dialogues where pure gold, but mabye I'm looking back to the game trough pink glasses... :/
Legacy of Kain was great indeed, mostly because the story, voice acting music and gameplay where brilliantly interwoven, loved the atmosphere in that game.
On October 26 2010 07:05 Khol wrote: Alan Wake. I was never so into a story, I was hooked from the very start. Beautiful game, I suggest it to everyone.
I doubt you've ever played a game like Alan Wake, it was so well written.. Alan... Wake Up....
You can't be serious?
It was one of the most incredibly rewritten generic stories I have ever seen. I couldn't believe how stale that game was.
On October 26 2010 06:22 AbsentLover wrote: Baldur's Gate 2 has the most compelling and complex story ever told in a video game. And the best villain, Jon Irenicus.
Baldur's Gate 2 basically beats out PS:T on everything that's not the story/roleplaying. But in those departments, PS:T is unmatched.
At most of the other suggestions in the thread--lots of those are good games, but PS:T is the only game among these where, if you stripped out the game and novelized the story/writing, it would still be worth reading, IMO.
On October 26 2010 07:05 Khol wrote: Alan Wake. I was never so into a story, I was hooked from the very start. Beautiful game, I suggest it to everyone.
I doubt you've ever played a game like Alan Wake, it was so well written.. Alan... Wake Up....
You can't be serious?
It was one of the most incredibly rewritten generic stories I have ever seen. I couldn't believe how stale that game was.
although i thought it was somewhat interesting, i do admit it tended to feel all too familiar at times.
The Kingdom Heart series I think is a strong second.
If you haven't played either of those games then you are missing out. Bonus points for Kingdom Heart series for being very challenging at times. (Sephiroth in KH2 on hardest mode... I broke a controller)
as much as I hate most of the Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy Tactics had my favorite story in a video game. Some of the better plot twists I've seen and amazing writing overall.
Guys, guys, guys. C'mon. The best story in a video game is obviously Banjo-Kazooie. Bear's sister is kidnapped by evil witch. Bear and Bird friend goes into witches castle to save her. Success. Final Showdown. Happy Ending.
I'm joking of course. MGS had one of the best I've seen.
On October 26 2010 09:36 theirishbecker wrote: as much as I hate most of the Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy Tactics had my favorite story in a video game. Some of the better plot twists I've seen and amazing writing overall.
Yea FFT was another great one. It was a delightful surprise considering it isn't even part of the main series. Loved how it maintained a mature and dark storyline despite lacking much character development (aside from Delita and Ramza).
Omg you can read my mind... i saw the topic and thought that somebody had to say for a millionth time how awesome [insert popular game] is - i had to detain myself not to write that they are wrong and it is planescape torment obviously then i opened the thread and was delighted thank you so much OP
I recently went through Deadly Premonition (Xbox 360) and was shocked at how good that game was. The gameplay is incredibly bad, but the story single-handedly makes up for it.
Another awesome game was KotoR 1-2 as previously mentioned.
Some of the Zelda games had nice stories, but I never really got that whole Japanese thing.
Mass Effect 1/2 was probably the best storyline ever.
Not to mention it is someway different for almost EVERY player (every cutscene is interactive with 2-6 options of dialogue). interactive gameplay that can very much change an already amazing storyline will almost always be better then a storyline you just go along with.
Hands down Mass Effect. (Not to mention the books are really good as well.)
Used to be a playstation fanboy.... so MGS!!! :D (though mostly 1 & 4, 2's story was meh, and 3 was a pain to play) but special mentions of God of war and Portal for amazing out-of-this-world writing as well.
just covered so many different angles between the 6 campaigns, I'll never forget trying so hard to beat those missions as a 10-year old on the N64 and being fascinated at each new level and unit
On October 26 2010 09:29 FrostedMiniWheats wrote: not one mention of any MGS game? Not even MGS3? What is this I don't even. You know the ending made you cry man tears.
I was coming in to say MGS1, 3 and 4. Great games, I was sooooo sad when they tricked me into thinking snake had-oh right I shouldn't spoil that.
MGS1/3/4>>>all
MGS2 is gay except for the 2 parts with Snake in them.
On October 26 2010 10:21 Mistapibb wrote: was I the only one that like Tales of Symphonia? hope it wasn't already mentioned, but I played the sh*t out of it when I could
Me and my roommate have beaten it at least 4 times...it's just so fun, one of the greatest "play it just for the hell of it to have fun" games IMO.
Anyone gonna mention COD4? The execution was perfect... like a blockbuster film, and you actually felt emotional attachment to Gaz, Price and Soap. I know it's yoru generic Tom Clancy story.. but when you pull it off like that, it's just wow at the end.
On October 26 2010 10:21 Mistapibb wrote: was I the only one that like Tales of Symphonia? hope it wasn't already mentioned, but I played the sh*t out of it when I could
Hold on, lemme check my memory card for the save time.
...
Oh, right. 268 hours and 22 minutes... over 30 or so playthroughs. Yeeeaaah.... I played the shit out of it, too. As much as I love the game, though, the story just isn't memorable. People compare the first part of the game (the seals portion) to the FFX story, and they're essentially right. The second part of the game is where the story picks up, but despite that, it's still missing that extra "oomph" that games like Xenosaga, Metal Gear Solid, or (in my opinion) Project Sylpheed had.
On October 26 2010 10:28 nihoh wrote: Anyone gonna mention COD4? The execution was perfect... like a blockbuster film, and you actually felt emotional attachment to Gaz, Price and Soap. I know it's yoru generic Tom Clancy story.. but when you pull it off like that, it's just wow at the end.
It wasn't a very good story, but the story telling was definitely excellent.
Planescape did just about everything right in terms of atmosphere, game world, characters, story, roleplaying, etc. Combat was sort of broken though, and detracted from the game more than anything. I think Planescape would've excelled as an adventure game with RPG elements rather than it being the other way around. It's still an extremely good RPG in its own right though.
I gotta say, this game had the best representation of an evil player character in any game to date. You could do some truly despicable things, and not the stupid psychopatic "I KILL YOU AND TAKE YOUR SHIT HAHAHA" crap most RPGs chalk up as being "evil". (I'm looking at you, Baldur's Gate) I played a good character in my playthrough because I don't find the evil path to be fulfilling in most RPGs nowadays, but Planescape actually let you be manipulative, calculating, intelligent, and despicable... especially despicable.
Too bad we'll never see another game quite like it.
On October 26 2010 11:09 Spritescaper wrote: Planescape did just about everything right in terms of atmosphere, game world, characters, story, roleplaying, etc. Combat was sort of broken though, and detracted from the game more than anything. I think Planescape would've excelled as an adventure game with RPG elements rather than it being the other way around. It's still an extremely good RPG in its own right though.
I gotta say, this game had the best representation of an evil player character in any game to date. You could do some truly despicable things, and not the stupid psychopatic "I KILL YOU AND TAKE YOUR SHIT HAHAHA" crap most RPGs chalk up as being "evil". (I'm looking at you, Baldur's Gate) I played a good character in my playthrough because I don't find the evil path to be fulfilling in most RPGs nowadays, but Planescape actually let you be manipulative, calculating, intelligent, and despicable... especially despicable.
Too bad we'll never see another game quite like it.
Yeah, definitely. PS:T is one of the few games that let you play as that villain who is pretty much on par with the likes of Irenicus, and that's no small feat.
Another vote for Mass Effect(1 and 2). The first game I played where I actually cared about what was happening and played through it/them multiple times to try the new angles of the stories out.
I wanna go through alot of the games mentioned, really engaging topic for me.
I totally agree with planescape torment. Deep and spiritual. multifaced characters and their beliefs, its just too much to get into, its like talking about the bible.
MSG has square characters and a standard actionmovie plot. Then again ive never been much a fan of comics, and I guess thats kind of what its supposed to be like. I really liked the game, but snake simply makes me puke how pompus of a character that is, even though there are plenty of people out there like him.
Im playing final fantasy tactics atm, im at ehh, chapter 3 or 4 i think.. The story in FFT is really engaging, and if i skip some of the story i have to reload to read it again. But its classical drama style makes it detached, and alot of the actions and reactions of the characters simply dont make much sence, like most soap dramas. which would be a rather boring read in bookform imo without the gameplay.
Baldurs Gate saga had just an amazing character buildup. But I must confess, storywise, i kind of skipped through alot of the dialogue even after endless playthroughs. Its probably my favorite games so hard to not be biased. Still, think its way above most games in storytelling.
Call of cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a game noteworthy of storyline. Despite a very flawed and bugged game, the story is the only justified rendition and visualisation of Lovecraft Ive seen, in gaming and movies. Its as close as u can get to explore lovecraft universe, except perhaps getting a bad batch of high powered acid.
Vampire the masquarade: Bloodlines also is one game thats noteworthy of storyline/characters(veeeeery sexy characters)/immertion and full of bugs and flaws. u could easily just remove all the combat, and just make a movie/tv series from the plot/characters and most of all the subplots.
Edit: And yeah, im a Wow fan, but man there is nothing i hate more in wow, except maybe meeting warrior/druid comps and beastmaster hunters, then the horrid storyline. Its so cheezy i cant even comment on it, its just reeks of clichés. Its the only game I've ever battled my way through the dialogue, keep spamming buttons to skip it wishing plz plz plz stfu and let me play
I haven't played many games that had a decent/engaging/compelling storyline, or that had gameplay that suited the telling of a story. For me, I would say that the original Knights of the Old Republic was very good on both counts.
KotOR had a daringly dark story and atmosphere, a genuinely badass twist, and a satisfying conclusion. It was one of the most complete and thorough story experiences in gaming history.
Many people raise FF games, or even BG etc, but really they were very stock-standard games with stories borrowing heavily from other sources and the gameplay was only adequate. Nothing phenomenal.
The Half Life games, while not having a fantastic story, were extremely good interactive story experiences, simply because of pacing etc.
Probably the best example of games relying 100% on story (and possibly the ONLY examples) are those by quanticdream, namely fahrenheit and heavy rain.
Fahrenheit was a fantastic experience (marred by a rushed final 3rd of development - fuck you ubisoft or atari or whoever did this) whereby you were literally just playing the game motivated by the story. Quicktime events and classical movement sections allowed you to immerse youself in the game world, but events were relatively linear and pulled you into an immersive story. It did get a bit silly towards the end, but I would still thoroughly recommend it to anyone.
Heavy Rain (PS3 exclusive, released this year) was the spiritual successor to Fahrenheit, with similar control schemes and a similar plot structure (but the plot was thankfully a psychological thriller rather than a supernatural/psychological thriller, and flowed much better). Heavy rain is one of the rare games that had me able to really care about the characters. I was completely engrossed in that game from beginning to end and finished it in a single sitting. After a very slow beginning it really picks up and has some fantastic moments and a very intricately woven storyline, let down a little by a twist which brought about some unexplained plot holes. Best game storytelling experience I have ever witnessed overall.
Planescape was certainly a rewarding experience, but I never found it as immersive or compelling as either fahrenheit or heavy rain. It quite frankly took me a fucking long time to finish because i was only motivated to play it for an hour or two here and there. Great game, one of the best of its era and certainly underrated, but I think the other games I mentioned are better.
Tales of Symphonia was fun as shit. Lost my old save from a few playthroughs on my brother's Gamecube/memory cards. Should really find some time to replay it on my Wii now that I have a memory card that I can keep track of. The game didn't do anything particularly new, unique, or even first and sometimes fairly blatantly copied other franchises quite a bit (*coughstarwarscough*). It just did a lot of stuff really well, which is why it was so fun. So many great moments/lines.
Kratos: I'm curious, why do you use two swords? Lloyd: Well, I figured if one sword was good then two swords is even stronger! Kratos: *facepalm*
Playing non-Lloyd characters wasn't quite as polished (especially in the beginning before they learn more attacks), but still quite doable and fun. Also, Regal was a badass.
The first Half Life I never got through... I borrowed it from a cousin and played it for a bit but it just had me wandering around running from some military soldiers every now and then. I didn't get any story or anything and the levels just felt kinda random. Think I got to some giant room with something with huge, green tentacles that could instagib me and stopped them. Was much younger and likely didn't get very far. Reminds me of the first Red Faction... it just kinda kept going and going without much reason or purpose. Haven't tried any of HL2.
I've had KoToR sitting around somewhere for years and haven't played it. Graphics didn't work properly on my old computer and I didn't feel like playing the Baldur's Gate combat engine for the nth time.
I agree that the Final Fantasy games, while good, certainly aren't the pinnacle of story telling.
CT: I wasn't old enough to really enjoy Back to the Future so CT was the first form of media that introduced time travel to me and really blew my mind when I was still in elementary school. The story involved traveling throughout so many parts of time yet everything seemed to flow and connect together very well.
FFT: You don't find this sort of political depth in many games, FFT has probably the most memorable storyline for me (the entire story itself is a story, anyway lol). They run pretty well with some poignant themes here, political/religious affiliation, loyalty and inevitable betrayal, neutral sources of power with conflicting party interests, and probably most important to the storyline, manipulation. The main characters were written very well, definitely one of my most favorite games of all time (replayed it multiple times, it never gets old).
FF7: Probably has the most material lore compared to every other FF. There is just so much depth in the historical lore of the game and the characters themselves. One thing you have to absolutely love about the older generation FFs is that Square[soft] took a LOT of time developing the backstories of each character, major or minor, and it's all there for you to explore if you take the time to do it. How many of you remember the events between Vincent and Lucretia that made Vincent end up the way he is? Why does Barret have a gun for an arm and why does he look after a little white kid? It's easy to forget the little subtleties in peoples' backstories but if you really revisit the FF7 world it's full of a lot of compelling storytelling. Cloud is by far the most complex, misunderstood hero of any major RPG, so much that his backstory had to be fleshed out not just through the dozens of hours playing FF7, but in a subsequent game and movie.
FF7 made sense metaphorically. The entire universe is a constant give/take - the basis of the lifestream. Peace meets danger, meets redemption, meets disaster, repeat. I absolutely love how on the surface you can take the FF7 story for what they present you but delves into so much more, with the actual story and setting being shaped by events that had happened 50 years ago, thousands of years ago, etc.
On October 27 2010 10:16 PanoRaMa wrote: FF7: Probably has the most material lore compared to every other FF. There is just so much depth in the historical lore of the game and the characters themselves. One thing you have to absolutely love about the older generation FFs is that Square[soft] took a LOT of time developing the backstories of each character, major or minor, and it's all there for you to explore if you take the time to do it. How many of you remember the events between Vincent and Lucretia that made Vincent end up the way he is? Why does Barret have a gun for an arm and why does he look after a little white kid? It's easy to forget the little subtleties in peoples' backstories but if you really revisit the FF7 world it's full of a lot of compelling storytelling. Cloud is by far the most complex, misunderstood hero of any major RPG, so much that his backstory had to be fleshed out not just through the dozens of hours playing FF7, but in a subsequent game and movie.
While I enjoyed playing FF7 as a teen and have fond memories of it, I didn't care for the story much and thought it was bad. I remember thinking it even as a 14 year old back then.
So Cloud failed to make it into SOLDIER because he sucks... however he can beat the shit out of everyone including the very level 4 SOLDIER enemies all the way through Sephiroth? That makes absolutely no sense.
Storytelling got too self-conceited like typical Japanese 'serious' anime which ends up just being contrived. I enjoyed the game play, how engrossing it was, & amazing music. The story was alright.
CHRONO TRIGGER on the other hands brings warmth to my heart and makes me smile. No-frill, straight-forward story without any contrived complexities with amazingly lovable characters each with incredible depth (Lucca's handicapped mom, Magus/Janus, Frog/Glenn, etc).
Any game with a story more complex than 'The village elders hand you a can of spam and a rusty sword and tell you to go north and duff up the local purple people eater' has lost me. If I need a storyline to tell me what my motivation in this scene is, then it's probably because the actual gameplay isn't giving me sufficient motivation, and that's bad.
Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, Tetris has the best storyline of any game ever, but honourable mentions could go to the likes of Pong or Space Invaders.
On October 27 2010 10:16 PanoRaMa wrote: FF7: Probably has the most material lore compared to every other FF. There is just so much depth in the historical lore of the game and the characters themselves. One thing you have to absolutely love about the older generation FFs is that Square[soft] took a LOT of time developing the backstories of each character, major or minor, and it's all there for you to explore if you take the time to do it. How many of you remember the events between Vincent and Lucretia that made Vincent end up the way he is? Why does Barret have a gun for an arm and why does he look after a little white kid? It's easy to forget the little subtleties in peoples' backstories but if you really revisit the FF7 world it's full of a lot of compelling storytelling. Cloud is by far the most complex, misunderstood hero of any major RPG, so much that his backstory had to be fleshed out not just through the dozens of hours playing FF7, but in a subsequent game and movie.
While I enjoyed playing FF7 as a teen and have fond memories of it, I didn't care for the story much and thought it was bad. I remember thinking it even as a 14 year old back then.
So Cloud failed to make it into SOLDIER because he sucks... however he can beat the shit out of everyone including the very level 4 SOLDIER enemies all the way through Sephiroth? That makes absolutely no sense.
Storytelling got too self-conceited like typical Japanese 'serious' anime which ends up just being contrived. I enjoyed the game play, how engrossing it was, & amazing music. The story was alright
Yeah I can see that, the only explanation I can give is that he always had a body built for SOLDIER (this is from the script) but was too weak to handle the jenova cells + his mild social outcast problems as a child probably made him too emotionally/mentally weak despite having the physical attribute needed to be in SOLDIER.
This sort of makes sense if you view Cloud's development during FF7 as casting away his mental vulnerability in the first half of the game (being susceptible to Sephiroth's commands, taking on Zack's personality and memories), then finally relying on his own abilities/having the confidence to do so (and to an extent touched on in Advent Children, the ability to fight with and rely on others).
On October 27 2010 10:16 PanoRaMa wrote: FF7: Probably has the most material lore compared to every other FF. There is just so much depth in the historical lore of the game and the characters themselves. One thing you have to absolutely love about the older generation FFs is that Square[soft] took a LOT of time developing the backstories of each character, major or minor, and it's all there for you to explore if you take the time to do it. How many of you remember the events between Vincent and Lucretia that made Vincent end up the way he is? Why does Barret have a gun for an arm and why does he look after a little white kid? It's easy to forget the little subtleties in peoples' backstories but if you really revisit the FF7 world it's full of a lot of compelling storytelling. Cloud is by far the most complex, misunderstood hero of any major RPG, so much that his backstory had to be fleshed out not just through the dozens of hours playing FF7, but in a subsequent game and movie.
While I enjoyed playing FF7 as a teen and have fond memories of it, I didn't care for the story much and thought it was bad. I remember thinking it even as a 14 year old back then.
So Cloud failed to make it into SOLDIER because he sucks... however he can beat the shit out of everyone including the very level 4 SOLDIER enemies all the way through Sephiroth? That makes absolutely no sense.
Storytelling got too self-conceited like typical Japanese 'serious' anime which ends up just being contrived. I enjoyed the game play, how engrossing it was, & amazing music. The story was alright.
CHRONO TRIGGER on the other hands brings warmth to my heart and makes me smile. No-frill, straight-forward story without any contrived complexities with amazingly lovable characters each with incredible depth (Lucca's handicapped mom, Magus/Janus, Frog/Glenn, etc).
You dont get the "real deep" story of the game imho. No offense man but you should play again now that your more grow up to get the real understand of great story that FF7 have.
I liked Mask of the Betrayer more than PS:T. My favorite story has to be that of Myth: the Fallen Lords and the first sequel, Myth II: Soulblighter. Honorable mentions to square RPGs: FF7, FFT, and vagrant story.
KOTOR, Mass effect 1&2, baldur's gates, soul reaver/legacy of kain, were fun, but I didn't get into the story as much as Mask of the Betrayer or square RPGs.
The first Mafia game, Freespace 2, and Persona 3 have my favorite stories in video games (how's THAT for variety). There are plenty of other good ones though, it's not a lost cause to find worthy stories in video games.
On October 27 2010 10:16 PanoRaMa wrote: FF7: Probably has the most material lore compared to every other FF. There is just so much depth in the historical lore of the game and the characters themselves. One thing you have to absolutely love about the older generation FFs is that Square[soft] took a LOT of time developing the backstories of each character, major or minor, and it's all there for you to explore if you take the time to do it. How many of you remember the events between Vincent and Lucretia that made Vincent end up the way he is? Why does Barret have a gun for an arm and why does he look after a little white kid? It's easy to forget the little subtleties in peoples' backstories but if you really revisit the FF7 world it's full of a lot of compelling storytelling. Cloud is by far the most complex, misunderstood hero of any major RPG, so much that his backstory had to be fleshed out not just through the dozens of hours playing FF7, but in a subsequent game and movie.
While I enjoyed playing FF7 as a teen and have fond memories of it, I didn't care for the story much and thought it was bad. I remember thinking it even as a 14 year old back then.
So Cloud failed to make it into SOLDIER because he sucks... however he can beat the shit out of everyone including the very level 4 SOLDIER enemies all the way through Sephiroth? That makes absolutely no sense.
Storytelling got too self-conceited like typical Japanese 'serious' anime which ends up just being contrived. I enjoyed the game play, how engrossing it was, & amazing music. The story was alright.
CHRONO TRIGGER on the other hands brings warmth to my heart and makes me smile. No-frill, straight-forward story without any contrived complexities with amazingly lovable characters each with incredible depth (Lucca's handicapped mom, Magus/Janus, Frog/Glenn, etc).
You dont get the "real deep" story of the game imho. No offense man but you should play again now that your more grow up to get the real understand of great story that FF7 have.
I think Mafia have great story to.
Sooo.. explain Cloud SOLDIER nonsense then if I was too stupid as a 14 yo to understand it.
Agree with OP, Pt is one of the best games of all time because of it's story.
Plenty more I agree with (gogo bloodlines reference, wooo) but one that hasn't been mentioned was Deus Ex. Loved the game, loved the rich world. Loved the fact I could hack into computers for the sole purpose of getting a few more tidbits of what the other characters were thinking via their emails And game-as-storytelling you'd be remiss not to include bioshocks and system shock 2 imo.
Already mentioned earlier, but I thought that Xenosaga and FFX had terrific stories. Also gonna throw Persona 4 out there too. I like mysteries and it kind of reminded me of Kindaichi xD (Actually liked it more than P3).
I'll be going with FF6. A lot of characters, each different with a solid background, ofc some are more complex than others . And one of the only games where the Villain actually manages to destroy the world halfway through the game .
Other than that, i'll go with the fallout series ( excluding FO3) wich has one of the greatest background universe IMO.
Does a good job at explaining why without major spoilers. I'll see if I can highlight the most relevant bots of the blog if you have no time to read it all right now.
the amazing execution of its novel focus on story and character interaction would create a classic, inspiring the direction of the genre for many years to come, largely manifested through Bioware’s games. You can still plainly see its influence today in titles like Mass Effect and CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher. If you haven’t played Torment you might think those games improved upon this old codger - you’d be wrong.
This is where criticism of Planescape Torment’s combat system stems from, it’s not as good as some of its excellent contemporaries. But it’s still fast, it still requires plenty of deft thinking and strategy, there’s still a fair range of spells – which look awesome – and there are points in the game where you will have your limits tested, such as the intense duel with Trias, or fighting your way through grim prison of Curst. It’s a combat system that is at the very worst adequate, at best, moderately fun
Yet even if you end up absolutely repulsed by the combat, it is a minor facet of Planescape Torment, an ancillary gameplay element, and for that reason, easily forgivable.
The game is largely comprised of story exposition and potent decision making embedded into the expansive character interaction and dialogue choices,... would be a problem with most games, largely thanks to the poor writing so prevalent in the medium. But Planescape Torment isn’t “most games”; in this case it’s where it shines, brighter than any other game to date. In Torment you don’t just watch the story play out, it’s not a passive experience, in Torment the gameplay is the story. The lack of cutscenes and such does cause it to feel like an interactive novel a lot of the time, but a great one. It’s exceptionally well written, employing a classical English style (including oldschool slang); consistently eloquent, even poetic, frequently clever and funny despite the bleak setting, and always appealing.
While overall more compact than Baldurs Gate, the characters are consequently fleshed out better, and far more distinct to one another. They are all highly original, whimsical, and captivating both in aesthetic and in personality..... what truly sets the characters apart is just how believable they are. These are highly fantastical characters, they don’t talk in the relatable fashion like a Nathan Drake or Ashley Williams might, and that’s the point.
the carefully constructed dialogue sequences force you to really think your conversations through with them, they won’t start divulging their life stories to you right away, and say and do the wrong things and they may not ever open up to you, or worse. Likewise, the romantic relationships are very difficuilt to come by for that same reason (I mean shit who DIDN’T bang Ashley in Mass Effect?). These guys won’t just stick by you no matter what and act according to your exact volition, greatly undermining any sense of investment you might put in them or palpability they may possess. There’s no blatantly highlighted ‘good’ way of talking to everybody, and then quest to complete after saying a certain amount of ‘good’ things, leading to a lay, because in reality there is no clear cut pathway towards such a thing, people aren’t that simple (unless they’re hillbillies, or Collingwood supporters).
This same aspect permeates into the story and questing aswell. Black Isle does a tremendous job of injecting the game with moral ambiguity that along with the quality of the writing keeps every conversation engaging and dynamic.
Can buy it on good old games for $10.
Funny thing. PST came to my mind immediately when I read the title of your post. Best story ever. Best in game conversations ever.
Planescape: Torment is the only game that left me thinking, 'Wow, that game was better written than many books or movies'. Not something you can say about many games at all. As a teenager, it actually changed my philosophical outlook on life somewhat. When I first finished it, it was a truly thought-provoking experience.
Myth 1, 2 and even 3 are underrated games with a great story as well. I hope Bungie goes back to that series and forgets about Halo, personally.
I loved Baldur's Gate 2 and its story was good, but people seriously consider its story on par with PS:T? Surprising.
As for Final Fantasy 7, put me down in the 'I thought it was good as a teenager, but if you go back to it as a mature person, you'll probably realise it's rather mediocre' category.
I look at this thread and realise all the games i play are really generic!! but fun. i would say that Command and conquer (tiberium dawn) was the best story, and really hard..totaly worth the ending for both sides. its that or warcraft 3, the cut scene whith arthas in it before you play as undead is awesome (spoiler free). nice thread, if i had more time i would buy some of these games to play.
On October 26 2010 09:13 sinK wrote: I was most impressed by the story of Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams. It really gets to you and stays there with you.
yea, its a game in a league of it's own. People often time get critical of the post team silent installments of the game but the truth is not even SH1 or 3 can live up to what SH2 was. And as far as good single player games go both 1 and 3 rank pretty damn high. That's how good the 2nd installment is.
On October 27 2010 18:21 Sindri wrote: Planescape: Torment is the only game that left me thinking, 'Wow, that game was better written than many books or movies'. Not something you can say about many games at all. As a teenager, it actually changed my philosophical outlook on life somewhat. When I first finished it, it was a truly thought-provoking experience.
Myth 1, 2 and even 3 are underrated games with a great story as well. I hope Bungie goes back to that series and forgets about Halo, personally.
I loved Baldur's Gate 2 and its story was good, but people seriously consider its story on par with PS:T? Surprising.
As for Final Fantasy 7, put me down in the 'I thought it was good as a teenager, but if you go back to it as a mature person, you'll probably realise it's rather mediocre' category.
God I loved the myth series i really hope bungie revisists it also but i fear they won't since they are microsofts cash cow pumping halo's, myth was by far my favorite of the 2(liked marathon better as well)
PS:T is probably the best storyline I can recall in a game, I loved dues ex as well although it wasn't the greatest overall storyline it was great for the gaming community. With obsidian making wheel of time games i hope they would be the best written since those are the best fantasy books since Tolkien hands down.
Come on guys, are you serious? Tetris obviously has the best story, and I can't believe nobody has mentioned it yet. The storytelling in that game was phenomenal. For example look at the metaphor of the blocks, being of diverse shapes and sizes, which must work together perfectly in order to find the enlightened and harmonious state of nothingness. You uncultured buffoons are obviously not well versed in literature. How shameful!
On October 27 2010 18:44 ElementEighty wrote: I can't believe nobody mentioned the original Neverwinter Nights
and
Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos
I think you're confused. This is a thread about the best stories in video games, not the worst.
I nominate Torment and KGB: Conspiracy. The Legacy of Kain games were exciting and all that, but no story involving time travel can be the best cause it's just so ridiculous. I love Raziel, though.
I'd be very surprised if someone had a real best story in a video game that could be more agreed on than Planescape: Torment.
On October 27 2010 18:21 Sindri wrote: Planescape: Torment is the only game that left me thinking, 'Wow, that game was better written than many books or movies'. Not something you can say about many games at all. As a teenager, it actually changed my philosophical outlook on life somewhat. When I first finished it, it was a truly thought-provoking experience.
I think the first game that has a substantial level of depth does that to you. After that even if they're tremendously amazing they all seem to go on through.
I got this game a long time ago, but I really need to set down and play through it. Right after another play through of baldurs gate 2 . (though, character development and in depth setting and atmosphere of baldurs gate 2 is wonderful, its hard for me to say its better then planescape torment when i have yet to play it)
On October 27 2010 18:56 Mawi wrote: Golden Sun on Gameboy Advance! Nuff said I mean it, you cant make it anywhere epic as that game.
During my 19 years of gaming expirience I'd say what games had the best story in my oppion:
1) Legacy of Kain 2) Mass Effect 1 & 2 3) Devil May Cry 3 and 4 to some extent 4) Warcraft 3 and TFT 5) Neverwinter Nights 6) KotOR 7) Starcraft (the books would be a strong 3rd place, but the game only 7th) 8) Dragon Age 9) Amnesia - The Dark Descent 10) And I almost forgot Syberia!! I don't really know on what spot to squeeze this amazing game (read story) so I'll let it chill on the 10th spot even tho it's probably better then that.
The one thing that sets PS:T apart from every other games mentioned here is that the NPC's in PS:T, as strange as the world and these people are, act logical and are beliveable.
Your party (can) consist of: A flying Skull. An intelectual prostitute cleric A Robot-Thing A Warrior/Mage that lost it's faith. A thief-half-demon A Lawfull-Neutral in it's purest form "Ghost-Fighter-Thing". A burning Man (thats the only one a little lacking in my book). You, an Immortal whiteout memories hunting his earlyer selfs to finally know why he is what he is...
They all make sense. They have believeable backstories and beliveable issues. Solving these issues is actually not as easy as just clicking on the "good" dialogue option for XX times. Hell, not playing the game with really open eyes (and high int/willpower) will actually make you miss a gigantic part of its story/your memories/informations.
Other games? I never believed in Robot-Remotecontrolled-Cat or Yuffi as being "real" NPC's in FF7, they were just pointless and harmed the atmosphere (the whole Final Fantasy series is VERY good at intodrucing NPC's that just don't fit with it's gameworld and in the end just harm the atmosphere (Catrobot, Yuffi, Wakka, Lulu, your Sister and yourself in FF12, "funny" Girl in FF8). Thinking about it now... J-RPG's as a whole are often guilty of this.
Metal Gear Solid also has huge problems: It's just not believeable, not in the least, nothing makes sense in it's gameworld. The games are fun, they are great, but they would be absolutely amazing if it's characters would actually be beliveable and not for some reason be basically all superhuman-magicians in strange suits....
Kotor 1+2, Mass Effect, Dragon Age and basically every other new RPG are just filled with stereotype Chars and a few actually kinda interesting ones (ok, Kotor had about 0 interesting Chars in both parts).
The overall story of an RPG or any Game is just a part of the whole experience, it's how your told this story and what else there is that make a game stand out.
Btw: How the fuck are there people that found Kotor had an Amazing Story? It was a fun game but the Story was about as original as Super Mario Galaxy 2. Or the original Never Winter Nights.. Just ugh.. (the first Addon is good).
On October 27 2010 20:17 Tilorn wrote: How can you say ME1 and 2 had stereotype characters? Urdnot, Tali Zora, Jack, Samara, well pretty much everyone on the crew is just pure awesomeness.
I don't know ME2.. In ME1 no one was really outstanding for me.
Big Alien guy was like Big Warrior Race guy with a Trauma in Kotor (but a little better). Tali was shy/misterious girl... Human Soldier Girl was more than bland..
The others i don't even remember... The others i don't even remember.
On October 27 2010 19:42 Tilorn wrote: During my 19 years of gaming expirience I'd say what games had the best story in my oppion:
1) Legacy of Kain 2) Mass Effect 1 & 2 3) Devil May Cry 3 and 4 to some extent 4) Warcraft 3 and TFT 5) Neverwinter Nights 6) KotOR 7) Starcraft (the books would be a strong 3rd place, but the game only 7th) 8) Dragon Age 9) Amnesia - The Dark Descent 10) And I almost forgot Syberia!! I don't really know on what spot to squeeze this amazing game (read story) so I'll let it chill on the 10th spot even tho it's probably better then that.
Just my 2c.
I don't know how in the world you could have 19 years of gaming experience and pick these.
Devil May Cry is the most fan service bullshit I've ever seen. Dragon Age lost massive points from good reviewers for the bland story, I have to agree.
Amneisa is scary and all, but it's only a few hours long and lets be honest, the story sucks. Can you even have a good story where you character starts with amnesia? I don't think so.
On October 27 2010 21:47 MrLonely wrote: Ohh I forgot KOTOR, that's some really good story right there.
But Devil May Cry, NWN, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc? Come on, lol.
People have massive hardons for anything Bioware, especially anything recent. Especially if you can have pretend sex with the characters in the game. Nevermind how stupidly generic the story itself is.
The only games i've played that I felt had truly compelling stories are PS:T, FF6 and KOTOR. I've played like every RPG in the world other than console exclusives that you can't emulate as well. I love both Dragon Age and Mass Effect but they're not good games for their story, they're good games for their characters & gameplay.
Seems like a lot of people really haven't played Xenogears. It had such a brilliant long story with many different factions and events. Too bad gameplay suffered because of budget cuts etc but the story was just so good.
On October 27 2010 21:31 keV. wrote: Amneisa is scary and all, but it's only a few hours long and lets be honest, the story sucks. Can you even have a good story where you character starts with amnesia? I don't think so.
Why many people in this thread are talking about Torment so ? :p
Well... But PS:T has a very diffrent approach about it. You discover pretty quickly that your amnesia is kinda a *normal* thing. In general amnesia is only in the game for the "big" story-swingaround int he game... See Kotor 1.
If your Hero has amnesia then normally you were some badass before your "accident" and, after some dramatic event boha!, will find out about it.
Thats exciting the first time but it gets really old really quick.
I'll get around to Torment one day... but for now Grim Fandango reigns supreme in terms of story. It was so perfect. It's one of the few games you're actually sad at the end of, simply because you're saying goodbye to such a great cast of characters.
Bon voyage, Manny and Meche. We will remember you.
The Longest Journey and Syberia come closely behind.
On October 27 2010 19:47 Velr wrote: Kotor 1+2, Mass Effect, Dragon Age and basically every other new RPG are just filled with stereotype Chars and a few actually kinda interesting ones (ok, Kotor had about 0 interesting Chars in both parts).
Kreia?
I heard they used some old threads from Ravel when coming up with her.
On October 27 2010 19:47 Velr wrote: How the fuck are there people that found Kotor had an Amazing Story? It was a fun game but the Story was about as original as Super Mario Galaxy 2. Or the original Never Winter Nights.. Just ugh.. (the first Addon is good).
What are you talking about Kotor had great stories like this one:
LoL I mean look at my name.. but uhm seroiusly. I think gameplay and story are two totally different things. Starcraft obvoiusly has the best/ most addicting/ skillful gameplay ever made. Along with half-life/counter strike.
As far as story goes and being moved by playing a game and hearing its story. FINAL FANTASY 7 obviously has the most compelling/best story of all time. *SPOLIER* Cloud is falling in love with Aeris and out of nowhere right before everyones eyes she is murdered. Creating a vengeance within the party to kill Sephiroth while also saving the planet from the madman. As well as having plenty of other plot depth that cannot be explainded in this thread.
Also XENOGEARS and CHRONO TRIGGER have great storys as well.
What, no Ico? Psychonauts? Beyond Good & Evil? Arcanum? The Witcher? Only one mention of Shadow of the Colossus, Grim Fandango, MGS3, FF:T, Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines, and Deus Ex? More people brought up Xenosaga than Xenogears?
In terms of storytelling, aside from the obvious picks like PS:T and Deus Ex, Ico is probably the greatest. Minimal dialogue, all nonverbal communication, and yet the entire story is told to you so beautifully through atmosphere and body language you even grow to care for Yorda in the end. It's like the WALL-E of video games.
I've started playing BG2 recently and I don't dig it at all. For some reason these fantasy stories really don't interest me at all. I was always more into sci-fi stuff, and for that reason KOTOR has the best story of any game ever for me. The plot twist was so perfect.
I also love the Mass Effect games so much. I've devoured all books (and found them way too short) and played through both games at least 3 times (I've NEVER done that with ANY game before). The setting is so amazing, with so much thought-out detail in every aspect of the games universe(which is actually pretty realistic in terms of sci-fi, the idea that you can bend space time with a zero-mass element by running an electrical charge through it is fresh and sounds possible, even though of course it isn't actually based on any scientific facts other than the mention that what they have is basically dark energy), and the main plot line (these huge hyper-intelligent alien machines with almost no hope of winning against them) is so chills-down-the-spine-inducing, it simply amazes me like no other game has before those two.
This will probably always be my favourite villain confrontation in any game, ever:
Some people suggested to me to read some H.P.Lovecraft books because he tells stories of overwhelming hopelessness and stuff like that , but I don't know where to start with his books.
Incredible story with one of the greatest bad guys ever (Dr. Bad Boon, *shudder* what an evil fucker...). The character development of AiAi is really remarkable and think everyone can relate to his development from the title screen glimpse we get of him as an immature and self-serving adolescent ("I really love Bananas!") to a true hero willing to lay it all on the line for everyone from his slutty girlfriend to his once bitter rival to his son from the future who came back to foil Dr. Bad Boon's diabolic plot.
That really makes me wanna go play planescape, I think I'll go pick it up sometime. The best story that I played so far is probably FF7. The only problem I have with FF7 is that it's soooo slow. If they made a tv miniseries out of ff7, it would be amazing. The movie didn't cover anything.
On October 28 2010 05:09 Ympulse wrote: Heishe: Look up "Necronomicon" for all your H.P.Lovecraft needs.
As far as game stories go.. none have really drawn me in except for maybe FF6, and Legend of Legia.
Well, according to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronomicon), it's not an actual book, but rather a magic book that appears in a lot of Lovecrafts stories.
Can you go more into detail please? I'd appreciate it
I must agree with all the Mass Effect going on out there. I played the 1st one before, right when the 2nd one came out. I love it. But, i never played the 2nd one, and lost my save.
So, recently, I played the first one. Within 2 days, i had completed the game, put around 15 hours into it. I played through the game several times, with the exact same character, doing just about the exact same thing, just for fun.
Then, i loaded my save into ME2. I was saddened not to have all of my crew again, from the original story, as after each mission in the original, i talked to them. I got to know them, and learned to trust them. I played trough ME2 in about 4 days or so. I have never been hooked to a game's story, and wanting to replay it like this. EVER. Once 3 comes out, im going to play all of them several times, to unlock the most awesome endings.
I did a paragon path in both games, and saved wrex and the consul, choosing anderson as human rep. Then, I got the best ending in ME2, and also did the shadow broker DLC.
I still need to try to get through PS:T, but I don't understand where people are coming from claiming FF7 or any Bioware game has "omg teh bestest storie of all time!!1" It doesn't. FF7 is shallow, has predictable characters with predictable development (if any), it's just many, many people's very first experience with an RPG, not to mention it was one of the first 3D RPG's. And yes, I know the story, I've played through the game multiple times, I get it. KOTOR's story was terribly generic and predictable, dull characters (except for HK-47, I love that guy). Dragon Age was the same way, so was Mass Effect. The only real difference is that, admittedly, the story does tend to change with your decision making, which is pretty sweet. It still lacks real depth though.
Real gems like Silent Hill 2 and Shadow of the Colossus are only getting one mention? What's up with that? Silent Hill 2 had a ridiculously amazing story that would make even the most anti-gaming English High School teachers moist in the pants, the character development alone in that game is incredible and requires 100 page essays to merely scratch the surface. Imagine a modern day remake with actually well translated and acted dialogue.. oh man. Shadow of the Colossus deserves a strong mention for telling a fantastic story with almost NO dialogue at all. Even though you have no idea who the character is, who the girl is, or why you're there, the game grabs you by the heart and somehow forces you to genuinely care about the characters. I mean, hell, I was so upset by the + Show Spoiler +
horse sacrificing itself for you that my stomach churned and my heart dropped. And that's just the goddamn horse.
Farenheit deserves a mention (except for the inexcusable last third of the game), and Heavy Rain also had a very good story. Final Fantasy typically has horrible, generic coming of age stories, but I found that Tactics story was extremely engaging, even if the characters lacked motivation (and some depth).
Even Starcraft and Brood War demand an honorable mention. I feel like the entire MGS saga deserves a mention (yes, even 2) as well, it has great writing, voice acting, and characters, obviously 1 & 3 being the best ones.
FF7's story is retarded. Not only did nobody alive understand it the first time they played it through, even after your understand it and write it down in the simplest terms possible, it still seems nonsensical and poorly plotted. There's too much going on, too many elements are underexplained, and far too much hinges on various Deus Ex Machina.
It has wonderful characters. For the time, it was absolutely groundbreaking from a graphics/scale standpoint. It was one of the most epic games ever made, and also one of the most influential. It will always rank as one of my favorites, if only for how blown away I was by it as a 15 year old.
But objectively speaking, the story is not good.
I agree with the OP that PST probably has the best story. The Longest Journey also has a great one.
I love the recognition that Legacy of Kain series is getting. I love all of those games.
PS:T probably has a better story, but BG2 is a better game overall and has a better villian imo (you can't get better than Irenicus). FFX is also high on my list (FFVII is highly overrated imo).
One game I want to play that i've heard good things about is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.
On October 27 2010 22:10 Makotoo wrote: Seems like a lot of people really haven't played Xenogears. It had such a brilliant long story with many different factions and events. Too bad gameplay suffered because of budget cuts etc but the story was just so good.
QFT... Agreed with Xenogears, FFT for the political drama/twists another poster mentioned. I think FF6 was brilliant but the engine didnt really help, I think real good game storytelling starts with the PSX and forth because of what cinematics/voices add to storytelling.
Its ironic that technology also is what makes all these newer games so bad storywise.
Valkyrie Profile was actually a great story and meeting the characters as they were dying added a real tragedic flavor to the game I replay it once a year just for the story <3
Edit: FFT was also amazing but my heart goes to VP
Does anyone really believe FF7 has the best story ever, especially when compared to PS:T? I'm going to just assume the people claiming that have not played it, unless someone who has played bot wants to explain to me why they think that way.
PS:T is such a gem, you can find so many hidden storylines replaying it, it's amazing. Last time I replayed it I focused more on Dak'kon, and finding out the truth behind the Circles of Zerthimon was a real surprise, for example.
Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 have awful vanilla campaigns, but Hordes of the Underdark was pretty good, and Mask of the Betrayer was great.
I haven't played ME2, but ME1's story was mostly garbage. I guess I'll have to check out ME2 since people here are saying it's got a good story.
I'd like to chip in with another vote for FF tactics, not the best, but good. That game was so good, and the plot was deep and clever. Kind of a Macbeth rip off, but still good.
IMO I think HL1 had the best story in a game. There are just soo many memorable moments throughout the campaign. The game itself was groundbreaking because of its storytelling abilities while having an amazing game play experience.
I also love the story of Bioshock 1. It was very dark and the story had a lotof depth to it was really impressed.
On October 28 2010 07:11 Hinanawi wrote:Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 have awful vanilla campaigns, but Hordes of the Underdark was pretty good, and Mask of the Betrayer was great.
I've been meaning to play MotB after all the good things I've heard of it. But a question, how much am I missing out on if I skip the original campaign and start straight with MotB? Even if the story sucks in the vanilla do the other aspects, combat, exploration etc. make up for that how much?
Man, I feel sorry for all these guys who seriously think Bioware games are the pinnacle of good writing in video gaming - particularly Mass Effect. I mean, ancient, incomprehensible evil that wants to annihilate all life? Now there's a trope older than dirt, even the Greeks were writing about that one. I'm sorry Reapers, but your gameplan has already been taken, and Cthulhu doesn't take lightly to competition. Talk about a generic villain. You want to know some real villains? Joneleth Irenicus. The Practical Incarnation. Bob Page. The Master. SHODAN. These are actual villains, not some robot whose main claim to fame is talking in a deep voice in a 3 minute confrontation with the player. Bioware games are fun, have great production value, and occasionally some witty dialogue, but they're no literary giants.
On October 28 2010 07:11 Hinanawi wrote: I haven't played ME2, but ME1's story was mostly garbage. I guess I'll have to check out ME2 since people here are saying it's got a good story.
If you didn't like ME1's plot, you definitely will not like ME2, it's even worse. It doesn't even shed much light on the plot or establish some kind of foundation for the resolution to the mytharc or something, it's just a kind of stopgap story that could've been an expansion to ME1.
It's a great game though, way more fun than ME1.
On October 28 2010 07:49 JohannesH wrote: I've been meaning to play MotB after all the good things I've heard of it. But a question, how much am I missing out on if I skip the original campaign and start straight with MotB? Even if the story sucks in the vanilla do the other aspects, combat, exploration etc. make up for that how much?
Honestly, the story of NWN2 was so generic and unremarkable you could read up on Wikipedia and not have missed out on much. It was a pretty fun game though. If you don't play it and skip straight ahead to MotB, there are no in-game penalties or anything, there are a couple of passing references (mostly to your former companions) that you won't get, but otherwise it works very well as a standalone story, and it's leagues ahead of NWN2's plot.
On October 28 2010 08:36 Krigwin wrote: Man, I feel sorry for all these guys who seriously think Bioware games are the pinnacle of good writing in video gaming - particularly Mass Effect.
I don't think there is anything worse than someone who says "Man I feel sorry for those people that think something I don't". I'm sure your points are valid and shit but the beginning to this post makes you come off as some pretentious asshat.
On October 28 2010 04:55 Mogwai wrote: Super Monkey Ball 2
Incredible story with one of the greatest bad guys ever (Dr. Bad Boon, *shudder* what an evil fucker...). The character development of AiAi is really remarkable and think everyone can relate to his development from the title screen glimpse we get of him as an immature and self-serving adolescent ("I really love Bananas!") to a true hero willing to lay it all on the line for everyone from his slutty girlfriend to his once bitter rival to his son from the future who came back to foil Dr. Bad Boon's diabolic plot.
On October 27 2010 20:28 Doko wrote: Don't think it makes the top but I personally really enjoyed Gabriel Knight 2: The beast within.
I need to play through Torment again and see it with fresh eyes, I was kinda young when I did my first run at it.
i agree. but why didn't you mention Gabriel Knight 1 and 3, which IMO were even better story-wise?
I played GK 3 but not the first (could never manage to get it running on my pc) GK3 was really good as well but for some reason I always felt too constricted in that game and the story just dint flow as smoothly as the beast within. I guess seeing a filmed game as a kid struck me more as awesome at the time.
They both have a special place in my gaming career but if i had to choose id go with gk2.
On October 28 2010 08:44 Pfhor wrote: I don't think there is anything worse than someone who says "Man I feel sorry for those people that think something I don't". I'm sure your points are valid and shit but the beginning to this post makes you come off as some pretentious asshat.
I didn't say they were somehow wrong in their opinion or belittle their intelligence, I only lamented their lack of experience. If anyone has played all the games I have mentioned and still think Bioware games have the best stories, then good for them, but I hardly think that's case.
On October 28 2010 05:21 awesomoecalypse wrote: FF7's story is retarded. Not only did nobody alive understand it the first time they played it through, even after your understand it and write it down in the simplest terms possible, it still seems nonsensical and poorly plotted. There's too much going on, too many elements are underexplained, and far too much hinges on various Deus Ex Machina.
It has wonderful characters. For the time, it was absolutely groundbreaking from a graphics/scale standpoint. It was one of the most epic games ever made, and also one of the most influential. It will always rank as one of my favorites, if only for how blown away I was by it as a 15 year old.
But objectively speaking, the story is not good.
I agree with the OP that PST probably has the best story. The Longest Journey also has a great one.
What was so hard to understand? Evil corporation seeks to harvest the natural resources of the planet, terrorist group opposes them. Later, a greater evil arises and with the same goal, only on a larger scale. Essentially, the planet is given a collective consciousness made up of the deceased life force of all living things. The goal here is to enforce strong themes of environmentalism.
Certainly not the best story but far from retarded. I'd also give it credit for the original setting, I don't think any rpg has ever tried to cross summons, magic, and monsters with a world so similar to our own. Usually it's the generic medieval quest or its polar opposite the sci-fi future.
Try Chrono Cross for perhaps the convoluted storyline ever written in a game. Fuck up a much better one too .
Could someone finally explain me why one can think that KOTOR has a good storry?
The "revelation" can be seen from miles ahead (the first time in game i heard of Revan and my Amnesia it was clear what would happen...). The rest of it is just "go from Planet to Planet to reforge the Triforce.. eh... Starmap to find the Deathstar... Eh... Superweaponfactorything. The only Notable character is HK47 or whatever that Robot was named. Kotor 1 has his moments and is a very good game, but not for it's story... As is Mass Effect.
If your talking of an overall Story than that is something entirely diffrent than... ...being pure atmospheric awesomness (Shadow of the Colossus). ...walking from A to B over C/D and awaiting the next cutscene (Silent Hill 1-XX and others). ...being told in an overly complicated way what actually is going on (Final Fantasy 7 and others). ...having characters you can talk with (Mass Effect, Dragon Age and others). ...having a big "oh wow" moment (Kotor, which is a bad example because you see it from miles away). ...having some good written quest plots (Kotor, Mass Effect). ...Reuniting the Triforce/Starmap/Allies.... (Kotor 1+2, Zelda, Mass Effect, Dragon Age)... HORRIBLE PLOT DEVICES!
PS:T is not as atmospheric as Shadow of the Colossus, it does not have awesome Cutscenes and the overall "feel" of Silent Hill, it's "big" story is actually not very complicated (you are immortal, you have amnesia, you want to get rid of it, you get rid of it).... It's the way the story is brougth to you, it's the miriad of little details on the way that change a little depending on how you do something, it's the miriads of things you probably miss even thou they are extremly important (i never found my "journal"... Which for about 1/3+ of the game is your main goal... There are tons of other things i never found out and i wasn't playing a low int/wis char), it's your NPC's that actually follow you because they have believable reasons to follow you, heck, some of them them know more about you than you do yourself, they won't tell you this because they did not like your earlyer "lives/personalities" but are nonetheless bound to you.
Everyone mentions either FFX or FFVII, but my favourite game/story was definitely FFVIII.
I cannot remember a single character or scenery that I did not like in this game, also the soundtracks...especially the FFX theme.
These games are just awesome, last one I played was FFXII on PS2 which heavily collided with my high school finals. I was like: you study a little bit and then you play a little bit to get your mind of history and stuff...I basically endend up playing the whole game with two or three sleeping breakes lol.
On October 28 2010 07:11 Hinanawi wrote:Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 have awful vanilla campaigns, but Hordes of the Underdark was pretty good, and Mask of the Betrayer was great.
I've been meaning to play MotB after all the good things I've heard of it. But a question, how much am I missing out on if I skip the original campaign and start straight with MotB? Even if the story sucks in the vanilla do the other aspects, combat, exploration etc. make up for that how much?
You won't miss out on a whole lot, but I have a feeling MotB might make you feel like you did miss quite a bit with how it references things. You'll also meet some characters you met in the vanilla campaign, and the conversations won't make much sense if you haven't played it.
I would suffer through the vanilla campaign if I were you. Keep your expectations for the vanilla story extremely low and you can still have some fun with the game itself, it's got decently good combat and mechanics.
One warning is that NWN2 (and the expansions) are HUGE resource hogs, so if your computer is old then expect ridiculous load times between areas.
Star Control 2 has not been mentioned here yet? It's certainly my #1 for best story in a movie/book/game of all time, and it happens to have an excellent acronym.
The game was ported to windows under the name "Ur-Quan Masters" several years back and is available on sourceforge. If you were not aware of this game and want to experience the greatest old school space opera of all time then give it some research then check it out!
Xenogears by far. One of those games where you can play over and over and learn more about the story each time... I thought the gameplay was pretty great too, tbh. And it has pretty great music to boot.
(you are immortal, you have amnesia, you want to get rid of it, you get rid of it)
When I read that, I puked. I read the rest of your paragraph, and chugged it back up somewhat (why waste a perfectly good meal/floor?), but the puking was still valid.
This is like saying "Lord of the Rings: Hairy footed guys. Last Ring of power, throw into volcano, evil dude dies. That's it"
And yeah, thumbs up for PST. Best Video game brothel ever (and you cannot even get naked with any of them... I think?), best Sensorium ever, best plot about AMNESIA. One thing I loved about the game was abusing immortality, like that guy who's all "immortals don't exist lol" and you can snap your neck right in front fo the guy and he's all "oh. Fuck. Uh...", or that other guy who's like "I dunno what killing people is like. Can I stab you to death? would you mind?" Easiest 1000 gold ever. Ditto for signing the Dead Pact. Easy as hell XP.
Gotta thumbs down Heavy Rain as best VG story, by which I mean best VIDEO GAME story. The game is not a game. It's a film that is disguised like a game, with some added bullshit about interactive plot weaving or something silly like that. It's a very well dressed up Choose Your Own Adventure novel. It's an interesting concept for a game, but it's ultimately flawed because this should just be a FILM, not a GAME. There's very little game in it.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't have film influences with your game (the easy reference here is Hideo Kojima, a massive film nerd and also a massive game designer nerd, and his MGS series, but there's probably heaps others I'm not mentioning), just don't make it a film with game influences, if you get me.
The story was decent enough, and the twist was extremely well executed. Just not something I want to see more of.
As for Bioware, well, the stories themselves usually suck, in that they haven't developed much from KOTOR. You are a Jedi/Jedi equivalent, you can be cool or a dick, and you go aroudn saving the universe from persistent evil thing A/B/C. At least, this is the grand overall arc which sucks (kotor 1 being the exception because it's 'you are revan' twist is pretty damn good). what sucks LESS is the smaller infusions of narative that makes it more interesting, like this:
Or the DA:O quest with the possessed kid where it's like, oh shit. do I kil the kid or the wife? But, to safe the kid I have to use blood magic. can I trust this seemingly dependable wizard (turns out you could, unfortunately!). And then Alistair yells at me nonetheless (dick).
What I do like about RPG's is when they force the player to create his own morality, like what the video above describes. FO3's DLC Point Lookout did this (pity about the rest of FO3, heh), by compltely stripping Karma away from the quests. The only way to change Karma was to steal stuff, and there was like one place you could do that. The game made you choose between a robotic telepathic brain, and a ghoul shotgun-armed doctor with a massive chip on his shoulder. You listened to them both, considered their differences, weighed them up and picked one and rolled with it. Now, in this case they're not being as serious as they could be (I mean, it's a freakin' brain!) but it's good.
New Vegas does this a lot as well. It doesn't paint the NCR, Ceaser's Legion or Mr House (the 3 big players of New Vegas) as being particularly good or evil. I'd go into further specifics, but spoilers. I advise, if you have this game, to find Ceaser, Mr House and the NCR guy, talk to them. Get their opinions, get their world views. It's neat.
PS:T does that, but we already mentioned it once this post. I spose I'll mention again that I liked the voice acting, and the game has like the only voice actress that doesn't suck (Jennifer Hale; Falls-From-Grace). I remember playing ME1 for a few hours, hating it, uninstalling it and then realising that she voice the female shepard. I mean, I probably woulda played a few hours more if the person I was playing didn't have a shitty voice, but what can you do?
Choosing your own morality should now become staple for all RPG writing crews. Karma systems should be erased, or at least highly sidelined. It shouldn't so easy to find the good option, the neutral option and the evil option. Or perhaps they should, but the consequences should be more pronounced, and it should be more of an actual decision then just "well, I feel like being the Goodly Paladin, AGAIN".
For example, take the biggest morality cliche in RPG's. A man is being attacked by 2-3 assailants. The good option is to fight the assailants off. The evil option is to help the assailants. The neutral option is to not get involved, just keep walking. Almost all morality choices are offshoots of this. Now let's expand a little.
DnD makes things a bit more interesting with it's Chaotr/neutral/lawful choice, extending the possible choices from 3 to 9. If you were lawful good, you wouldn't fight them off but you would call for authorities to stop the fighting. If you were chaotic evil you'd kill them all. If you were lawful evil you'd fight off the assailants and then demand huge reparations from the victim. But the essential morality of the situation hasn't been resolved, which is that there are attackers anda poor individual. So how do we thicken the plot?
Simple. No innocent parties. What if the attackers were Law men? Not gangsters, hired from the local crimelord, but policemen with a badge and little patience, because who wants to bother with due process with these degenerates who are goign to be in jail most their lives and die young anyway. Then you'd be breaking the law by helping out the man, for even if he's not a criminal, which makes you go "hmm, which is the right idea here?". The coppers aren't necessarily evil people, they are just dealing with a shitty job that hates them. Yes, I'm thinking of The Wire here, btw, Season 1.
This is still a fairly concept. But, from there, we can extend this to encompass pretty much any theme we want such as human rights, philosophy (Ceaser does this, seriously, go talk to that guy!), discrimination, whatever. We just need to be able to frame it in the context of a serious player decision that induces a good amount of critical thinking and self introspection. This is where writing gets toooooooough, but there's no reason why this shouldn't provide too much of a challenge.
The other way to handle morality is to make the consequences extreme. Like, if I wanna be the good guy I should be Pariah'd for being violent. Take the above example. Say the guy getting attacked is a Priest, and the onyl way to stop the attackers was to kill them. The priest is quietly thankful to be alive, but should demonize me (I mean, full fucking on) for resorting to the only option I had to save him; violence. I shouldn't be a gleaming halo of brilliance and sunshine farts, I should be a goddamn anti-hero who struggles with himself, what he does and what happens because of it. And woe to those who would want to be the 'evil' guy in this situation!
As for more VG's and stories I liked, well...
The Witcher was decent. It does try and forge your own morality, but unfortunately it does so in a way that suggests you were 'right' to pick this option. It's very much like SC2's single player, when it gave you choices. None of them were inherently evil, or the 'wrong' one. I liked how it tried to make me think about which was the best choice, but I hated how it treated the player afterwards, by giving you the moral high ground on any decision. Still, the Witcher was decently handled, now if more native-englishs speakers could make intense games liek that, I'd be a happier man for it.
On October 26 2010 10:06 Shrinky Dink wrote: Mass Effect 1/2 was probably the best storyline ever.
Not to mention it is someway different for almost EVERY player (every cutscene is interactive with 2-6 options of dialogue). interactive gameplay that can very much change an already amazing storyline will almost always be better then a storyline you just go along with.
Hands down Mass Effect. (Not to mention the books are really good as well.)
ME 1 and 2 were contrived trash storywise. Incredibly boring.
PS:T of course is possibly the greatest, but I don't see many people bringing up Xenogears. I grew up playing that game without knowing the intricacies within it, but holy shit, when I found out what the game was actually representing, I fell in love all over again.
On October 27 2010 19:42 Tilorn wrote: During my 19 years of gaming expirience I'd say what games had the best story in my oppion:
1) Legacy of Kain 2) Mass Effect 1 & 2 3) Devil May Cry 3 and 4 to some extent 4) Warcraft 3 and TFT 5) Neverwinter Nights 6) KotOR 7) Starcraft (the books would be a strong 3rd place, but the game only 7th) 8) Dragon Age 9) Amnesia - The Dark Descent 10) And I almost forgot Syberia!! I don't really know on what spot to squeeze this amazing game (read story) so I'll let it chill on the 10th spot even tho it's probably better then that.
Just my 2c.
amnesia had the stupidest ending. it ranked up there with the ending of kotor 2.
seriously, how high do you have to be to just sit down, write an awesome story and then literally bend over and shit out the last paragraphs, purely for the sake of "completion"
On October 26 2010 10:06 Shrinky Dink wrote: Mass Effect 1/2 was probably the best storyline ever.
Not to mention it is someway different for almost EVERY player (every cutscene is interactive with 2-6 options of dialogue). interactive gameplay that can very much change an already amazing storyline will almost always be better then a storyline you just go along with.
Hands down Mass Effect. (Not to mention the books are really good as well.)
ME 1 and 2 were contrived trash storywise. Incredibly boring.
PS:T of course is possibly the greatest, but I don't see many people bringing up Xenogears. I grew up playing that game without knowing the intricacies within it, but holy shit, when I found out what the game was actually representing, I fell in love all over again.
i wouldnt go so far as to call ME's plot trash. how original can you be, making video games nowadays? I'm usually a sucker for the "man on impossible quest" games, but this was special because of the character depth and dialogue that enhanced the plot to where i didnt even really mind that specters were basically a ripped off version jedi. i mean fuck, seth green even piloted your god damn ship.
On October 28 2010 08:44 Pfhor wrote: I don't think there is anything worse than someone who says "Man I feel sorry for those people that think something I don't". I'm sure your points are valid and shit but the beginning to this post makes you come off as some pretentious asshat.
I didn't say they were somehow wrong in their opinion or belittle their intelligence, I only lamented their lack of experience. If anyone has played all the games I have mentioned and still think Bioware games have the best stories, then good for them, but I hardly think that's case.
Why so offended bro?
He already told you why he's offended, because you come off sounding like a huge elitist asshole in that post.
I'm a huge ME fan and as such I obviously disagree with you. Sure, the idea of an ancient "evil" (they're actually not evil, just deterministic) has been used countless times before, and the writers at Bioware surely have H.P. Lovecraft as one of their main influences, but show me one, only one type of villain that hasn't been used endless times before. There is none. No matter how special your villain might be, he will just be a derivative of some villain-form that's existed before.
Then, generalizing the whole writing and how it's carried out by only mentioning the major plot line is like saying "The Wire is really a poorly written TV Show. It's about police, drugs, and black people (or it's about "america sucks, it's going down"). That's been used sooo many times before. duh"
It's like you're assuming that a story can only be good if the major plotline is something hugely innovative, and that's just bullshit.
While it doesn't belong to the main plot, the universes of Bioware games were always very expansive. They seem to think about every little detail in their worlds, which makes them believable and gives food for exploration and for thought. It's one of those games where you stop playing, go to bed and think about how awesome it would be if some of that stuff would actually be possible.
Then there's the huge cast of believable characters. Most of them have obvious characteristic traits and are part of some kind of niche, but all of that doesn't make them bad characters. Quite the opposite, most of them evoke some kind of emotion in you when thinking about them. I hated Jack. Such a forced "I'm super alternative and don't give a shit about anything!"-bitch. But I loved Rex, and Grunt. From a superficial standpoint, all of those 3 characters are pretty bland, but the combination of being able to explore them in much detail (with backgrounds on the history of their entire species) and the voice acting make them awesome.
You mention great production value in Bioware games, and that's exactly what it comes down to when telling a story in a video game nowadays. Of course it's different when reading a book, or playing an old RPG where you read 99% of the plot instead of seeing it play out or getting it played for you by voice actors. And that's where Mass Effect is epic at. You may not like the 3 minute reaper confrontation, but it sure gave ME chills, and looking at the youtube comments of a couple of let's plays that contain this section of the game, a whole lot of others must have felt like me.
Have you played the Metal Gear Solid games? The plots of those games are huge "WTF?" inducing piles of Hideo-Kojima brainstorming sessions. Doesn't make them any less awesome, and that's all because of the way they are told.
I rather liked Xenogears story. I'm not a videogame story connoisseur(havent played some of the ones mentioned here), so I'm not going to claim its definitely the best ever, but I havent played too many games I liked the plot as much.
Also, sometimes perception of game plots is heavily tied to the gameplay. It feels like some people are factoring gameplay/delivery, and some arent, which is interesting in itself. (ie some plots are captivating as you're playing through them, but lose meaning when you describe plainly. Things like the sick feeling in your stomach having to grind/move on after some major char just died, and the music is so depressing etc)
On October 28 2010 18:18 heishe wrote: He already told you why he's offended, because you come off sounding like a huge elitist asshole in that post.
I didn't say "Man, you must be stupid to think so and so", I said I felt sorry for you, and that's because you must not have played many games. If that still sounds condescending to you then I don't know what to say, other than to stop being easily offended.
Also, it's not elitism if I'm actually correct in my presumptions, then it's justified. The correct response is not "man, you're a huge elitist asshole!", the correct response is "Bro, I think you're wrong bro, and here's why: elaborate explanation of games played". So, am I correct in my presumptions, bro?
I'm a huge ME fan and as such I obviously disagree with you. Sure, the idea of an ancient "evil" (they're actually not evil, just deterministic) has been used countless times before, and the writers at Bioware surely have H.P. Lovecraft as one of their main influences, but show me one, only one type of villain that hasn't been used endless times before. There is none. No matter how special your villain might be, he will just be a derivative of some villain-form that's existed before.
Then, generalizing the whole writing and how it's carried out by only mentioning the major plot line is like saying "The Wire is really a poorly written TV Show. It's about police, drugs, and black people (or it's about "america sucks, it's going down"). That's been used sooo many times before. duh"
It's like you're assuming that a story can only be good if the major plotline is something hugely innovative, and that's just bullshit.
The point isn't that the villain has a generic modus operandi, the point is that the villain itself is generic. I pointed out the idea of an all-consuming evil being trite because that's all the Reapers are. There's no backstory. No motivation. No badass interactions with the player over and over again. Just a contrived excuse for a three-game mytharc involving some Giant Space Flea group of intergalactic recyclers.
There can be no story without drama. There can be no drama without conflict. There can be conflict without an antagonist. Thus, a story is only as well-written as its villain. Mass Effect's villains are not well-written. Therefore, Mass Effect's main story is not well-written.
While it doesn't belong to the main plot, the universes of Bioware games were always very expansive. They seem to think about every little detail in their worlds, which makes them believable and gives food for exploration and for thought. It's one of those games where you stop playing, go to bed and think about how awesome it would be if some of that stuff would actually be possible.
Then there's the huge cast of believable characters. Most of them have obvious characteristic traits and are part of some kind of niche, but all of that doesn't make them bad characters. Quite the opposite, most of them evoke some kind of emotion in you when thinking about them. I hated Jack. Such a forced "I'm super alternative and don't give a shit about anything!"-bitch. But I loved Rex, and Grunt. From a superficial standpoint, all of those 3 characters are pretty bland, but the combination of being able to explore them in much detail (with backgrounds on the history of their entire species) and the voice acting make them awesome.
You mention great production value in Bioware games, and that's exactly what it comes down to when telling a story in a video game nowadays. Of course it's different when reading a book, or playing an old RPG where you read 99% of the plot instead of seeing it play out or getting it played for you by voice actors. And that's where Mass Effect is epic at. You may not like the 3 minute reaper confrontation, but it sure gave ME chills, and looking at the youtube comments of a couple of let's plays that contain this section of the game, a whole lot of others must have felt like me.
Have you played the Metal Gear Solid games? The plots of those games are huge "WTF?" inducing piles of Hideo-Kojima brainstorming sessions. Doesn't make them any less awesome, and that's all because of the way they are told.
I never said Bioware didn't have good attention to detail, or didn't care about characterization, or any of the other things you're alluding to here. I simply said they were far from the top of the totem pole when it comes to video game writing. It's very possible to be good but not the best. I've always felt Bioware's weakness was that they obviously care a lot about creating a diverse and interesting cast, but never have a really good backdrop for that cast to interact on (except for maybe KotOR). This is actually kind of interesting because it's typically JRPGs that have a good cast and a generic main story, and Bioware is rather the most well-known WRPG developer, but really as the years have come and gone they've kind of turned into a Western JRPG developer (as is proven by Dragon Age 2).
Bioware largely gets by on dazzling aesthetics and "EPIC" conflicts for the casual crowd and that's really the secret to their success (aside from all the dating simulators), but saying that's the best writing is like saying Transformers is the best movie. If you ran into a bunch of teenagers who thought Transformers was like, the best thing that ever happened to cinema, and had never seen the original Star Wars, or Aliens, or Terminator movies, wouldn't you feel sorry for them? If they've actually seen all of those movies and still think Transformers is 10/10, then clearly we just have a case of differing opinions here, but if they've never even heard of them, isn't that a thing to lament?
I loved FFT's Story, awesome, and the fact that the main characters of the game, are largely unknown sub-characters of the official 'history' was one of the best elements of it.
I also loved Xenogears as a standalone story. Combined with the Xenosaga, it becomes even more epic, but it was the first Playstation game I know of that had both a shower scene and a Soylent Green moment... epic!
I personally loved the .Hack plots, but that was mostly because that's all there really was to them.
Going retro though, Dragon Warrior 4 was pretty cool, and good old SNES Zelda was great as well.
KotOR 1 just for having probably the best plot twist in any game I've played. I didn't get it until that one conversation where it begins steering you towards the answer, but when you replay the game a few times, there's a lot of subtle (and obvious) hints.
I have to disagree with Krigwin, mostly on the point that a story is only as good as is villain. Yes conflict is the essence of drama, but conflict arises from more then just the protagonist-antagonist relationship. Granted it can be a great source of drama, and I love games with good villains, but in may cases its not even the main source of drama. Take Enders Game, widely considered one of the best pieces of sci-fi out there, and it doesn't have production value and gameplay to fall back on so whatever you think about it comes only from the story. The main villains, "the buggers," are hardly talked about till the very end of the book, but there is still so much conflict between Ender and his siblings, the other students at battle school, the other teams at the school, and eventually with his own skill, then he finally actually starts facing the buggers. Throughout the book the source of conflict changes repeatedly. The book is good because there is interesting conflict the whole way through, the characters develop, and because the details of the story are engaging. The main villain is vague, and nebulous in the exact same way the reapers are. You can say that the story has been done a million times before, if you want to get it as generic as possible you can just say its a special kid who is trained from childhood to fight an impossible and unknowable enemy. But you can do this with any story ever conceived. System shock= man creates machine, machine rebels, man has to fight machine. That one line description sounds pretty bad, but the characterization, the details of the plot make it a compelling story. As for mass effect 2, I think it does has a good story, dispute having a pretty weak main villain. The reason the story is good is because the characters are distinct, and they evolve as the game progresses. There is a huge amount of details to get lost in, the history of the galaxy, the different races, all the different missions. The samara and jacob loyalty missions comes to mind as being particularity awesome. Now you can make them sound lame by saying one is a generic kid is evil, parent must punish, and the other is a son finds out father is a monster, but that really doesn't do them justice, the same way saying the lord of the rings is about some dude that walks really far then gets his finger bitten off.
On October 30 2010 00:04 NukeTheBunnys wrote: I have to disagree with Krigwin, mostly on the point that a story is only as good as is villain. Yes conflict is the essence of drama, but conflict arises from more then just the protagonist-antagonist relationship. Granted it can be a great source of drama, and I love games with good villains, but in may cases its not even the main source of drama. Take Enders Game, widely considered one of the best pieces of sci-fi out there, and it doesn't have production value and gameplay to fall back on so whatever you think about it comes only from the story. The main villains, "the buggers," are hardly talked about till the very end of the book, but there is still so much conflict between Ender and his siblings, the other students at battle school, the other teams at the school, and eventually with his own skill, then he finally actually starts facing the buggers. Throughout the book the source of conflict changes repeatedly. The book is good because there is interesting conflict the whole way through, the characters develop, and because the details of the story are engaging. The main villain is vague, and nebulous in the exact same way the reapers are. You can say that the story has been done a million times before, if you want to get it as generic as possible you can just say its a special kid who is trained from childhood to fight an impossible and unknowable enemy. But you can do this with any story ever conceived. System shock= man creates machine, machine rebels, man has to fight machine. That one line description sounds pretty bad, but the characterization, the details of the plot make it a compelling story. As for mass effect 2, I think it does has a good story, dispute having a pretty weak main villain. The reason the story is good is because the characters are distinct, and they evolve as the game progresses. There is a huge amount of details to get lost in, the history of the galaxy, the different races, all the different missions. The samara and jacob loyalty missions comes to mind as being particularity awesome. Now you can make them sound lame by saying one is a generic kid is evil, parent must punish, and the other is a son finds out father is a monster, but that really doesn't do them justice, the same way saying the lord of the rings is about some dude that walks really far then gets his finger bitten off.
You missed my entire point in that all of the conflict in Mass Effect comes from the Reapers (which is actually really disappointing to people like me that were anticipating ME to be some kind of grand, epic space opera - you know, like they advertised it). Thus, the main drama of the three-game mytharc is the Reapers. Hence the conflict of the main story is weak, because the Reapers themselves have practically zero characterization.
hmm lots of love and hate towards bioware. i dont think any game can have the "best story" because how stories are incorporated into the games is what really matters. yeah you could have literally pages of great literature that are on slides and you hit the "a" button to get to the next page but if theres no connection then its pointless. while biowares stories are generic you cant deny they immerse you into the game and the way they do it gets rid of the annoying level design of cutscene-level1-cutscene-level2-cutscene etc etc. i really loved uncharted 2s story and the way they presented it, and i think my favorite would have to be condemned: criminal origins.
On October 30 2010 00:04 NukeTheBunnys wrote: I have to disagree with Krigwin, mostly on the point that a story is only as good as is villain. Yes conflict is the essence of drama, but conflict arises from more then just the protagonist-antagonist relationship. Granted it can be a great source of drama, and I love games with good villains, but in may cases its not even the main source of drama. Take Enders Game, widely considered one of the best pieces of sci-fi out there, and it doesn't have production value and gameplay to fall back on so whatever you think about it comes only from the story. The main villains, "the buggers," are hardly talked about till the very end of the book, but there is still so much conflict between Ender and his siblings, the other students at battle school, the other teams at the school, and eventually with his own skill, then he finally actually starts facing the buggers. Throughout the book the source of conflict changes repeatedly. The book is good because there is interesting conflict the whole way through, the characters develop, and because the details of the story are engaging. The main villain is vague, and nebulous in the exact same way the reapers are. You can say that the story has been done a million times before, if you want to get it as generic as possible you can just say its a special kid who is trained from childhood to fight an impossible and unknowable enemy. But you can do this with any story ever conceived. System shock= man creates machine, machine rebels, man has to fight machine. That one line description sounds pretty bad, but the characterization, the details of the plot make it a compelling story. As for mass effect 2, I think it does has a good story, dispute having a pretty weak main villain. The reason the story is good is because the characters are distinct, and they evolve as the game progresses. There is a huge amount of details to get lost in, the history of the galaxy, the different races, all the different missions. The samara and jacob loyalty missions comes to mind as being particularity awesome. Now you can make them sound lame by saying one is a generic kid is evil, parent must punish, and the other is a son finds out father is a monster, but that really doesn't do them justice, the same way saying the lord of the rings is about some dude that walks really far then gets his finger bitten off.
You missed my entire point in that all of the conflict in Mass Effect comes from the Reapers (which is actually really disappointing to people like me that were anticipating ME to be some kind of grand, epic space opera - you know, like they advertised it). Thus, the main drama of the three-game mytharc is the Reapers. Hence the conflict of the main story is weak, because the Reapers themselves have practically zero characterization.
I didn't miss the point, I disagreed with it.
Part of the disagreement is you are thinking of Mass Effect the trilogy as a whole, and I'm thinking of Mass Effect 2. The problem with thinking about the trilogy is that we don't have 1/3 of it yet. I REALLY hope they characterize the reapers more in the third game, and flesh them out more, and I think the thrid game is the place to do it. In the first game they introduce everything to you, the universe, the races, the tech, the enemy, and your character. The second game is about seeing that your actions from the first game really did absolutely nothing, no one believes you other then Cerberus, and you ally yourself with someone who was an enemy, and is very morally dubious because they are the only help you can get. Its about building your team and fleshing out their characters. All this is setting the last game up to be a massive final conflict with the reapers. I actually agree that the reapers are currently characterized very poorly, and that so far they make a rather weak main villain. They are currently a nebulous, unknowable threat, but I can name plenty of other stories, especially multi-part stories where this is the case. Enders Game, lord of the rings, The Posleen War series by John Ringo. In all of these the enemy starts out as something big and mysterious and eventually gets more fleshed out and characterized.
How I define a good story is -Where the characters interesting and did they develop -Did stuff happen - Has the status quo changed from the beginning
Now Im not saying ME2 has the best story of any game ever, I just think its better then you give it credit for.
As for your disappointment about it being a grand space opera,
As Hartwell and Cramer note, since then, space opera means "colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, or on planets in faraway space.[1] It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues and very large-scale action, with large stakes."
you are flying through space fighting on lots of different planets, meeting and having sex with various alien species, dealing with the devil, dealing with interstellar politics, and fighting gigantic space robots that will destroy all life if you do not win, How much more space opera can you get.
Megaman 1-10. I consider them all one game where you take out wily's fortress in different parts of the world. Metal man killing metal man was a pretty good plot twist and after 8 games they throw in a female boss? insane. I hate to spoil it but wily gets away every damn time.
The guy did make a robot outta wood though, so gotta give credit where credit is due.
On October 30 2010 04:21 Esper[mb] wrote: #1 final fantasy 7 #2 Chrono trigger #3 Half-life
pretty solid line-up.
On October 30 2010 04:47 Kamille wrote: FFT is probably the best in terms of intrigue. I'm disappointed FFIX didn't even get a mention.
While FFIX is the 2nd best in the FF series (7 til now), it is entirely too random and uses too many superficial and ('Final Fantasy-common') literary ploys. It's literally FF7+FFT. Come on Square...FF9 does have the best depth in terms of overall gameplay imo (card game, chocobo side quests, 'openness,' etc.)
FF series
Story FF7>FF8>FFT>FF10>FF9 (very close and slightly skewed bc of how FF7+FFT=FF9, don't do that square. ff9 is probably higher if you dont think about the others, but i cant.)
'Openness' FF9>FF7>FFT>=FF10>FF8
Battle FFT>FF7>FF9>FF10>FF8
'Epicness' FF7>FF9>FF10>FF8>FFT (this one was hard. for 9 being 2nd, think of the tree and expansiveness of coalition.)
ff8/ff10 fans will hate, but you obviously havent played the others. the ff7 fans luck out bc it's the best anyway, regardless of their 'close-minded nostalga.'
Note: Square has absorbed too many companies and become pretty Nintendo-ish lol
On October 30 2010 04:32 NukeTheBunnys wrote: I didn't miss the point, I disagreed with it.
Part of the disagreement is you are thinking of Mass Effect the trilogy as a whole, and I'm thinking of Mass Effect 2. The problem with thinking about the trilogy is that we don't have 1/3 of it yet. I REALLY hope they characterize the reapers more in the third game, and flesh them out more, and I think the thrid game is the place to do it. In the first game they introduce everything to you, the universe, the races, the tech, the enemy, and your character. The second game is about seeing that your actions from the first game really did absolutely nothing, no one believes you other then Cerberus, and you ally yourself with someone who was an enemy, and is very morally dubious because they are the only help you can get. Its about building your team and fleshing out their characters. All this is setting the last game up to be a massive final conflict with the reapers. I actually agree that the reapers are currently characterized very poorly, and that so far they make a rather weak main villain. They are currently a nebulous, unknowable threat, but I can name plenty of other stories, especially multi-part stories where this is the case. Enders Game, lord of the rings, The Posleen War series by John Ringo. In all of these the enemy starts out as something big and mysterious and eventually gets more fleshed out and characterized.
How I define a good story is -Where the characters interesting and did they develop -Did stuff happen - Has the status quo changed from the beginning
Now Im not saying ME2 has the best story of any game ever, I just think its better then you give it credit for.
As for your disappointment about it being a grand space opera,
As Hartwell and Cramer note, since then, space opera means "colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, or on planets in faraway space.[1] It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues and very large-scale action, with large stakes."
you are flying through space fighting on lots of different planets, meeting and having sex with various alien species, dealing with the devil, dealing with interstellar politics, and fighting gigantic space robots that will destroy all life if you do not win, How much more space opera can you get.
You don't have to explain the game to me, I played it as well. And it's interesting that you would want to narrow the breadth of the discussion to ME2, when a huge number of even hardcore ME fans agree that ME2 was absolute trash even when not compared to ME1. The complaints are numerous - they got rid of the exploratory and RPG elements that added quite a bit of immersion and replaced it with what was essentially a rail shooter (good move in my opinion though), the main reveal was awful, the plot was very linear and essentially plateaued less than a third of the way through, it failed to meet all of the expectations after ME1, etc. There's some like, 6-video long Let's Play series on youtube that goes through the entire game and step by step explains every fault in the storytelling and writing. I'd go into more detail but I've been in too many 300-page debates on the Bioware Social site to care any further.
By the way, the second part of a trilogy is typically when you characterize the antagonist as well as set up the foundation for the resolution. ME2's plot was so insignificant and insular it might as well be an expansion to ME1.
Anyways, if you really enjoy the games, then good for you, and I hope you really enjoy ME3 as well, I personally expect it to be quite amazing. But the ME games are far from the highest tier of video game writing, or even for Bioware writing, and "I think it is a really good story" is not a valid literary defense. I think people just get blown away by the presentation (which is also overrated in my opinion) and fancy aesthetics and confuse that for good exposition.
I really need to play some more story-games. Gonna hit up everyone's suggestions asap (uhhh legally ofc x))
Xenogears def. is up there on my top story-based games. I do very much like the story they had in SC and WC3 as well. God damn I need to get off the rhythm games.
I'm reading jinorazi's post as I'm typing this and noted his reason for FF7. You know, more games should do this (and not bring them back in silly ways). Maybe I just haven't really played enough games but I don't see it / hear it happen very often. I think that my appreciation for an anime series like TTGL is hugely boosted because of such an interesting twist (that's not TOO spoiler right? w/e)
I'm surprised that there's no mention of Max Payne in here.
Also, I'm highly disappointed with all the people ragging on Mass Effect or other games because their stories are "too generic." Seriously? Anyone who knows anything about literature or mythology knows that certain archetypes recur over and over again in different stories. What separates the excellent stories from the mediocre is execution. Mass Effect 1 and 2 get an A+ in this category.
My favourite story in a video game ever would be the Final Fantasy 6 Storyline. It has a lot of characters, yet all of their very unique stories are told throughout the whole game and at the end, you'll feel you got to know them all, even tho it's just fiction in a videogame. There is love, there is hate, betrayal among trusted ones, ups and downs of brothership, solitude, madness, honor, bravery, fear of opression, cataclysm, rebuilding the civilisation and each character in retrospective represents a certain quality we humans have, be it positive or negative.
On October 26 2010 06:22 AbsentLover wrote: Baldur's Gate 2 has the most compelling and complex story ever told in a video game. And the best villain, Jon Irenicus.
I agree, it was an awesome game with an awesome story. It felt like I was playing a novel. I've never played Planescape Torment, so I can't vouch for it. I can say that Baldur's Gate II had a great story though. Best one in any video game I've ever seen.
Meh, aside from the gameplay of FFX i think that its kind of meh. Probably the most overrated game this decade, not that its terrible. I have only finished about 60% of the game so maybe that is why i don't think the story line is that great. However I have finished about 70% of FFIX and i think that beats FFX's storyline hands down.
On October 26 2010 07:05 Khol wrote: Alan Wake. I was never so into a story, I was hooked from the very start. Beautiful game, I suggest it to everyone.
I doubt you've ever played a game like Alan Wake, it was so well written.. Alan... Wake Up....
You can't be serious?
It was one of the most incredibly rewritten generic stories I have ever seen. I couldn't believe how stale that game was.
Exactly, It would be well written if it was the first time it was actually written. cookie cutter stories for the loss.
On October 30 2010 04:47 Kamille wrote: FFT is probably the best in terms of intrigue. I'm disappointed FFIX didn't even get a mention.
While FFIX is the 2nd best in the FF series (7 til now), it is entirely too random and uses too many superficial and ('Final Fantasy-common') literary ploys. It's literally FF7+FFT. Come on Square...FF9 does have the best depth in terms of overall gameplay imo (card game, chocobo side quests, 'openness,' etc.)
FF series
Story FF7>FF8>FFT>FF10>FF9 (very close and slightly skewed bc of how FF7+FFT=FF9, don't do that square. ff9 is probably higher if you dont think about the others, but i cant.)
'Openness' FF9>FF7>FFT>=FF10>FF8
Battle FFT>FF7>FF9>FF10>FF8
'Epicness' FF7>FF9>FF10>FF8>FFT (this one was hard. for 9 being 2nd, think of the tree and expansiveness of coalition.)
ff8/ff10 fans will hate, but you obviously havent played the others. the ff7 fans luck out bc it's the best anyway, regardless of their 'close-minded nostalga.'
Note: Square has absorbed too many companies and become pretty Nintendo-ish lol
Wait...how did you get that IX was a combination of VII and tactics? I think it's anything but. VII is very serious and gritty, and tactics is the darkest storyline of anything FF related. IX on the other hand was very lighthearted, albeit serious when necessary.
Despite being my favorite game and what I'd vehemently argue as the best in the series, I will agree that it doesn't have the best story out of the bunch, but for a different reason. The main theme of IX was nostalgia and because of it a fairly large part of the story borrows from past games in the series (namely VI and IV) and because of that it loses points for not being quite original enough.
On the other hand, the characters are by far the best, even more so than VI. What truly makes them so endearing as a cast is there incredibly goofy design coupled with the substance of what a real character should be. It's similar to the crack in the liberty bell in that the imperfection becomes a quality. Unlike your Clouds, Sephiroths, and Squalls that are designed to spawn fanboys and cosplayers everywhere, these guys didn't give me the feeling that they were too....up their own ass I guess. From Steiner, the loyal but second-rate knight, to Vivi a weapon of destruction trying to find a place in the world for his kind, to Zidane an optimistic character that didn't have the personality of a wet blanket, they're just golden.
Aside from that, it had the most whimsical and imaginative world with a hint of industrial charm....and lots of moogles :D.
Final Fantasy 7 is prolly the best storyline in a game IMO. For the poster who said FF8>FF9 is on crack. FF8 was pure kife, and had never been so dissapointed by a ff.
Most people citing FF7 as amazing likely didn't even understand what the fuck was going on when they played it. It's a huge clusterfuck that took an expanded universe to make sense of. People think it's a "good story" because a female character dies.
Need to bump some of the older titles here, mostly did console gaming growing up though: #1. Final Fantasy 6 (ff3 in america SNES). It's really a shame that the first RPG for many players is FF7 because 6 was the epicness. #2. Chrono Trigger. These two titles comprise the golden age of RPG making in my eyes. The Squaresoft stories really got convoluted after these. #3. Grim Fandango
Lol, if you actually read the story ff7 was understandable. It did not nessesarily need and expanded universe, fans demanding an expanded universe. It's different.
I really liked Metal Gear Solid 1 and 3, and also Shadow of the Colossus, although it didn't really have a large story, the vagueness of story and the setting of the game really suited the game and gave it a dreamlike feeling to it.
i can't believe nobody has mentioned the half-life series yet as his game with the best story... (if so and i haven't just read it yet - sry) the very first was not only something fresh gameplay-wise...also the story was good and fascinating... even more interesting as you were able to see some bits of the mainstory from another point of view in the add-ons. i don't know many games that had something like that - even nowadays! and then hl2...really good story and mechanics..again... can't wait for episode 3 or hl3 or whatever they gonna call it...gameplay aswell as story
On October 30 2010 12:01 randomKo_Orean wrote: FF7 was fucking amazing. The best story, ever. I still remember all the music, because the music went so well with its atmosphere.
I disagree completely. Great game, not great story.
FFT on the other hand, great story, great game, with a great modding community to make the already great game, better.
I've tried ever so hard to play PST due to all the praise it has gained regarding its story but heavily text driven WRPGs just aren't for me. I don't have the patiences or desire to sieve through mountains of texts when playing video games. I'm simply not that type of gamer. I get super OCD about making sure I read everything as well. Maybe if I'd grown up on PC games I'd have enjoyed it. I have issues with D&D style C/WRPGs in general anyway. I hate being forced into picking stats, I prefer the computer to do it for me, like in JRPGs, so I don't sit there for an hour unable to decide which path to choose and how it will effect the end game.
I just posted about planescape torment in the childhood defining video game thread. Then I click on this thread and bam, such a coincidence. I can't believe this game isn't bigger than it is. Critics loved it. It just never hit sales wise (probably due to it's ugly box). That said it is a much better game than baldurs gate 2. The only thing BG2 has over it is an improved engine. Planescape has a far better story.
Planescape Torment is probably the most epic game story-wise for me. Awesome game, it was like reading through a whole book in terms of story. Definitely one of the most under rated games ever.
Some great games referenced here. Most definitely agree with Legacy of Kain series (despite it running for many years), Final Fantasy Tactics (political espionage in a story!? Hells yes). Half-Life as well has a pretty decent story, although at times it doesn't seem completely fleshed out.
One to add here is the Myth series (The Fallen Lords and Soulblighter). Pretty decent story-telling was done, and it fit with the whole atmosphere the game portrayed.
Some of the games I must admit I never actually had a chance to play. I might have to go bargain-browsing and pick up Planescape: Torment and play it on y'alls recommendation.
FF7 was alright. I played it before I realized that plot enhancing amnesia was a cliche. I also never really understood the idea of someone being in that much denial so it pretty much was a clusterfuck for me. I played it again recently and thought it was really fun. Story wise it was great, but not as wtfpwn as a lot of people say it is. Im also an asshole and didnt give two shits about Aeris dying (i thought tifa was better), so maybe thats another reason.
I also thought MGS2 was pretty damn good. Again though, it was a clusterfuck. I had to play it twice to really get what was going on. Not nearly as bad as a lot of people made it out to be.
Wait, isn't this planescape: torment the one where you start as "Nameless"? Which one is it? I remember a couple of ones - there was one that didn't care what class you were, and you could even start out with a whole new custom made one... that was icewind dale... And then there was the one with the aforementioned nameless (not sure if it's planescape torment)... then of course, the baldur's gate series...
Uh, I wouldn't mind spoilers. But I thought planescape torment dealt with one guy in one city going deep into the dungeons or into various memories to find out why he could not die. Is this right? Can someone enlighten me?
1. Final Fantasy 6. I can't stress enough how amazing this story is. The balance between sub plots, back story, and the actual plot was perfect. Also, the amount of characters seems excessive to some, but each one is perfectly crafted and none of them are out of place, except maybe Umaro. 2. Bioshock. No explanation needed to anyone that's played it. 3. Dead Space. I loved the isolation elements. Being left to figure out the backstory on your own is nothing new, but it was executed so well in this game. 4. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. This was the last Zelda game where the story was almost entirely fresh and before most of the elements became too cliche. Plus the opening sequence is fantastic. 5. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (pretend that the sequels never existed). Great frame story and the narrative elements were good. 6. Lost Odyssey (The individual stories within the game). Kind of hard to explain this one to people that haven't played it. The player can unlock stories and events from the past by engaging with certain people at the right time. Each one serves as a great short story in and of itself, and there's about 3 dozen of them I think. 7. Legend of the Dragoon. Might receive some criticism from this pick, but I loved this game. This game was the alleged "Final Fantasy Killer" from Sony and was severely over-hyped, but the story delivered. 8. Tales of Symphonia. All of the Tales of the World games have a great story, but this is the one that kept me entirely engaged the longest. The voice acting had several good portrayals and never let me down. 9. Crisis Core: FFVII. I'm not as much of a fan of the entire story-arch of FFVII as I am of the early portions of it. The game serves as a prequel to the main game and touches on a wide variety of the minuscule details from the game. Plus the cinematic of the fight scene between Genesis, Angeal, and Sephiroth is one of, if not the, best I've ever seen in a video game. 10. Alien Hominid. I could've put any game from a huge selection for this spot. It's mostly to illustrate a point. Games like Alien Hominid display how the lack of a story can also be a strength. Sure, the game has a story, but the focus of the game is almost entirely the gameplay itself. There's too many games where the story drags the gameplay down too much and distracts the player. So essentially, sometimes it's better to just keep it simple.
99% of all games have stories written on the same level as a crappy fan-fiction. call of duty 4? mass effect 2? final fantasy 7? jesus christ. (final fantasy 10 is worse, but let's not go there.)
devil may cry? what are you smoking. dragon age basically steals the plot from existing stories like lord of the rings. it's a good modern rpg, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't bring anything 'new' to the table by plugging into something audiences already know and love.
starcraft? sigh. i guess it's to be expected ... but really. let's be sensible here.
in fact, there should be a general rule: all bioware/square enix games are absurdly over-rated by their downer fanboys. always have been, always will. games themselves vary from fine to quite fantastic, but the stories have more holes in them than a 2 dollar hooker.
there are some good ones obviously, but best? the different strokes principle makes it impossible for it to be universal among everyone.
so i'm going to throw out something that hasn't been mentioned (i'm not reading all 11 pages).
i have no mouth and i must scream, based off the short story by harlan ellison. he did a lot of voice-over work for the game too; it's very hammy, but i thought it fitted quite well.
gotta keep in mind there's a massive difference between a good GAME and a good STORY.
other ones that are worth playing, that might have been mentioned but deserve +1 IMO anyway:
grim fandango silent hill 2 (forget every other game in the series) obviously planescape torment
and while i wouldn't call it a great 'story', one of the best examples of bringing the experience of an action film to a video game has been uncharted 2 - very impressive package, although if you're looking at just the story it's fairly cookie-cutter.
(but that's what's great about gaming - you can have loads of fun without a good story, or just get immersed in the story if the mechanics aren't up to scratch. kind of like starcraft 2. :D)
On October 31 2010 13:54 caneras wrote: 2. Bioshock. No explanation needed to anyone that's played it. 3. Dead Space. I loved the isolation elements. Being left to figure out the backstory on your own is nothing new, but it was executed so well in this game.
Tried System Shock 2? (I say that because both those games basically fed off what was one of the best games of the 90s.)
i will also give +1 to FFX, moreso for the hidden meanings in the game as opposed to the character plots throughout. For character story i preffered FF7. Sephiroth was such an awesome villain.
i also evjoyed the Mafia 1 story a fair bit, but only cause those style of games interest me a fair bit.
And i know i will get flamed for this, but here we go. The entire storyline of Warcraft i thought was awesome. Although i can't stand to play wow anymore due to the repetitiveness of dailies, going through the story and taking my time on my first play through was so unbelievably good. Just the details and immersion, and side stories were so much fun to do. If you haven't actually read all the text's and books within WoW and usually just plow through the grind to 80, i would recommend going back and slowly levelling up doing as many quests and chains as possible. Its actually brilliantly put together.
edit: oh crap, how could i forget chronno trigger and also the lufia series. those games were so unbelievably good back in the early-mid 90's
On October 31 2010 13:44 orgolove wrote: Wait, isn't this planescape: torment the one where you start as "Nameless"? Which one is it? I remember a couple of ones - there was one that didn't care what class you were, and you could even start out with a whole new custom made one... that was icewind dale... And then there was the one with the aforementioned nameless (not sure if it's planescape torment)... then of course, the baldur's gate series...
Uh, I wouldn't mind spoilers. But I thought planescape torment dealt with one guy in one city going deep into the dungeons or into various memories to find out why he could not die. Is this right? Can someone enlighten me?
Yes, you start off at a Morgue and the main character is named Nameless. The whole story revolves around Nameless trying to regain his memory, and finding out the big dark secret about his immortality.
Xenogears hands down. Now if square can remake it with a PROPER adaption of the 2nd disc this time then I can forgive them for butchering the franchise I loved and cared for so much.
I can't believe it hasn't been mentioned in this thread (or at least, I didn't see it). Playing as Daimon to save the world, finding out that Kalas is the traitor after all (I don't think anybody saw that coming), Melodia taking over the evil god; then, playing Origins and finding out that Malpercio was just 5 kids seeking revenge (heavily alluded to in the first one) and Daimon, the protagonist in the first one, had spent 20 years helping create the "evil empire". Just awesome, crazy stuff.
The World Ends With You really made me look at life from a different perspective. Its storyline was perfect for the setting, but I wouldn't say it was the best.
On October 31 2010 13:54 caneras wrote: Here's my top 10:
8. Tales of Symphonia. All of the Tales of the World games have a great story, but this is the one that kept me entirely engaged the longest. The voice acting had several good portrayals and never let me down.
I honestly cannot understand how people can hail Tales of Symphonia as having a good story, the characters were bland, and the setting and overall storyline were incredibly generic.
The combat was also repetitive and boring. I forced myself to finish about half of the game, then gave up because it simply was not worth my time.
Does anyone here remember the world in conflict story? I mean, it's kind of ridiculous in terms of military dynamics, but it was impressively well told in the limits of an RTS engine of that scale and it's really the only RTS story that has actually made me feel for the characters- Starcraft included.
Anyone play the marathon series by bungie? Being stuck on durandal trying to save it's ass then it tries to kill you. God I hated that two timing son of a bitch mothership
The first game with an actual storyline that I ever played was Wing Commander IV: The price of freedom. It had Mark Hamill being the main protagonist, with a plot that was pretty generic.
System Shock 2 was a very immersive experience. The use of audio in that game was one of its strong points.
Half-life 2 was immersive as well, but it was more due to the gameplay and less due to the story.
Tales of Symphonia: when you are 14 years old, and the plot suddenly turns upside down, it becomes pretty revolutionary to you. It's like playing pokemon and finding out that professor oak is studying pokemon for evil purposes. /spam DEMON FANG!
Mass Effect was a pretty bland experience to be honest. I played it because I wanted to shoot space aliens, and because I hadn't shot space aliens in quite some time. There's a ancient race of beings bent to destroy the galaxy? Seriously? Tell me more!
FF6 had a pretty good story, not in the main storyline itself, but rather in the relationships with each of the characters.
I would say that playing a game for the experience of playing the game is far better than playing the game for its storyline, especially when it comes to RPGs. I dunno, after dabbling in mmorpgs for a while, whatever RPG I come across, I immediately start thinking "what is the point of meaningless battles that you can obviously finish with no skill".
I'm keen to try Dead Space and Metro 2033. I heard that they have a very immersive feel to them.
Story telling in video games has always been crap. But one of the games that drove me by the story alone was neverwinter nights.... although I never got to finish it due to a bug in the second act, I was 12 years old than and since then I never mustered the will to play it again. Other than that I think FF6 had an interesting story. Thing is, I can only remember myself thinking that the story was cool but trying to recall specific events or dialog escapes me.
I guess if were talking about new games I'd pick Uncharted 2, I thought the dialog and characters were fantastic. Though it did play out more like a block buster movie, which is why it was so captivating like a good book I had to 'read' the next chapter. I played that game three times in a row right after the previous playthrough.
Games kinda suck in the story aspect. But they do excel in atmosphere like bioshock, diablo, half life, etc.
On October 31 2010 10:31 Arkless wrote: Lol, if you actually read the story ff7 was understandable. It did not nessesarily need and expanded universe, fans demanding an expanded universe. It's different.
Read the story? You don't read the story, it's told to you through the game. Are you suggesting someone read the plot outline rather than play the game?
The characters are just so exceptionally weak during the game and the plot makes so little sense that it well and truly took Crisis Core for it to all come together.
The FF games that were frequent were FF7 to FF10, I don't even know why.
You guys should really play FF3/6 because its so good, and I saw a picture on the net with the storyline of FF6, but if you replace certain names, it becomes the storyline of FF7 - I'm having a hard time looking for it.
The Metal Gear Solid Series is pretty solid (no pun intended), deep plot that goes back to the Metal Gear Series. Though MGS2 was pretty disappointing since you don't get to play Snake that much, it was pretty nice for a new character introduction since Raiden is gonna get his own game again.
MGS4 was a mindfuck esp in the ending credits where + Show Spoiler +
the last name to flash was Big Boss and his voice actor so you know shits gonna come down since they haven't played the conversation they usually play after the credits. So after you've played the game, you'll still sit down for a couple of hours listening to Big Boss' final speech. Fuck that game was so good.
Half Life 1, 2, 2 ep1, and 2 ep2 were pretty nice. The gameplay is so long and it managed to tell a story staying on the first person point of view. Though sometimes it feels draggy because the long gameplay is due to someone fucking up real bad, but hey, there's gotta be a story somewhere so why not let someone fuck up. I wanted to rage though when + Show Spoiler +
they gave you the crowbar back in HL2 when you're being chased by guys with fucking guns.
Folklore was pretty ok, didn't get to see the ending though..
I would put FF6 and BG2 on the same boat since both have an excellent villain who steals every scene he's in, a large cast of likable characters and a huge game world with lots of optional things. And both game stories do suffer from pacing issues because of said large world.
FF7 has flaws and plotholes and a lot of mood swings but when it decides to focus on story, boy does it deliver. Take a look at this part about a flashback, the narration, music and atmosphere are absolutely top notch.
My favorite story is that of final fantasy tactics, Delita is such a magnificent character, and the ending scene is beyond perfect.
I love PST. I was simple amazed about dialogues. I remember the place where were 12 womens whose job where to make you feel specified way. Ow men, screw all other NPC's anywhere. screw kerrigan, zaratul, etc. They are so normal. This one location is worth more then storyline of every game ever.
I got bioshock and I am not very interested in completing it right now. For some reason, it failed to grip me.
I played Torment after I finished the Baldur's Gate saga. Baldur's Gate saga felt more like a complete adventure to me, but Torment's story is really something to behold.
The actual story in Bioshock isn't great. However, the way it is told, woven throughout the magnificent setting in rupture was absolutely fantastic. Good storytelling =/= a good story/plot.
Bioshock 2 never happened, never existed, and was never made.
What about the Persona stories? I love those. Persona 3 and 4 are probably the best games for storyline in my opinion. They touch on very interesting topics
The only game I read all the text every-time I played it was Earthbound. Some of the funniest shit I've ever seen. That game is pure gold, its for SNES and you can find free roms of it all over, I can't suggest this game enough times.
On November 01 2010 08:25 deth wrote: The actual story in Bioshock isn't great. However, the way it is told, woven throughout the magnificent setting in rupture was absolutely fantastic. Good storytelling =/= a good story/plot.
Bioshock 2 never happened, never existed, and was never made.
I didn't even like the way the story was told. I'm trying to play the damn game and there's 50,000 things trying to tell me how their day was. I stopped caring really fast. I thought that game was a disaster. Not fun, not interesting, not challenging.
On November 01 2010 12:34 RyuChus wrote: What about the Persona stories? I love those. Persona 3 and 4 are probably the best games for storyline in my opinion. They touch on very interesting topics
IMO the character interactions are more interesting than the storyline. Just think about what Persona 3's story was about, exactly. It's just silly but it doesn't even matter.
The Japanese games are a lot like that. We like to think they have a good story when we're besides the point.
As for Final Fantasy VII, it did some suffer from a bad translation. Really masterful game localization only picked up later with games like FFX with full voice acting and story development that went beyond a couple lines printed on a blue backdrop/bubble.
On October 31 2010 10:58 Blyadischa wrote: Shadow of the Colossus, although it didn't really have a large story, the vagueness of story and the setting of the game really suited the game and gave it a dreamlike feeling to it.
Not anything particularly groundbreaking or anything, but I always loved the half life series starting with the second installment. The original was sweet and all, but I just thought that HL2 and the EPs were very immersive. I can't wait for them to finish the damn series.
final fantasy 7 crisis core is imho the best story line ever. its sad but its gets your heart pumping. tales of symphonia was also amazing, along with its epic gameplay and a 60+ hour guarantee gameplay
Portal because I just really liked the GladoS character.
I have some kind of weird obsession with the Starcraft series. Even Wings of Liberty and Broodwar despite both of them having having some really weak points in the stories in general.
Baldurs Gate 2. Irenicus was amazing. Edwin, Jan, Bodhi, Keldorn, Viconia and Korgan were all great. I'm having trouble remembering any of the other characters as interesting or entertaining, but this short selection alone which I do recall in detail puts BGII above most games single player experiences in my eyes.
None of these games blew me away, but I liked them well enough.
And I see a lot of people calling stories bad for been unoriginal or badly written. Well, Mass Effect 2 certainly fulfils both of these qualities in large amounts, but if you go through a story looking for stuff to dislike then you're the one who is missing out. I think someone already said this on one of the pages, but cliches are cliche because it turns out that they were once super effective stories in a lot of peoples opinions. What isn't cliche these days?
Half-Life and Metal Gear series are definitely a must, but I am confused as to why Mass Effect does not get more credit. The Mass Effect series is totally awesome and is definitely top 5, story-wise.
On October 26 2010 09:21 Cheeseburgered wrote: Xenogears
+ Xenosaga
I agree ^^ Xenosaga has awful gameplay (XS1 at least, 2's battle system is GREAT/hard), but damn the game is fun.
jesus titty fucking christ, I may replay XS2 in the coming few days. should i o_O
XenoSaga was awesome... I even watched all the movies on YouTube.. lol... It was the biggest plot shock ever.. I couldn't believe it! (no spoiler).
FF2 (I cried for Rydia) > FF10 (Sin's calm) > FF1 (2 fighters, 1 white mage, 1 black mage) > FF3 (14 characters, but all unique skills fall under one category: dealing damage) > FF7 (I just wanted to finish the game asap. Didn't care for sidequests, etc.).
On November 01 2010 14:16 phimp wrote: The only game I read all the text every-time I played it was Earthbound. Some of the funniest shit I've ever seen. That game is pure gold, its for SNES and you can find free roms of it all over, I can't suggest this game enough times.
and to those who want to start with the actual first game, look for earthbound zero or mother 1 on the nes, the game was never localized until much later.
I agree with the OP, planescape torment has by far the best story in any game I have played.
The next best I can think of is the legacy of kain series, although it is a pretty distant second.
A lot of people have mentioned baldur's gate, and I agree the characters were superb, up there with planescape but the story was utter crap in comparison.
On October 26 2010 11:09 Spritescaper wrote: Planescape did just about everything right in terms of atmosphere, game world, characters, story, roleplaying, etc. Combat was sort of broken though, and detracted from the game more than anything. I think Planescape would've excelled as an adventure game with RPG elements rather than it being the other way around. It's still an extremely good RPG in its own right though.
I gotta say, this game had the best representation of an evil player character in any game to date. You could do some truly despicable things, and not the stupid psychopatic "I KILL YOU AND TAKE YOUR SHIT HAHAHA" crap most RPGs chalk up as being "evil". (I'm looking at you, Baldur's Gate) I played a good character in my playthrough because I don't find the evil path to be fulfilling in most RPGs nowadays, but Planescape actually let you be manipulative, calculating, intelligent, and despicable... especially despicable.
It did! But no matter how calculating and manipulative you were...
you found that someone had been there before you and outdone you.
No game storyline has ever given me chills the way Torment did. Particularly a certain tale about a man receiving three wishes.
Someone mentioned political depth - I think Morrowind deserves a mention here because of the various factions. No race or nation is treated as a homogeneous entity - I'm thinking in particular of the book you can read written by pinko leftie Imperials urging their government to pull out of Morrowind. It's easy and lazy to write a story where all the blond ones hate all the swarthy ones, and all the Tribunal worshippers hate all the Divine worshippers, and everyone hates the fish.
Generaly speaking, i think nowdays there are more options available into a games story due to better AI systems, that allow programers to introduce more options in the same script. That is why, game that had the best story some years ago, pale to the natural evolve of todays more simple answers to the same problem.
In my book, Deus Ex coverd a huge amount of diffrent options *mostly at a subconsius level*,as well as it had a great story that would unfold whenever it was actually needed. Yet Mass effect 2 and bioshock 2 had a greater impact on me, surely becouse of the higher acuracy at making the characters more life like.
If we would be trying to pin point the best story in a game ignoring the rest, we would most likely be looking at a book.
Apart from that, many great games have been created over the years, starting with probably prince of persia (i mean, who didnt try 10 times straight to save the damn pixel princess?) in the old times, we are still looking at games that have been created with amazing stoies, mostly from same studios like bioware, black isle.
Sometimes however, we do hit a jackpot in other companies : THQ:Summoner EA:Dead Space ETC.
Now, a great stoy does however need a great cover up for it. good music, good dialogues, good momentum in the "main quest" development, etc.
Those things easy to think about, but very hard to put into a game. There is a limit to how many things "can happen" in a game, simply becouse the potencial "bug %" grows up exponencially.
Btw: best villan in a game aint jon irenicus, he aint even evil, he is merely a guy who is looking for revenge.
Coolest villan in a game : any that you really get used to, like/love him and betrays you in your best/darkest hour.
gog.com is currently having a mod spotlight showing off how to update Planescape: Torment with many useful things such as widescreen support, a new UI and various tweaks and new missions even designed by the the developers that didn't quite make the final cut.
Oh yes, planescape is gold, should replay it again, i wonder how well it works with modern windows... I remember playing this to soothe my aching heart when i heard van buren was cancelled, oh the agony i had, but planescape torment ended my...uh..torment.
On November 05 2010 20:56 Mr Mauve wrote: No game storyline has ever given me chills the way Torment did. Particularly a certain tale about a man receiving three wishes.
Morte: "Fine, fine..." "An elderly man was sitting alone on a dark path, right? He wasn't certain of which direction to go, and he'd forgotten both where he was traveling to and who he was. He'd sat down for a moment to rest his weary legs, and suddenly looked up to see an elderly woman before him. She grinned toothlessly and with a cackle, spoke: 'Now your *third* wish. What will it be?'" "'Third wish?' The man was baffled. 'How can it be a third wish if I haven't had a first and second wish?'" "'You've had two wishes already,' the hag said, 'but your second wish was for me to return everything to the way it was before you had made your first wish. That's why you remember nothing; because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes.' She cackled at the poor berk. 'So it is that you have one wish left.'" "'All right,' said the man, "I don't believe this, but there's no harm in wishing. I wish to know who I am.'" "'Funny,' said the old woman as she granted his wish and disappeared forever. 'That was your first wish.'"
I'm usually quite impatient when it comes to reading walls of text in games, but somehow PS:T managed to hook me in.
I personally loved the Bioshock story. Especially because there were so many parts of the gameplay that added to the story like the 1960's music which was superbly played in the background, amongst all the other gismos and such from around that time.
Atlantis, People defying science and screwing up big time, good/bad decisions Oh it's beautiful
Surprised not a single person has mentioned Ultima VII.
Some thoughts: To me FFX had the best story. Maybe it's just because it's the first FF game I've played, but that game moved me more than every other FF (and I've gone back and played them all on emulation, sans FF12/13).
Bioshock is just a knockoff of System Shock. Inferior in every way besides graphics, which go a long way in making the very detailed city of Rapture feel alive (or dead, however you want to look at it). Deus Ex is the ultimate masterpiece of storytelling in an FPS. That game was perfect in every way; my favorite game of all time.
If you love story telling games try out The Longest Journey; just excellent on so many levels.
Regrettably I have not played PS:T, but I do plan to within the next month after reading so many great things on it.
For me Baldur's Gate 2 will always have a place amongst best stories. The plot itself isn't that great but all the well done characters make it so interesting, the places you visit etc.
The second game i value quite highly for it's story is Vampire:Bloodlines, something about vampires who are organized by clans and living in a modern world hiding from humans makes it so great!
Also currently playing PS:T, man this game is just so mysterious. Not to mention i've never played a game that uses so much old english slang in dialogues. Really loving it so far.
On November 06 2010 01:17 setzer wrote: Surprised not a single person has mentioned Ultima VII.
Some thoughts: To me FFX had the best story. Maybe it's just because it's the first FF game I've played, but that game moved me more than every other FF (and I've gone back and played them all on emulation, sans FF12/13). .
Hehe..
While playing FFX and at the ending all i ever thought was:
What kind of stupid, cheesy, fucking bullshit is this and why do i have to play with this stupid crybaby...
And the ending.. omg... it can't get much more retarded...
On November 05 2010 22:03 ULTRA[tor] wrote: Generaly speaking, i think nowdays there are more options available into a games story due to better AI systems, that allow programers to introduce more options in the same script. That is why, game that had the best story some years ago, pale to the natural evolve of todays more simple answers to the same problem.
In my book, Deus Ex coverd a huge amount of diffrent options *mostly at a subconsius level*,as well as it had a great story that would unfold whenever it was actually needed. Yet Mass effect 2 and bioshock 2 had a greater impact on me, surely becouse of the higher acuracy at making the characters more life like.
If we would be trying to pin point the best story in a game ignoring the rest, we would most likely be looking at a book.
Apart from that, many great games have been created over the years, starting with probably prince of persia (i mean, who didnt try 10 times straight to save the damn pixel princess?) in the old times, we are still looking at games that have been created with amazing stoies, mostly from same studios like bioware, black isle.
Sometimes however, we do hit a jackpot in other companies : THQ:Summoner EA:Dead Space ETC.
Now, a great stoy does however need a great cover up for it. good music, good dialogues, good momentum in the "main quest" development, etc.
Those things easy to think about, but very hard to put into a game. There is a limit to how many things "can happen" in a game, simply becouse the potencial "bug %" grows up exponencially.
Btw: best villan in a game aint jon irenicus, he aint even evil, he is merely a guy who is looking for revenge.
Coolest villan in a game : any that you really get used to, like/love him and betrays you in your best/darkest hour.
The beautiful thing about Dead Space, which is a fantastic game, is the way the game play elements play on the plotline so beautifully. They took the general concept of a choice between flashlight and gun that Doom 3 used but actually made it fit with a good story and general feel whereas in Doom 3 the story was complete garbage (not saying that anyone expected anything from the Doom 3 plot)
However, I do think that putting Bioshock 2 in the same sentence as Mass Effect 2 is blasphemy, plot wise. The Bioshock 2 plot is a complete rip-off, free riding on the moderate success of Bioshock 1, super linear, repetitive and a complete failure imo.
On November 05 2010 23:46 PeT[uK] wrote: Final Fantasy 7. Final Fantasy 10 Saga Frontier - asellus' arc
enough said
This, this this. Hit it right on the head mate. Damn, I played FFX when it came out and the story is still crystal clear in my head. So high quality compared to, let's say, FFXIII.
I still say all of the tales series have awesome stories, and they are worthy of mention next to square's RPGS. Tales of Symphonia has a great primary story, while Tales of Vesperia has a lot of back story and character development (but its primary story isn't really remarkable).
On November 06 2010 00:19 junemermaid wrote: Xenosaga II and III were trash. Can't believe they ruined it. Thinking of it just gets me mad as hell.
Also, Xenogears > Torment in the story department. Torment was amazing, but it ain't no Xenogears.
I also enjoyed The Witcher's story much more than Torments.
Xenosaga II was definitely a step down from the first one and basically messed up the entire series, but xenosaga III wrapped the entire thing up nicely. I thought the story was great and engaging, even with the huge blunder that was xenosaga II. the cut scenes and character development was also a nice touch.
People seem to mix things up. A good game does not mean it have a good story.
I personally loved Grim Fandango. The tension and the way it builds up is something you dont find very often. It is deep, funny and have no plot holes at all, unlike the game below
FF7 is a very good game, but the story aint that special.
This actually got me to stop studying for an exam, and right out a reply =)
I think first of all, this kind of forum discussion usually ends up unnecessarily heated. And there's nothing really wrong with that. People like to talk about they games they like, and dropping names is the easiest way to do that. And considering that many of us now are adults who grew up on certain games, games you played while in that formative mental stage as a teenager are going to leave a huge imprint. FF 7 enjoys a huge following mostly because it was the first 3D RPG and most of the time the first RPG most people played. I'm not saying that FF 7 has a bad story (i've never played it), but that i'm sure that it's status as one of the first RPGs people play will undoubtedly influence people's choice.
Now, there are games with good stories, and then there are games with good stories. A lot of consideration into how good a game's story is actually depends on all kinds of things. A game's story itself might actually be not so important. The best way to show this is to start with some examples.
Dead Space versus System Shock. Both are excellent games, but SS shines for better story whereas DS simply packs in the atmosphere, imo. Consider this - both are essentially space survivals. However while DS is based on something akin to the cthulu mythos, SS presents to you a thinking, calculative villain that is bent on killing you, SHODAN was basically HAL on crack. Thus, the emotional engagement becomes much greater as opposed to DS - DS has some evil dead zombie things and a vague "evil corporation" thing going on, while SS has villany that is staring you right in your face.
Having said that, DS is clearly more atmospheric, mostly thanks to the advantage of technology. Significantly it has no HUD at all, so players are focused more on the action. Further some of the set pieces are really breath taking, especially the zero -g puzzles.
Objectively speaking, I would say that SS has better writing, better ideas behind the plot and overall a better story. If both SS and DS were books in front of me, I'd easily pick SS. But games aren't books - how the story is told matters and in this sense, you don't just read something off a book. DS lets you live through the tale better, and it's just in the nature of storytelling via a game that interaction is as important, if not more, than character development and good writing.
So having laid this out, I think it's easy to just name some games that have excellent production values (in generally good storytelling, even if the story is so so).
Uncharted 1 and 2 (for something that is essentially a remake of Indiana Jones, it is still an amazing game and story experience. You actually feel for Nathan Drake, and cheer him a little when he finally gets the girl) Dead Space
etc,
On the other hand, there are games whose game play is so good that it influences our decisions on whether it has a good story or not. Objectively, Starcraft is a space soap opera. Not that it's terrible, but perhaps just above average, and certainly not "the best." Most of blizzard's games are actually in there too. If you see warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft together, you'd realize that the same themes, character types and plots are just being repeated over and over. Even the art style is nothing to write home about - big shoulders and bigger weapons. But, where blizzard gets it right (and damn do they get it right), is the game play, and we love them for it. Having said that, maybe we should learn to distinguish better between good game play and good story.
Taking all the above together, I fully agree with the OP. PS:T is just one of those games where everything clicked together very well. O sure its combat had its bugs, but aside from that (and you could get through a surprising amount of things without ever fighting) it pushed all the right buttons. Great over-arching plot? check. From the beginning to the end, there is this pervasive idea of destiny, that you are really caught up in something much larger than you (ironically the something much larger might also be you... spoilers!). Small little side plots that are hilarious and funny? Check (Bioware does these little small plots really well too, but I feel that their overall package never really reached the levels of PS;T) Characters? Simply hands down amazing. The thing about your part in PS:T is that while they are all weird and crazy, they all represent little bits of existential angst that we might face in real life. It's not afraid to just go out there and ask big questions like "why am I here?" and to tackle serious emotional baggage like betrayal, manipulation and unrequited love.
And all this is not even talking about the specific dialog. The whole transcript that you can read over and over and still find little references to new things.
It is an amazing game. The only fault I could say is that it is unashamedly serious about what it does, and therefore in an age of Farmville, micro games and attention spans that are really short, PS:T might seem woefully not relevant anymore. Having said that, I am sure that the legacy of PS:T can be taken up someday, both to introduce new people to the mythos as well as please old fans. I mean I am a huge LOTR purist, and I think overall the movies have been a great thing to happen to the series.
System Shock 1 & 2, Deus Ex, Fallout 1 & 2, Starcraft + Brood Wars, Day of the Tentacle, DSA Schatten über Riva (don't know english name :/), Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, Discworld, Conflict Freespace, Half Life Opposing Force, X (1 & 2)
oh, and Baldurs Gate of course. I had to lol so often.
I can't decide, really. Fallout's got the best humor, though.
Star ocean: the second story has always been my number one.
I've never played FFT, but i played FF7, 8, 9, 10 (and the silly X-2) And i have to say that (just like doerit) FF8 was my favourite, followed closely by FF10.
People tend to rage all over me telling how on earth i can like FF8 more than FF7 or FF10, please don't, it's just my opinion.
*Edit* I'd like to add that Mass Effect took alot of inspiration from Unreal2: The Awakening, even though the latter was only 6 hours worth of playtime, the storyline tends to overlap at some points, ruining ME for me.
The first two Myth games imho have got one of the best stories I've ever experienced. You *really* feel like you're in the middle of an intelligently-lead zombie apocalypse. And all the bad guys have pretty unique personalities and such, which is awesome.
MGS series has some of the coolest characters of all time. I get goosebumps because Snake is so fucking awesome, and the story has a pretty deep background too.
I think Final Fantasy 7 is overrated, even though I loved the game, it's a cool world and has a cool villain, the only things I don't like is that they made so much FF7 related stuff, FF7CC, Advent children and so on. That kinda ruined it for me. Will never forget my childhood memories in Midgar Slums though, I was stuck there forever, searched every single house, it's like implanted into my brain.
I prefer Final Fantasy 8 or 6, it feels like FF8 is more cynical and a tad more mature and FF6 is just straight out charming.
And Chrono Cross has an intense story, really sad actually, anyone who likes JRPG to some extent will be blown away after a few hours of playing.
Tried Fallout 1 & 2 because a friend of mine recommended them, never really got into the games though, didn't really know what to look for, it felt too old.
Complexity a good story does not necessarily make.
One of the games that really comes to mind for me right now is Homeworld, which in my opinion not only had an awesome story, but it was so well paced and delightfully simple that I couldn't help but love it. It's also an excellent example of storytelling in an RTS, where one doesn't focus on individual characters but uses the epic scale of an RTS game to tell the story of entire civilizations. The soundtrack also was excellent, especially their use of that one song from Platoon.
I agree with PS:T being the best RPG storywise. I was going to mention another game, and was quite sure I'd be the first. However, I scanned through all the pages, and surprisingly it was already mentioned, so I'll just give +1 to this:
On October 28 2010 17:35 No_Roo wrote: Star Control 2 has not been mentioned here yet? It's certainly my #1 for best story in a movie/book/game of all time, and it happens to have an excellent acronym.
The game was ported to windows under the name "Ur-Quan Masters" several years back and is available on sourceforge. If you were not aware of this game and want to experience the greatest old school space opera of all time then give it some research then check it out!
Got some really great memories with that game from the 90's.
On November 10 2010 17:34 KaiserReinhard wrote: Complexity a good story does not necessarily make.
One of the games that really comes to mind for me right now is Homeworld, which in my opinion not only had an awesome story, but it was so well paced and delightfully simple that I couldn't help but love it. It's also an excellent example of storytelling in an RTS, where one doesn't focus on individual characters but uses the epic scale of an RTS game to tell the story of entire civilizations. The soundtrack also was excellent, especially their use of that one song from Platoon.
Yes. Also, despite the horribly outdated graphics it still looked really good when I first saw (few months ago) the camera pan around the mothership or the sight of a swarm of scouts leading the charge backed up by destroyers, ion frigates and missle carriers in a large battle.
On November 15 2010 11:23 DaCruise wrote: As a gamer, after reading this, I had to download PS:T and I totally loved it! If you havnt played this game you are missing out on a lot.
Heh I'll buy it too! 10 dollars is a low price for such a masterpiece.
On November 15 2010 11:23 DaCruise wrote: As a gamer, after reading this, I had to download PS:T and I totally loved it! If you havnt played this game you are missing out on a lot.
Just started playing but damn, the game is amazing so far... Morte hitting on the female zombies is just hilarious lol.
On November 15 2010 11:23 DaCruise wrote: As a gamer, after reading this, I had to download PS:T and I totally loved it! If you havnt played this game you are missing out on a lot.
Just started playing but damn, the game is amazing so far... Morte hitting on the female zombies is just hilarious lol.
For those of you playing Planescape Torment for the first time... Put a lot into INT, WIS and CHR... You'll open up a whole nother part of the story with your insight. There are about 4-5 endings to the game as well BTW, with only one TRUE ending that you achieve if you have very high intelligence and wisdom. I've played through it like 10 times and I always find something new, most amazing story ever.
past always seems better than it should have been.
Bg2 was a great game but so does mass effect1 or dragon age - heck even better i can say.
I play video games 20 years now since my ibm pc1 8086 and ive seen a lot .
Thing is that good modern games surpass older ones but for various reasons - 1 been rosy retrospective bias plus so many releases each year - made older games look vastly superior when they arent .
On November 18 2010 03:30 st3roids wrote: past always seems better than it should have been.
Bg2 was a great game but so does mass effect1 or dragon age - heck even better i can say.
I play video games 20 years now since my ibm pc1 8086 and ive seen a lot .
Thing is that good modern games surpass older ones but for various reasons - 1 been rosy retrospective bias plus so many releases each year - made older games look vastly superior when they arent .
I don't really think they are better except for Gfx ( and this is still arguable for some genres because good high resolution 2D is often better than 3D in my opinion ).
On November 16 2010 22:19 Jimmy Raynor wrote: Only 2 mentions of Max Payne in 15 pages? If you haven't played this game you don't know what a good video game story is.
Oh god, how could I forget that game? Max Payne 1 was great, but Max Payne 2 was REALLY awesome.
Pokemon, it taught us about the journey of a more ambitious Michael Vick. Where else do you enslave animals, kill others to make yours stronger to achieve your ultimate goal of domination? Along with beating up other people's animals and stealing their money?
The basic procedure for seizing control of a pokemon involves ... pummeling it to the brink of unconsciousness, ... and throwing a device which engulfs the target pokemon and attempts to make it subservient to the human... The only logical explanation ... is some flawless, futuristic mind-control.
Fictional humans who enslave and barter Pokemon refer to each other by the euphemism "Pokemon trainer" in lieu of more realistic titles such as "Pokemon traffickers".
The other rampant activity in the Pokemon universe - gladitorial combat - has certainly been outlowed in many countries... During these matches, two opposing Pokemon viciously poison, maul, or electrocute each other until one stands triumphant over its mutilated, unconscious opponent. At the conclusion of a match, the human master claims victory once all of his opponent’s available Pokémon have been beaten into a coma.
Pokémon owners receive money for winning matches, and highly-anticipated battles receive television coverage and take place in giant stadiums with crowds of spectators.
Some conservative groups may take issue with other aspects of the Pokémon series, such as summoning and controlling demon-like monsters, evolution, and force-breeding Pokémon
Just refreshed my memory of PS:T again with a wis and INT specilised character. Couple of things that I especially liked were the way that the practical incarnation did things that many could consider evil, except that he did it all to end the "curse", so it's hard to say that he was evil... just practical and very ruthless.
And the sidequests have got to be most interesting sidequests I've seen in any game ever. Even the chores you needed to do before becoming a mage and most of the godsman quests, and some of the sensory stones were well written, entertaining, and deeper than 90% of the typical video game overarching plot, which sadly includes half of Biowares games.
I opened this thread and expected it to be about PS:T and I wasn't disappointed. That's how good of a game PS:T is, seriously.
Whenever I see or hear someone mention "best story in a game" it immediately triggers my PS:T senses :D
The game is beyond awesome and underrated, because you actually have to read a lot in the game and lots of people don't want that in a game, fair enough.
For those who take the time and read each dialogue and live the story, you will never be disappointed.
Best game ever, I replay it like twice a year, always with different party-setups, different alignments and see what changes.
There are a lot of games with a compelling story, so it's probably up to taste for everyone to say which one he thinks is the best. I played The Witcher through lately, and I liked that game a lot. I probably would love PS:T too, I've only seen the beginning at a friends place, never got to play it myself quite yet. I will probably try it later some day.
I'm also one that just spent the last hour or so reading this thread in lieu of doing schoolwork, but I've found it to be well-worth the lack of sleep. As a veteran gamer, I'm not terribly sure what my favorite story in a game is, but I honestly had never heard of Planescape: Torment before this (though I'm downloading it as I type, because it looks awesome). I've also never cared for Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid in any of their installments, and never played Xenosaga or Legacy of Kain.
Having said that, I'll definitely have to say that my top games are KOTOR 1, Shadow of the Colossus, Silent Hill 2, Beyond Good and Evil, and Jade Empire.
I don't need to rehash KOTOR, it's awesome, 'nuff said.
Given that, I do feel like SoC hasn't gotten enough love, because that's probably my favorite game of all time, the pure simplicity and atmospheric juxtaposition is a rare experience that I won't soon forget. That game is just the perfect example of showing instead of telling, I'm pretty sure that game could have been released without dialogue and still be just as rich. Without giving too much away, the way the game feels is just amazing.
Silent Hill 2 is similar- the "feel" of the game is amazing, I played it with a bunch of roomates my freshman year of college, and it's probably been of the best bonding experiences of my life. All the characters are written and encountered masterfully, and you really feel alone in all the senses of the world as you play through the game.
Beyond Good and Evil was refreshing because it felt very Zelda-like, but had an engaging story and really felt like a journey, unlike any Zelda game I've played.
Jade Empire is an earlier BioWare game, it seems relatively unknown, but I'd definitely say it's one of the better ones, has an awesome combat system and although the morality system leaves much to be desired, it has really memorable characters and a plot twist on the level of the first KOTOR.
Anyway, that's how I feel, I'm going to play some new games because of this thread, and I hope you guys can appreciate my favorites just as much :D
I didn't enjoy the Jade Empire combat, but I actually liked it better than KotOR as a story. You see, Jade empire had a much more relatable villain (though if memory the final boss didn't exactly do a lot of antagonizing throughout the game), a refreshing change from the typical Bioware setting and... that's about all the differences that I recall. I remember thinking that a lot of the characters resembled KotOR counterparts, and that unlike KOtOR the games length was just long enough and didn't feel like such a grind.
No, I agree- you outlined what I liked about the game well. I enjoyed the rock-paper-scissors style of the combat, but I could easily see how someone wouldn't enjoy it. I also seem to recall the Open Palm Magic style- the earth one- as being particularly broken, but it's been a while. I liked the party members as well, but I can admit they're pretty typical BioWare fare- I liked the characters in Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Kotor as well.
Where I felt it really shined was the depth of the story, the length (like you mentioned) and the originality of it all- and Death's Hand still remains one of my favorite villains.
Surprised to not see a mention of Terranigma here, so I guess I'll bring it up.
It may not be what others consider a "great" story, but I really enjoyed it. Basically realizing your own world is a fake mirage, then resurrecting plants, animals, birds, people, etc. Rebuilding civilization and helping all of these different people out. Pretty memorable ending too. Damn I love that game .
Just got the chance to sit down and play through The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, its sequel for the first time.
And i just have to say, damn it was an absolutely glorious experience. Such a riveting storyline with great characters, locations, voice acting ... marvellous all around.
I just have got to get some answers to the questions left open at the end of dreamfall, ragnar really needs to stop making The Secret World mmo and make Dreamfall: chapters already!
I've seen footage of the MMO, and I thought it looked as though it's supposed to resemble a spin-off of the whole gothic dystopian empire thing which was around where dreamfall ended
On December 07 2010 20:25 Billy_ wrote: I've seen footage of the MMO, and I thought it looked as though it's supposed to resemble a spin-off of the whole gothic dystopian empire thing which was around where dreamfall ended
story/setting wise, its completely seperate from TLJ/dreamfall, but there are some easter eggs and references to those games.
Well, I just came here expecting some new gamer saying "Oblivion is such a good RPG game it has the best story ever." I am glad that I was wrong and OP was actually wise enough to say Planescape Toment:
That game has 7-8 books worth of text in it, that alone says something.
What can change the nature of a man?
BTW, a word of advice, don't be afraid saying "Mass Effect has a nice story compared to the most RPG'S" (mass effect can be substituted for some other game if you wish), but believe me when I say if you say it is "the best", chuck norris will deliver you a roundhouse kick before you chan say chuc-.
im really really surprised at how many people mention kotor 1 and not kotor 2, which in my opinion had a much superior story (and even gameplay, even though it was unpolished). kotor 2 gets way too much flak just cause its a bit rough around the edges.
as for the OP, yeah PS:T has the best story out of any game i ever played, by a long margin. no attempt to retell it or summarize it can do it justice. the best thing about it is how the attributes players chose and the way they play influence the parts of the greater plot that are revealed through both the main quest and side quests so it has amazing replay value.
It pains me to see games like Starcraft, Warcraft, NWN, ME1 and 2, DA:O, etc... on peoples lists.
All of these games were great gameply wise, but their stories were incredibly "meh".
the uncontested king of stories is PS:T, and I'd follow that up with BG2. Morrowind and Homeworld also deserves an honorable mention, and I love to at least mention Sacrifice and Bioshock, and AC as well, for being pretty unique in the gaming world.
On December 07 2010 22:53 Kolvacs wrote: Personally, I very much enjoy the story line of Assassin's Creed. Idk, I just find it very cool how they can "read DNA like a movie".
Kinda makes you think if that's actually possible O.o
I guess very few of you even know the game, but Bioforge by Origin had a good story and an awesome atmosphere.
You woke up in a lab and people had turned you into some kind of cyborg. Since there was no dialogue in the game you had to read a lot of text in logs that people had left on their computers, kind of like in Doom 3. I have a lot of good memories when it comes to Origin games in general. I'll always love Wing Commander.
On December 07 2010 22:53 WiljushkA wrote: im really really surprised at how many people mention kotor 1 and not kotor 2, which in my opinion had a much superior story (and even gameplay, even though it was unpolished). kotor 2 gets way too much flak just cause its a bit rough around the edges.
People favour complete stories over incomplete ones, that's just how it goes. Sith Lords had a lot more potential, and it sure as shit had better antagonists. Treya was just so much more complex and morally interesting than Malak and Bastilla, plus the sequel turned Revan into a more interesting person.
On December 07 2010 22:59 Stratos_speAr wrote: It pains me to see games like Starcraft, Warcraft, NWN, ME1 and 2, DA:O, etc... on peoples lists.
All of these games were great gameply wise, but their stories were incredibly "meh".
the uncontested king of stories is PS:T, and I'd follow that up with BG2. Morrowind also deserves an honorable mention, and I love to at least mention Sacrifice and Bioshock, and AC as well, for being pretty unique in the gaming world.
What's so bad about Mass Effect 1? It's pretty good, or at least it was before ME2 turned Cerberus into a laughing stock and didn't provide a Saren equivilent act as a foil to the Reapers. Saren was the jerk with good intentions kind of antagonist, and it worked out okay imo. Also had a few plot twists, and the story overall was just told in a fun way.
And how do I make Sacrifice work on 64bit windows 7? It keeps freezing up and is not playable.
Lost Odyssey in a way has a good story. The main storyline is pretty cookie-cutter but inside the game there are these side stories you can unlock called 1000 years or something. I can't remember the exact name of it. It's basically the experiences of Kain(the main character) throughout his life of 1000 years and it's presented very well in the game. Each tale of Kain's experiences was well worth the read.
The legacy of kain series had a pretty interesting story as well although it might be just because the characters in the game are very memorable.
Most of the storylines in FF games are good as well.
That game was such an ethereal gaming experience. I felt like shedding tears at the end. tbh, I may be confusing/blurring the story with the experience. But hey, it hit the emotional spot, that's enough for me.
On October 27 2010 22:24 Piy wrote: But here's the thing. You can't ignore Grim Fandango, Broken Sword 1 and 2 and The Last Express.
Seriously, if you haven't played any of them, go do it now, particularly The Last Express. It's got the best story ever imo.
Metal Gear Solid FF7 Legacy of Kain Star Control 2 Alundra
There were a bunch of great adventure games too, but I was too young to properly understand the dialogue to get them that well. Full Throttle, for example, is one of these.
When I saw the thread title, I immediately thought of PST. And then it was exactly what the OP said. I have nothing else to say than: I concur.
edit: Well, after reading the linked blog post, I want to add something.
It creates a bond between everybody that just feels organic like few games ever have. Only problem, like Baldur’s Gate, you sadly can’t take them all with you at once. And it’s possible to miss certain members altogether if you don’t find certain items, or say the right things.
I kinda just realized that there were more than six characters to get in this game when I had played through it and read about it somewhere. This really amazed me. Instead of me "choosing my own adventure", the game chose it for me. While I played the game, it felt like this was the definite story of The Nameless One, I was experiencing, and not me messing around in a gameworld and using the characters like I please.
I would say that Amnesia is one of the best of late. More because of how very effective it is as a horror game than the actual story.
The SW geek in me liked The Sith Lords, though I think it's too morally complex to qualify as pure Starwars. We've had many "pure" starwars games and books, so it's nice to see something unusual. I occasionally check the restored content mod to see when it reaches the final version. It's up to 1.7 at the moment.
EPT
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