Best Storyline in any game ever?

[TheGamerElite33]

So my friends which game has best story ever? I go with those 2

Absolutely amazing story and clever writing. in my opinion both games story are oscar worthy. especially Mafia story. how it narrate from start to finish. etc.

anyways what are yours?

 

[Zhukov]

Nah, those stories are totally overrated.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was several times better than both of those put together. An emotional roller coaster ride that explores the deepest depths of the human condition, effortlessly interwoven with top notch gameplay to tell a story as only a game can. Truly a new narrative for a new generation.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Nah, those stories are totally overrated.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was several times better than both of those put together. An emotional roller coaster ride that explores the deepest depths of the human condition, effortlessly interwoven with top notch gameplay to tell a story as only a game can. Truly a new narrative for a new generation.

Bah.... Totally overrated

Now Medal of Honor Warfighter was a sublime piece of storytelling. Exploring the unsung hardships war places on an individual, and how it affects one's emotional well being, and that of their friends and loved ones. Truly a masterpiece worthy of recognition.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Well Persona 4 of course. It's the happiest game about murder ever made! A 50+ hour murder mystery to be exact, one that actually makes you work out the mystery instead of making you sit through enough cutscenes until the game reveals it. It earned that much more respect from me where it placed a menu full of every single character's names I had seen, no matter how insignificant and said "pick the killer now or you cannot continue the game"

Not to mention the very well written characters or how every theme in the game is followed through fully and not cast aside halfway into the game (coughcoughBioshockInfinitecoughcough) or how Social Links are cool and used as both story pieces and anti-grind mechanics.

 

[Starbird]

Nah, those stories are totally overrated.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was several times better than both of those put together. An emotional roller coaster ride that explores the deepest depths of the human condition, effortlessly interwoven with top notch gameplay to tell a story as only a game can. Truly a new narrative for a new generation.

Bah.... Totally overrated

Now Medal of Honor Warfighter was a sublime piece of storytelling. Exploring the unsung hardships war places on an individual, and how it affects one's emotional well being, and that of their friends and loved ones. Truly a masterpiece worthy of recognition.

Haha okay you had me going for a second .

Seriously though - in terms of western gaming, the first Mass Effect was excellent, Baldur's Gate 2 is still brilliant, the first KoToR game is still worth playing and I keep going back to Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 1.

Talking shooters - Max Payne 1 and Bioshock Infinite weren't perfect story wise, but both stayed with me for a long time after.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Enjoying the responses so far :']

Definitely Planescape: Torment for me. Thematically ambitious, a bizarre and truly alien setting, probably the deepest, most multi-faceted characters in gaming and dialogue and descriptive text that's actually quite nice to read? Wonderful.

As far as game stories go, especially in the fantasy sphere, I think it's entirely unmatched. As far as fantasy fiction in general goes, it's probably not one of my favourites, but it's still very engaging and clever enough to make you think.

 

[shrekfan246]

Nah, those stories are totally overrated.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was several times better than both of those put together. An emotional roller coaster ride that explores the deepest depths of the human condition, effortlessly interwoven with top notch gameplay to tell a story as only a game can. Truly a new narrative for a new generation.

Bah.... Totally overrated

Now Medal of Honor Warfighter was a sublime piece of storytelling. Exploring the unsung hardships war places on an individual, and how it affects one's emotional well being, and that of their friends and loved ones. Truly a masterpiece worthy of recognition.

I think you'll both find that Battlefield 3 is the absolute apex of storytelling, not only in gaming, but in any form of entertainment to ever exist.

I mean, I haven't even played the game and I still know how mind-bendingly amazing it is. It transcends the barrier of actually needing to personally experience it, and every human on the planet can feel the warm glow of radiant perfection coming from its mere existence.

Spoiler

In actuality I'm curious as to whether we mean actual plot, writing, combination of both, or what, though I shouldn't expect any more really.

In terms of uniqueness of plot, I'd probably have to second Planescape: Torment, even though I haven't played too much of it. At the very least it seems like a kind of story I haven't seen much of in video games.

But since it'd be more productive for me to talk about games I actually have played, I actually made the observation a few days ago that the games I consider to be the "top tier" of video game writing right now are -
Persona 3 & 4
TellTale's The Walking Dead & The Wolf Among Us
and The Last of Us.

With runners-up Portal and Portal 2.

And if I had to choose which of the games has been my favorite, I'll have to go with Persona 4, because it's one of the only pieces of entertainment I've ever read/played/watched where I didn't want the story to end by the time I reached the finale because I was simply enjoying it too much.

EDIT: I reversed a word. Which could've been a decent joek in itself, but I'm not that clever.

 

[hermes]

I really enjoyed the story of Freespace 2. It has conspiracies, ancient races, mankind on the brink of annihilation, grossly estimation of eldritch powers, and battles of epic proportions where you feel like a fly flying through Somme.

Many of those things are fairly standard on science fiction, but it was rather novel back then, and the delivery was impeccable...

 

[Starbird]

Enjoying the responses so far :']

Definitely Planescape: Torment for me. Thematically ambitious, a bizarre and truly alien setting, probably the deepest, most multi-faceted characters in gaming and dialogue and descriptive text that's actually quite nice to read? Wonderful.

As far as game stories go, especially in the fantasy sphere, I think it's entirely unmatched. As far as fantasy fiction in general goes, it's probably not one of my favourites, but it's still very engaging and clever enough to make you think.

PS:T is amazing, but I made the mistake of going back to it a while back. That...is not a game that has aged well. At all. Amazing characters and phenomenal setting aside, I just could not get back into it.

 

[IceForce]

Nah man, Mafia and Deus Ex are just garbage. Not to mention extremely girly.

Halo 1. Now THAT was an awesome story. Kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Enjoying the responses so far :']

Definitely Planescape: Torment for me. Thematically ambitious, a bizarre and truly alien setting, probably the deepest, most multi-faceted characters in gaming and dialogue and descriptive text that's actually quite nice to read? Wonderful.

As far as game stories go, especially in the fantasy sphere, I think it's entirely unmatched. As far as fantasy fiction in general goes, it's probably not one of my favourites, but it's still very engaging and clever enough to make you think.

PS:T is amazing, but I made the mistake of going back to it a while back. That...is not a game that has aged well. At all. Amazing characters and phenomenal setting aside, I just could not get back into it.

I only played it for the first time a couple of years ago and... yeah... if I'd had anything else to play at the time I don't think I'd have gotten far enough in it to enjoy myself :']

I'm not sure if those combat encounters would EVER have been fun, though, because I enjoyed Icewind Dale, which was mechanically similar, but PS: T just has a horrible habit of spamming legions of enemies at you to try and be difficult. My screen wound up being literally full of enemies in at least three different dungeons.

The game probably would have been more enjoyable as a point 'n' click adventure. Or at least devoid of traditional dungeons.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Planescape Torment hands down the best story ever, at least in my opinion. I haven't encountered any other game in almost two decades that has had such good writing.

 

[Herbert_v1legacy]

I only played it for the first time a couple of years ago and... yeah... if I'd had anything else to play at the time I don't think I'd have gotten far enough in it to enjoy myself :']

I'm not sure if those combat encounters would EVER have been fun, though, because I enjoyed Icewind Dale, which was mechanically similar, but PS: T just has a horrible habit of spamming legions of enemies at you to try and be difficult. My screen wound up being literally full of enemies in at least three different dungeons.

The game probably would have been more enjoyable as a point 'n' click adventure.

Yea, those combat encounters were always quite bad. PS:T was, even at launch, considered to have weak gameplay. And the fact that it takes some time before the story really gets interesting might have been a large part of the reason why the game sold so poorly. People tried it (friends place, pirate or whatever) and found it to be boring, so they never bothered getting further.

The story is still the best I've ever seen in a game though. And it's better than that of most books I've read as well.

 

[Starbird]

Planescape Torment hands down the best story ever, at least in my opinion. I haven't encountered any other game in almost two decades that has had such good writing.

I'm sure I'm breaking some sort of gaming law by saying this, but Baldur's Gate 2 and Mass Effect probably topped it for me. PS:T was really imaginative and quirky but BG2 had a story and characters that didn't just stay with me after the game, they practically followed me to class for a week.

Mass Effect was just a great series. In the final game there were at least 3 times where I was holding back some serious man tears.

 

[Mr. Omega]

I wouldn't say it's the best, but I do like how the Metal Gear timeline went from a Cold War espionage story (Snake Eater) to a sort-of cyberpunk dystopia (Revengeance), when it all started as a regular action movie scenario (The original Metal Gear, MGS). It's just so damn fascinating. The story isn't "good", and yet I'm genuinely interested to see how Phantom Pain fits into it.

 

[Shiftygiant]

GTA IV. Whilst the game itself was tonally fucked, the Story of a man coming to America for revenge, liberty and the pursuit of happiness whilst being shat upon by every rung of society was interesting. Niko is an interesting character.

 

[Avalanche91]

Though thematically I prefered Persona 3's storyline, executionwise I am throwing my hat in with Persona 4. See Square Enix, this is how you give jrpg's an original spin!

Also Mass Effect 1. A beautifully self-contained space opera, interupted by pretty outdated gameplay Very pleasantly crafted universe and story though.

 

[Drummodino]

And I've been ninja'd already. Persona 4 (Golden) for me, that game has kept me glued to my Vita for weeks at a time. I've played it through completely 3 times and got the Platinum Trophy (for reference it takes between 55-90 hours to complete depending on various factors). I've also watched the anime adaption twice and I'm now watching the Golden anime... and I still have the urge to play it again. The story is that fucking good (as is pretty much everything about that game).

Persona 3 is a close second (the ending is arguably better than 4's although the first two thirds aren't quite to the same level), with The Last of Us and The Walking Dead Season One just behind that.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

This thread only serves to remind me that I still have not finished Planescape; Torment. I started playing it for the first time recently but haven't gotten very far. I think I broke one of the quests and possibly permenently aggroed a ton of enemies in 1 area (they were gang members trying to force me to pay a toll, I told them to fuck off), so now I have to try and fight legions of enemies to progress the plot when I probably didn't have to. As stated above, the combat is pretty awful, so I've kinda been putting it off, despite being entirely intrigued by the story so far.