Best Written Stories in Gaming

[timmytom1]

Conker's Bad Fur Day:

Spoiler: Best Story ever

Oppressive king with his German scientist, who wants to use a squirrel to balance out a table leg so that the king can keep on drinking his milk.

Gentlemen, we have ourselves a hit!

HOW HAS THIS NOT BEEN MADE INTO A NOVEL/FILM!!!????

 

[Panken]

Time Splitters 3: Future Perfect.

Not the best shooter, but the story was great.

 

[timmytom1]

I am amazed that so few people have said Oblivion. I spent hours reading all the books dotted about the world picking up all the backstories about Tamriel, the Ayleids, the Guilds etc. They didn't just make a game, they wrote a history of the world the game was played in and left it there for you to read if you felt like it....

That was the big disappointment about Fallout 3 - only the skill books could be read!

Isn`t that story one of the best (for open world games) though? a story for the player to discover should he/she wish and even then at their own pace (sort of)?

 

[sethisjimmy]

I don't know if anyone said this, but I thought Paper Mario and the thousand year door had a great story.
While not totally original (collecting stars again), the epic storytelling wasn't what made it so great, it was the fact that the game is hilarious!
Best story in my opinion.

 

[knightguy123]

mine 1.indigo prophecy 2.persona 3 3. persona 4 4.mass effect 5.final fantasy X

 

[WilliamWhite1]

Dawn of the New World doesn't deserve to call itself a sequel to the first Tales of Symphonia.

Agreed.
It was pretty terrible.

 

[Librarian Mike]

I was and still am impressed with Metal Gear Solid, but I have to say the series really lost me from part 2 onward. I just found it to be needlessly complicated and MY GOD can I play yet?

One story that's really stayed with me is Final Fantasy 10. While it's got some bad stuff
(ie: ha. ha. ha. ha.) I really found myself rooting for Yuna by the end, and the short scene between Tidus and Jecht before the fight (oh, spoilers...sorry bout that) is one of the most moving moments I've experienced in a game.

 

[Straitjacketeering]

RAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH Does NO ONE remember Legend of the Dragoon at all?????????? That game had a awesome original story that i havent seen any repeats of

I SECOND THAT.

That game was ages above final fantasy, the characters rocked the story was amazing the fighting was top notch.... Oh my god the graphics were great... MMMMPH I think I just had a nostalgigasm.

 

[The Madman]

I think that everytime a thread like this pops up. I post Planescape: Torment in the hope that some people will at least try it to provide a contrast to their existing notions of 'the best written story'. I haven't read a book that's gripped me as much. Interactive fiction is a grey area for me but Torment is the one to beat as far as a traditional game goes.

Debate? On a forum? Clearly you're new to the 'name the best' style topics because this is how it works; Everyone will post their favorite games regardless of genuine writing quality and then adamantly ignore any contrary opinions to their own, often going so far as to insult anyone who states otherwise or even just mention a game other than their particular favorite. (As in insult, not offer a well thought out contrary view on the matter defending their own game in regards to the other games mentioned, oh no, that would take effort!) They will rarely state why, and if they do it's often just a glorified lengthy "Because I say so!" finishing with a "It's my opinion so Nyah!" as if that automatically makes everything perfectly valid.

Welcome to gaming forums. Just type everything assuming no one will ever actually read it and you'll be fine I mean bannana juice is delicious and that fizzly flavored water you can buy is awesome. Amirite?

Oh, and Planescape: Torment has the best written story in a game. So Nyah!

 

[Sneaklemming]

I think of FF7 when you say story, but now that I do actually consider it, FF7 had tons of plot-holes, and the setting made next to no sense. Bioshock really was there in terms of setting, all we need now is a game adaptation of Fountainhead

A lot of the plot-holes were filled in the movie and the other games, which is a shame, cause the point was really to let you figure out some parts for yourself. It takes a certain mind to understand the complete story. The world was supposed to be a mystery. I enjoyed Cloud's history the most, cause it gets so twisted and messed up. The biggest mystery would probably be the Ancients, but I also read that the story writer stated that he made FFX an unofficial prequel, so much of the world in FFVII can be connected to that game. Materia and Ancients can be related to the summoners. Lifestream can be connected to Fayth and the souls. Jenova may be connected to Sin. Of course, most of this is just speculation, but it could make sense.

But what plot-holes are you specifically talking about?

It may be because I'm a politics student, but while the back stories, characters, and premise to the game were indeed twisted, it's not that, that I'm talking about.
I mean the game world itself.

It presents us with a view of global governance, but there is only one real city in the game, which can be forgiven as the world is a little condensed.
The game takes place in the aftermath of a war with Yuffies people, although there are no signs of this, we're just told. The militarisation of Shinra, and its inability, coupled with no governance other than the corp. itself, leaves us with a shallow and illogical context for the socio-economic world view. Also while a game does not need to be political, it should not ignore politics as if it were not necessary. FF7 however does a great job of being political, but again the wider context is just not present in the game.
I agree the film did a good job of fleshing out the context, much of it still does not make sense.

I guess its not really plot holes in the "the story contradicts itself" aspect, but rather there is an awful lot of world context missing from the game, and there is no evidence of it, other than vague dialogue.

Also while I realise that the game would have been unable for its time to give us large cities and populous' to interact with (a la Assassins creed) it still did a very poor job of conveying a world to us.

I find that JRPGs usually don't convey very well a world, and/or its context. I'm not sure why this is, but it must be some cultural expectancy on our part.

 

[dontworryaboutit]

FABLE 2 LOLJK

 

[Christemo]

Titan Quest.
WoW and Warcraft 3.
warhammer: mark of chaos.
COD4
the Heroes of Might and Magic series. especially number 3 and 5.

 

[molson]

Legacy of Kain all of them

 

[AtticusSP]

Tales of Symphonie was phenomenol!

I'm not sure if this was intended to troll me as hard as it did.
I fucking love Symphonia, but it wasn't well written at all.

 

[Neotericity]

Mass Effect/Bioshock

 

[Arkhangelsk]

I think of FF7 when you say story, but now that I do actually consider it, FF7 had tons of plot-holes, and the setting made next to no sense. Bioshock really was there in terms of setting, all we need now is a game adaptation of Fountainhead

A lot of the plot-holes were filled in the movie and the other games, which is a shame, cause the point was really to let you figure out some parts for yourself. It takes a certain mind to understand the complete story. The world was supposed to be a mystery. I enjoyed Cloud's history the most, cause it gets so twisted and messed up. The biggest mystery would probably be the Ancients, but I also read that the story writer stated that he made FFX an unofficial prequel, so much of the world in FFVII can be connected to that game. Materia and Ancients can be related to the summoners. Lifestream can be connected to Fayth and the souls. Jenova may be connected to Sin. Of course, most of this is just speculation, but it could make sense.

But what plot-holes are you specifically talking about?

It may be because I'm a politics student, but while the back stories, characters, and premise to the game were indeed twisted, it's not that, that I'm talking about.
I mean the game world itself.

It presents us with a view of global governance, but there is only one real city in the game, which can be forgiven as the world is a little condensed.
The game takes place in the aftermath of a war with Yuffies people, although there are no signs of this, we're just told. The militarisation of Shinra, and its inability, coupled with no governance other than the corp. itself, leaves us with a shallow and illogical context for the socio-economic world view. Also while a game does not need to be political, it should not ignore politics as if it were not necessary. FF7 however does a great job of being political, but again the wider context is just not present in the game.
I agree the film did a good job of fleshing out the context, much of it still does not make sense.

I guess its not really plot holes in the "the story contradicts itself" aspect, but rather there is an awful lot of world context missing from the game, and there is no evidence of it, other than vague dialogue.

Also while I realise that the game would have been unable for its time to give us large cities and populous' to interact with (a la Assassins creed) it still did a very poor job of conveying a world to us.

I find that JRPGs usually don't convey very well a world, and/or its context. I'm not sure why this is, but it must be some cultural expectancy on our part.

The Wutai war is explained in Crisis Core pretty much, and Yuffie explained how the war turned Wutai from a big, beautiful city, to a small resort town. The war seemed just like an effort by Shinra to make more Mako. The world isn't very well explained cause nobody probably knows much about the time before the cities and the civilization was created. I think it's a dystopian, post-apocalyctic world. After the Ancients went extinct, it just became that way with Shinra being the leader of the world. The part of the world that is not really explained would be Shinra, how it became so big. But that's probably cause they discovered the power of extracting energy from the Lifestream, and pretty much irradiated the use of coal and other energy sources. With this, their increasing economy must have unofficially made them the leading part of the world, with them having all the power of all the electricity in the world, and nobody daring to interfere. I do believe that the world didn't have any major leaders before, as the idea of manufacturing Mako was developed before the apocalypse (according to the scenario writer). But that leaves further questioning to why the world is so poor and horrible to live in. My guess is that with Shinra running economies, and sucking out all Mako, the lifestyle went more poor, and it became less possible to use the ground for other purposes.

It's not to say the entire world is horrible, just many areas. I'll agree when you say that there's a lack of big cities, with Midgar and Junon probably being the only ones. But again, they probably built the big cities where they could, and Shinra probably destroyed some places along the way (Corel, for example). But indeed it would be better with some more industrial environments. But in itself, it's actually pretty good. The world was probably created that way for gameplay's sake, taking you to different locations with different vegetation, and they probably made most of the villages as stop points, to stock up on things you need, rather than giving every town an epic story, and focused more on the environments and the sacred places that you visit. Unlogical, maybe, but it's still fun. If you're looking for logic, JRPG's are not your friend in that. Like how colorful marbles (Materia) let you control he natural forces of the universe and nobody is thinking about using it for evil (except Sephiroth). It's like letting people buy flamethrowers, not thinking that they may lit everything on fire. It's got this whole thing of many people being assholes in the game, but it doesn't have any real evil that you encounter in the villages.

 

[clicketycrack]

The half life series. I can't really tell if the story is all that good or not because I have no fucking idea whats going on.

 

[Iampringles]

Pokemon ftw.

 

[GoldenRaz]

Killzone 1; don't know why, just thought it was a very nice story.
Unfortunantly, the sequel didn't meet my expectations...