Please recommend me a good interactive story experience

[goodman528]

I don't mind about the genre, any genre can tell a good story, including strategy games. I don't need graphics to be immersed I read a lot of books and sometimes prefer it to films. Are there any good interactive experiences that really tells a good story?

Things I'm looking for:
1) Character(s) you care about.
2) Coherent setting, where the game doesn't need to tell you all of the lore explicitly. E.g. Mass effect
3) No grinding, I don't want to spend 20+ hours in dungeons killing minions. E.g. Bastion
4) For Japanese interactive novels especially, the female character(s) have to have some believable depth beyond just being pretty. E.G. Narcissu
5) For free world games there has to be some particular story line that is intentionally written. E.g. Skyrim
6) Music that feels right does a lot for immersion. E.g. GTA: Vice city
7) Good translation where a lot of effort was put in to make it smooth.

 

[tendaji]

Not sure if it really counts as the interactive story experience you want. But I thought Bastion did a brilliant job at telling its story and keeping me entranced in its world. The campaign is short at 6 hours, but I didn't stop for a moment throughout the entire time I was so enthralled with how the game played out, and it gives a few characters you enjoy interacting with, at least with the items you find that helps progress the lore of the world.

 

[Iwata]

The recently-released The Walking Dead game. It is exactly that: an interactive story with focus on characters and choices.

 

[goodman528]

Not sure if it really counts as the interactive story experience you want. But I thought Bastion did a brilliant job at telling its story and keeping me entranced in its world. The campaign is short at 6 hours, but I didn't stop for a moment throughout the entire time I was so enthralled with how the game played out, and it gives a few characters you enjoy interacting with, at least with the items you find that helps progress the lore of the world.

Yes, I played Bastion and it was very good.

Well, there's the Ace Attorney games, Trauma Team, aaaand Xenoblade.

Unfortunately I only have access to a laptop at the moment. Trauma team definitely looks interesting. Not sure if I want to play Ace Attorney though, I know a couple of lawyers and they are not the kind of people I want to role play as. I guess representing faceless corporations all day makes them a bit cold somewhat.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Have you played Mass Effect?

 

[sextus the crazy]

Katawa Shoujo. As if this needs anymore trumpeting on the escapist.

9 hours 9 persons 9 doors. Yes, yes. It's for the DS. Get an emulator and try this game out. It's puzzle/ visual novel stuff, so the computer interface shouldn't be a problem. It's totally worth it. Also, Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (999 sequel) looks to be good when released.

EDIT: the first Bioshock. one of my fav. FPSs for a reason.

 

[Indecipherable]

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines
most stuff by Bioware and Obsidian

 

[VulpesAqua]

Heavy Rain

 

[Halo Fanboy]

Time Gal

The Act

 

[octafish]

Planescape: Torment, The Longest Journey and Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father. All available at GOG.

 

[skywolfblue]

Alan Wake: If you like Stephen King, this is an awesome game like a movie about a book. Combat is brief and the light mechanic makes it more cinematic then grindy.

Assassin's Creed: If you skip the side missions (which can be kinda grindy), the main storyline is a very good tale. Plenty of epic span across all of the games, and excellent characters.

Bioshock 1&2: There's a lot of wandering around just killing splicers, but the way that the story is told through Audio diaries instead of thrown at you is neat. There's a whole lot of rather interesting philosophical discussion on the downfall of rapture and the reasons why it was built and why it failed.

Half Life 2: Well, there's a whole lot of killing some boring combine and lots of environment puzzles that keep it from being "movielike". But there is a very interesting story being told or silently presented to the player as you move from one area to the next.

 

[Lilani]

I don't mind about the genre, any genre can tell a good story, including strategy games. I don't need graphics to be immersed I read a lot of books and sometimes prefer it to films. Are there any good interactive experiences that really tells a good story?

Things I'm looking for:
1) Character(s) you care about.
2) Coherent setting, where the game doesn't need to tell you all of the lore explicitly. E.g. Mass effect
3) No grinding, I don't want to spend 20+ hours in dungeons killing minions. E.g. Bastion
4) For Japanese interactive novels especially, the female character(s) have to have some believable depth beyond just being pretty. E.G. Narcissu
5) For free world games there has to be some particular story line that is intentionally written. E.g. Skyrim
6) Music that feels right does a lot for immersion. E.g. GTA: Vice city
7) Good translation where a lot of effort was put in to make it smooth.

Though the storyline hasn't concluded yet, Half Life 2 and its two episodes are extremely well-paced, well written, and are exemplary examples of perfectly blending gameplay and story. Though the last episode ends with a cliffhanger, there is more officially sanctioned HL3 news swirling about than ever before, so it seems you won't have to wait much longer for a conclusion for that story. Either way, a truly unique and satisfying game experience.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Planescape Torment. You can go almost the entire game without ever fighting an enemy, and often the dialogue options are more gratifying anyways.

 

[goodman528]

Have you played Mass Effect?

Yes, played most of 1, watched 2 on youtube lets play, will wait for alternate ending mod or DLC before playing 3 in the summer.

Heavy Rain

Don't have access to PS3 right now.

Alan Wake: If you like Stephen King, this is an awesome game like a movie about a book. Combat is brief and the light mechanic makes it more cinematic then grindy.

Assassin's Creed: If you skip the side missions (which can be kinda grindy), the main storyline is a very good tale. Plenty of epic span across all of the games, and excellent characters.

Bioshock 1&2: There's a lot of wandering around just killing splicers, but the way that the story is told through Audio diaries instead of thrown at you is neat. There's a whole lot of rather interesting philosophical discussion on the downfall of rapture and the reasons why it was built and why it failed.

Half Life 2: Well, there's a whole lot of killing some boring combine and lots of environment puzzles that keep it from being "movielike". But there is a very interesting story being told or silently presented to the player as you move from one area to the next.

Alan Wake progresses too slowly and don't have such a good story because there's not a lot of character development, also the combat played out the same way every time and becomes a grind. It was a game I really looked forward to after playing Max Payne.

Played Half Life 2 when it came out, and was very disappointed, felt it was just all hype and no substance. I really don't see why so many people like it, the source engine is not very good artistically, it don't make beautiful environments. Environmental puzzles and first person shooter doesn't really go well together, it just feels frustrating when I'm not shooting.

Tried Bioshock, that was quite good, but didn't have the patience to finish it. Assassin's Creed sounds like too much grinding, and it's like X files in that the creators don't really know where the story is going, so that's very bad. It's much better if they just make one game, one story, and move on, but now they are just making a cash product.

 

[Erana]

http://www.choiceofgames.com/category/our-games/

Choice of Games are pretty much choose your own adventure games for a more mature audience. They're great; I'd say give them a go!

 

[Kahunaburger]

http://www.choiceofgames.com/category/our-games/

Choice of Games are pretty much choose your own adventure games for a more mature audience. They're great; I'd say give them a go!

In that vein, try Shade [http://www.eblong.com/zarf/zplet/shade.html]. It's interactive fiction, but there are no real puzzles and you can finish it very quickly. It's something I'd compare to a really solid short story.

 

[Diablo2000]

To The Moon.
Go and play it.
Is pretty short but awesome is a game and you won't regret it...

 

[AndrewF022]

Phantasmagoria

The first one though, not so much the second one, unless you really like rats... I joke, but it is shit, avoid it.

 

[Auron225]

Another Code R is basically a book in game form. Pretty light-hearted, no combat at all (conflict of course but no combat) - I enjoyed it a lot.