Please recommend me a good interactive story experience

[Matan]

Someone's already mentioned it and as soon as I saw this thread the first game that came to mind was 'The Longest Journey'.

'The Longest Journey: Dreamfall' is also good but the first one is definitely better.

'Grim Fandango' is also a fantastic game.

These are all older PC games and not entirely sure where you'd get hold of them now but well worth it if you can find them.

 

[Sacman]

Well, Deus Ex...

If you can get passed the aged visuals, the core design was and still is ahead of it's time and offers a intricate, player driven, expansive story... well characterized 3 dimensional characters... a fleshed out and engaging world which the story does a great job of leading you through... the best part about the world is that it's fleshed out by the player, lots of options to delve deeper into the world through lots of different facets, in the context of the world, like news articles and emails... it really adds to the immersion factor...

and of course the hybrid gameplay offers a lot of options for character building through actual gameplay... not just picking a dialogue option...<.<

Also, it's like 5 bucks...

I might add that the new Deus Ex is worth playing too... story was pretty good... characters were pretty good... though the biggest draws are the pretty visuals and the improved combat... not as good story or character wise(or gameply wise to an extent), but it's still worth a look...<.<

 

[Matan]

Well Deus Ex... <

Can't believe I didn't mention this.

Sacman sums it up nicely. The original Deus Ex is still in my top 3 games of all time

 

[Sacman]

Well Deus Ex... <

Can't believe I didn't mention this.

Sacman sums it up nicely. The original Deus Ex is still in my top 3 games of all time

Yus... it's at the top of my list...<.<

 

[Funkysandwich]

Have you played Fallout 1 and 2 yet? Both dirt cheap, will run on any computer and are full of interesting characters.

Also, you could try Grim Fandango or Full Throttle. Both are old school Lucas Arts point and click games. Both are excellent.

 

[Glover09]

How about the recent Batman games, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. I couldn't put them down until I finished the stories of both, and while AAs core is better, I think the ending of AC (no DLC mind you) was incredible.

Apart from that I can't really say much. Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 had good stories. Both Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron and Elite Squadron have good stories that kind of weave into the framework of the movies, something I didn't pick up on until my latest viewing of Return of the Jedi. Errrr....

Oh, have you played either the Sly Cooper games or the Jak & Daxter games? They both have good stories that while connected, can hold themselves up as solo stories and games.

 

[Skoldpadda]

Super Mario Bros 2 has a deep and involving storyline that will haunt you for weeks afterward.

 

[Truniron]

Good old Clock Tower for the SNES. It surprised and scared me the first time I played it. The down side (for some gamers) is that it is a point-and-click game, but it is really worth playing.

 

[Schaaka]

ChronoCross, the epitome of creative story for a game - Older games did have the best storylines.

Which got me thinking. Was there any recent game that I played and can vouch that it has a good storyline? ..hmm? Portal2 had a pretty fun story to it.

I fell sorry for anyone who suggests Mass Effect. Mass Effect1 had a very generic, boring dialogues and story. 2&3 do not look to redeem themselves.

 

[TheGreatAndPowerfulZOG]

Take a look at The Darkness, Alpha Protocol, and Catherine. All have great characters that you'll get invested in. Alpha Protocol has some of the best character interaction stuff around.

 

[Richardplex]

Fate/Stay Night. A Japanese visual novel which is easily my favourite story of all time. Its characters are actually deep and endearing, the basic story easy to follow, though there are a lot of plot twists, and the seemingly basic and simple story is incredibly dark and deep as you explore it. It's broken up into 3 routes, each starting at the same place but with a small change near the beginning lead to completely different stories and levels of how dark they are. The first two arcs being 20-25 hours long each and the third being 40-50 hours. It's not lost its position as best visual novel of all time since 2004 when it was made, I've yet to see a review give it below a 10.

Spoiler: The basic plot if you're interested

The basic story is that every 60 years, 7 modern day mages (who aren't actually that powerful) are chosen by an omnipotent vessel known as the Holy Grail to fight to the death in order to acquire the holy grail, which will grant the owner one wish. Each magus is given a hero of the past to fight for them, known as a servant. These are actually heroes; Ireland's Cu Chulainn and Hercules are two examples. I'd give more examples but the servants keep their identities secret, since knowing whom the hero is will give you their weakness. For example, if a hero was Achilles, finding out his identity would mean you would know to attack his heel. The story telling and characterisation is done so well that despite knowing the main character's servant's story already, I was moved to tears by it (and I'm one of those manly men who can't cry normally).

If you (or anyone) is interested, PM me and I'll tell you how to get it, installing it can be painful by yourself.

 

[Schaaka]

Japanese visual novel? I do believe those are called Anime, good sir.

 

[Richardplex]

Japanese visual novel? I do believe those are called Anime, good sir.

With all due respect good sir, you could not be much further from the truth. A visual novel is more like a book with music, character sprites and environments, along with choices. Voice acting optional. Barely any make it outside Japan though, even fan translated, so it's cool not knowing of them.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Silent Hill 2 ticks all of the boxes as does Heavy Rain and the upcoming Spec Ops: The Line...

 

[Padwolf]

I suggest a little game called Shadow of Memories on the PS2. It's a strange game but it is a good interactive story experience.

 

[goodman528]

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Thank you all for the suggestions. Will check out To the moon, Another Code R, and I am already on Choice of games.

Will save Fate/Stay night for later, it seems like the kind of thing I would want to do in one go over a weekend. Thanks for the offer to help me install, maybe in a few weeks time. There is an anime of the same name, which is better?

I have tried fallout 1 and 2 before, they are not particularly easy games to be honest, reminds me of jagged alliance 2, in that you have the freedom to run into ridiculously difficult combat situations. I just died too much.

For Deus Ex, the graphics really haven't stood up so well because they went for a realistic approach instead of artistic, having recently played Human revolution (which was very good), I can't really look past the poor visuals.

I just looked up Catherine and Crono cross, they are interesting, so maybe laters.

 

[Richardplex]

snip

My moment as come to save someone from the anime, I can die happy now!
The anime is about 9 hours long, and is basically the bare bones of the Fate route (the first route) with a massive part of Unlimited Bladeworks (second route) shoehorned in. So as you'd expect from condensing 25hours + extra's into 9 hours, it's kind of really mediocre. And god the fight scenes in the anime are badly animated, have the character's severely nerfed, and completely go against what the visual novel says is possible.

TL;DR, The visual novel is to the anime as heaven is to earth.

And yeah, PM me whenever, I'm always happy to help. I guess you mean each route over a weekend; it took me 80 hours to finish one playthrough of each route, and I'm a really fast reader.

And don't watch the prequel Fate/Zero; it's good, but it spoils every plot twist of Heaven's Feel (final route) in the first 15 minutes.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

These are all games that I've played where I feel that the story and gameplay merged well and it never felt like story was being sacrificed for gameplay and vice-versa. I assume that that's what you mean by "good interactive story experience."

Bioshock
Half-Life
Half-Life 2
Portal
Portal 2
Red Dead Redemption
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Chrono Trigger

 

[5-0]

Thank you all for the suggestions. Will check out To the moon, Another Code R, and I am already on Choice of games.

Will save Fate/Stay night for later, it seems like the kind of thing I would want to do in one go over a weekend. Thanks for the offer to help me install, maybe in a few weeks time. There is an anime of the same name, which is better?

I have tried fallout 1 and 2 before, they are not particularly easy games to be honest, reminds me of jagged alliance 2, in that you have the freedom to run into ridiculously difficult combat situations. I just died too much.

For Deus Ex, the graphics really haven't stood up so well because they went for a realistic approach instead of artistic, having recently played Human revolution (which was very good), I can't really look past the poor visuals.

I just looked up Catherine and Crono cross, they are interesting, so maybe laters.

If you're willing to persevere with Deus Ex, there's an excellent guide to installing graphics mods for it here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1235278
Of course the game will still look aged as hell, but these will give you much nicer lighting effects, models, etc.

Failing that, my choice would be Red Dead Redemption. It has well drawn characters, terrific, exciting music, and a beast of an ending. I know you said you don't need graphics, but it's a very pretty game.