The Worst Video Game Plots

[NotPigeon]

Some games don't need plots. Some games don't try to have plots. For lots of earlier games, a plot wasn't even necessary.
But, over time, video games have evolved as a medium, and it has since become almost necessary to have some semblance of a story. Some games just shove it to the side, do it simply so that it doesn't get in the way of the game (Super Mario Galaxy comes to mind). Others have embraced the newfound capability of telling a story within the medium (Phoenix Wright, most JRPGs, so on and so forth). Sometimes, they're better off without.
So, what's the worst plot you've encountered in a game? The overall quality of the game is irrelevant here; a game can be great but still have an incredibly stupid plot.

A really bad one that springs to mind is the recent Sonic the Hedgehog game on the PS3/360. Confusing time travel nonsense that relies heavily on the <a href=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeyWimeyBall>Timey Wimey Ball, a furry romance story, and cut-and-paste plot events add up to something that can only be described as incredibly stupid. The fact that the underlying game sucks doesn't help matters.

 

[mjhhiv]

Whenever one of these pops up, my answer is always the same -

Two Worlds.

 

[buggy65]

Mass Effect...
Anyone see a connection with that and Hellboy?
ex. tenticaled super destroying god with crazy infected guy as his herald

 

[Breedbate]

I disagree. I think 9 is the best, by far.

Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy X-2, every Silent Hill after the first, Resident Evil 4 (though that's very biased, since I believe that Resident Evil should, all around, take a turn towards a more pedestrian type thing, with the player playing a victim who actually must survive, hence earning their title as Survival Horror), all the Elder Scroll Series (though I mostly made up the plots myself, I think a LOT of writing needs to be put into that world to make it more in depth), Alone in the Dark, and that pretty much sums it up.

 

[Redtiebear]

Final Fantasy 10 killed the last of my braincells. It's so bad, you just can't drink the pain away...

 

[teknoarcanist]

"The President has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?"
No. No I am not.

 

[SilentHunter7]

"The President has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?"
No. No I am not.

Beat me to it

 

[Asymptote Angel]

Army of Two. Everything connected to the story--characters, gameplay, dialogue, EVERYTHING--crashed and burned. Every moment of that goddamn game hurt.

 

[Isaac Dodgson]

Well I was gonna say katamari damacy...But Asymptote Angel's avatar distracted me...

It's not the massive chest that distracted me, I just found it really funny for some reason

 

[Birras]

Universe at War:Earth Assault.

Plot Summary:Earth soldiers fight a super advanced race of aliens that decimate Washington D.C. in 30 minutes or less. Super advanced race of alien robots show up commanded by a generic anime mech and save the humans from becoming zombies. You now take control of the cool aliens and kick ass. Now you're aliens that are essentially the Ancients from Stargate. The Queen of the Ancients locks the King of the Badasses in his own mind. Everyone is happy. The End.

 

[Hurray Forums]

Final Fantasy X-2. Mostly because not only did it ruin it's own game and story it managed to ruin what little good was in the story of Final Fantasy 10. That is just taking fail to a whole new level.

 

[merkinater]

mario.....OH and ninja gaiden...both of them, and lastly guitar hero III...yeah its more for the playing but they SADLY made a plot that barly made sence

 

[Saevus]

I'ma go out on a limb here and say Neverwinter Nights 2.

 

[Eiseman]

Star Ocean: Second Story. You may wanna use the restroom first, because I'm about to rant.

Oh, the story started out just fine. Marooning the main character on a foreign planet with its own background and culture was plenty immersive. It was set in a less-developed, swords n' sorcery kind of planet that brought out a nice little fantasy adventure atmosphere, with no shortage of castles, forests, and boat rides. They introduced a good number of colorful characters straight out of the JRPG handbook and give them plenty of depth, often times even optionally. Your actions even determine who joins your party, if anyone at all. Score!

But then they do a total 180 on the second disc. First of all, they waited that long to introduce an actual villain, a heavy cardinal sin (that goes for you too, FF8). But that wasn't even the unforgivable part. The villain turned out to be a legion of several of the most generic, undeveloped Dragonball Z rejects I'd ever seen, whose overall ambition was as stupid as it was convoluted in sci-fi mumbo-jumbo.

This bullshit turn of events totally clashed with the decent developments in the first half and dwarfed any characterization not belonging to the two protagonists. If that was their idea of integrating sci-fi intrigue with medieval-fantasy adventure, then they missed the mark by about five galaxies. Not only that, the story actually grinds to a screeching halt shortly after, turning the rest of the game into a big filibuster for the grand finale. It's just a bunch of light skirmishes against each "main villain" (I'm using that term as loosely as possible) as they decide to barge in and try to "stop" you. And of course, you fight each of these losers one (or two when they're particularly daring!) at a time, each one of them saying "You may have defeated (I don't remember any of their names, surprise), but I am conveniently much stronger than him!" Followed by "NO, how can this be! My conveniently much stronger brother ahead of you will avenge me!" It was like watching a bad Power Rangers story arc.

I can usually tell when a game's going to have a bad story pretty early on, but in this instance I felt genuinely betrayed. Like they knew that the story was going to be shit, so they put on a front to lure me in. That's the real reason I'm raising a stink about it.

 

[Atvomat_Nikonov]

Smackdown Versus Raw 2008. You did the same thing every season mode, unless you started with some form of title. Then you get one extra storyline, then once you finished the storyline it'd be straight back to the beginning. Plus nothing you do ever carries on. You get girlfriends, a movie contract, loads of great things, but nothing ever happens with them.

 

[Theo Samaritan]

every game in EGOSOFT's X series of space games after the first one. The plots are so short and bad that we just see it as an extended tutorial before the sandbox gameplay in the community.

 

[Melaisis]

Star Ocean: Second Story. You may wanna use the restroom first, because I'm about to rant.

All the Star Oceans turned slowly stranger with each new installment. Like the one where you find out that all of life is just a videogame.

 

[Frybird]

Ace Combat 6 - It just hurts that the idea of telling the stories of the people "on the ground" is perfect for the AC Series, but not only the Execution, but the Plot is just Bad.

And YES NAMCO, i fu**ing get what "Dance with the Angels" is supposed to mean, you don't have to repeat it every 5 minutes!! That does not make it clever!


Also, just about every Beat em' Up...why won't they realize that no one cares about the backgrounds of the Characters?

 

[TheGhostOfSin]

How about pong?
Or Pac-man?
Or even worse... Gears of war?