Video game stories

[Verrenxnon]

Yahtzee keeps blabbering on about how great the story in Silent Hill 2 is. I haven't played it at all but I had heard some of the major points. I decided to read the plot synopsis on wikipedia. I have to say that even reading a very short description of the story was quite creepy.

This just got me thinking. Which games have really good story lines, ones that rival films or decent movies. The only one I can think of is Bioshock. I'm not really a horror fan though so I'd like to find some more good stories that aren't solely horror based.

Of course old games like Monkey Island are cool but they are more comedies. Still any suggestions welcome.

Silent Hill 2's extraordinarily good and lends much to the literary practice of an unreliable narrator. It has a lot in common with art movies.

Final Fantasy VII's got a stable of dynamic, round, iconoclastic characters and an outwardly unreliable narrator.

I'm with you on Bioshock.

There's a particular beauty to Brutal Legend's characters, particularly Eddie. Read the game structurally, and you'll find more pain than exultation in the protagonist.

Conker's Bad Fur Day holds a special place in my heart for satirizing youthful cartoons and movie blockbusters. It's particularly well-written, despite its toilet humor being fairly heavy-handed.

If you cut 50% of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snake's redundant dialogue, you'd have a wondrous blend of cinema and videogame.

And let's not forget Portal...

 

[SantoUno]

I am replaying through Silent Hill 2 right now. Yes it is such a great game with one of the best stories ever. Seriously every single event that occur has a meaning behind it, and it really gets you thinking to how it relates to the overall story and the backstory of each character.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I thought that some of the ways that some of the plots played out in oblivion where just plain genius. Specifically the dark brotherhood as a whole and that fighter's guild quest where you kill that "town full of goblins." You know the one.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

The Legacy of Kain series has probably the best storyline of all time, in my opinion.

VAE VICTUS!

THANKYOU! I agree, also I've never even met someone else who has played them!

8D

*high fives*

People don't know what they're missing!

Yeah, mind you last night I just convinced my Flat Mate to play the first Blood Omen, he's liking it ^_^

 

[s-l-u-g]

Silent hill series.
Metal gear 1-2 [I havn't played the others, sorry]
Fable 1 [fable 2 might have been here if it HAD A STORY]
Left 4 dead! [zombies. That's the story. It's a winner.]
Dead space
Fall out3
FEAR
Assassin's Creed 1 & 2

There yah go. ^_^

 

[Ericb]

Silent Hill 2 pretty much takes the cake as far as psycho-symbolic character exploration in videogames go.

--

Planescape: Torment had some pretty incredible writing as well, on many occasions. How many games do you know of in which you can defeat the last boss by convincing him to give up through conversation?

And there's a particular point in said game where the amnesiac protagonist experiences memories from two people in the same situation at the same time. Excruciating to say the least.

--

Metal Gear Solid started out interesting, but the over-stylized fluff of a story really forced me to pay full attention to the good gameplay and ignore everything else. By the way, the third one kicks ass. Its gameplay, I mean.

But I will say that the end boss part is of ingenious writing and conceiving.

Also, The End. He was the first and foremost reason I wanted to play that game in the first place.

--


And finally, the story in Final Fantasy Tactics is jarringly good in my opinion, with a solid plot with a bucket full of interesting and believable characters, which is quite a rare feat compared the big soap opera mess that the main series began to be from VII onwards.

Few games have I played where there were both social commentary on the conflicts between nobles and low class subjects and manipulation of history through concocting of myths and religion.

 

[ajb924]

The World Ends With You.
I could see the story from this game being a film. It was so well put together, the charecters were amazing, just everything about the storyline was so well done... If you haven't played it go read the plot synopsis or buy it.

If not that then the Phoenix Wright series. I really enjoyed the storyline of the games.

 

[A.I. Sigma]

The Legacy of Kain series has probably the best storyline of all time, in my opinion.

VAE VICTUS!

THANKYOU! I agree, also I've never even met someone else who has played them!

8D

*high fives*

People don't know what they're missing!

Yeah, mind you last night I just convinced my Flat Mate to play the first Blood Omen, he's liking it ^_^

That game is near impossible to get. I can't find it anywhere, and Ebay always quickly zooms out of my price range. D8

 

[chozo_hybrid]

The Legacy of Kain series has probably the best storyline of all time, in my opinion.

VAE VICTUS!

THANKYOU! I agree, also I've never even met someone else who has played them!

8D

*high fives*

People don't know what they're missing!

Yeah, mind you last night I just convinced my Flat Mate to play the first Blood Omen, he's liking it ^_^

That game is near impossible to get. I can't find it anywhere, and Ebay always quickly zooms out of my price range. D8

I bought it on Trademe around a year ago, for pc. Was a ***** to get working, but it did in the end.

Hang in there, you'll get it ^^

 

[A.I. Sigma]

The Legacy of Kain series has probably the best storyline of all time, in my opinion.

VAE VICTUS!

THANKYOU! I agree, also I've never even met someone else who has played them!

8D

*high fives*

People don't know what they're missing!

Yeah, mind you last night I just convinced my Flat Mate to play the first Blood Omen, he's liking it ^_^

That game is near impossible to get. I can't find it anywhere, and Ebay always quickly zooms out of my price range. D8

I bought it on Trademe around a year ago, for pc. Was a ***** to get working, but it did in the end.

Hang in there, you'll get it ^^

I sure hope so.

 

[orangebandguy]

Serious Sam

I really loved the story in Half Life 2, and looking forward to it's conclusion.

Spoiler

Not Eli! Why? Why??????

 

[TheDoctor455]

Here are some decent stories for you:
Fallout 3
Half-Life 2
COD: Modern Warfare 1.
Zeno Clash

Now... here are the REALLY GREAT stories:
Mass Effect
Dragon Age: Origins
Portal
Silent Hill 2
Neverwinter Nights 2
Assassin's Creed (1)
Batman: Arkham Asylum
The Witcher (just stick with it long enough, and it gets AWESOME)
Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines
The Path
Psychonauts
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (can't beat it due to tech issues, but I know its heavily based on H.P. Lovecraft's "Shadow Over Innsmouth".)
Day of the Tentacle (its sense of humor makes it one of the most original stories ever told)
Ceville (just fucking play it)

 

[Zersy]

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. That had a great story, and I hold up its ending cutscene as the benchmark for video game endings.

There are few games where people will stand up and salute.

The MGS series is in that category of games where people stand up and salute at the ending cut scene.

As for other good stories Batman AA had a great story that molded perfectly with the comic and characters, so great that it has become one of my top games ever.

A Great Feauture only makes a game cool.

A Great Story and experiance makes a game a memory.

 

[esperandote]

I really liked the story on MGS2, too bad it hasn't been continued.

as already mentioned, MGS3 and SH2

 

[Chipperz]

Halo has a very underrated story, due to two things:

(1) People think that it's just another 'shoot the aliens' game with no real plot or backstory
(2) People think the Halo games revolve solely around the Master Chief (a huge criticism of the comics set between Halo 2 and 3 was that the Master Chief hardly appeared in what was considered 'his own comic series', despite the fact that it's been made clear several times that Halo is about more than just the Chief).

The thing is, it actually has a very well thought out backstory shown via (soon to be 4) games, 6 novels, a graphic novel and a comic series, plus the ambiguous Halo: Chronicles with Peter Jackson at the helm. It is about a whole universe of characters and stories and everything is linked, so I would consider it my favourite game story so far.

Another good one would be Assassin's Creed, since the story revolves around what happens in the present day and is larger than the gameplay itself (OK, the gameplay had a few flaws, but it was still a very good game...). It did something few games have done which is to seperate the main story from gameplay (save for the bits where you walk around as Desmond), and it worked, so Assassin's Creed would get my vote too.

Oooh yes. Halo's storyline is excellent - I still wanna play an entire game based on Sergeant Jackson!

Other games that have excellent story are Vampire The Masquerade : Bloodlines, Max Payne and any BioWare game (They're all basically the same storywise, but it's a great story...)

 

[Julianking93]

The MGS storyline obviously.

Kingdom Hearts comes in at a close second though

 

[DarkPanda XIII]

Funny that I agree with alot of them, Kingdom Hearts, Legacy of Kain (kill me though that I've never been able to find the first one x.x;, Final Fantasy IX was very good (so don't let anybody tell you otherwise), Final Fantasy XII was good in my opinion as well. My favorite was MediEvil, it was light and goofy for a plot, but it didn't flutter about with random plot twists and stayed on course throughout the game (though I'm saying the original, MediEvil Resurrection sort of pained me as they added some things I didn't like)

 

[hermes]

It depends of what your are looking for. Out of the games I had played:
Final Fantasy X has the best story (if maybe a little too cheesy at times).
God of War I has the best storytelling.
Bioshock and Braid had the best story twists.
MGS2 has the best story spaghetti.

The only one I can think of is Bioshock. I'm not really a horror fan though so I'd like to find some more good stories that aren't solely horror based.

I too agree that Bioshock's story is one of the very few decent ones I've played through, but I resent that some people think it's a horror game. It's very violent, but not violent to be classified as a horror game.
It'd be interesting to see a Bioshock game with acutal horror in it's story.

But Bioshock is a horror game; or at least, has some seriously unsettling stages, like the Medical Pavilion. The game went from horror to action the more it advanced in the story. Not all horror has to be violent, that is the difference between Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

 

[FalloutJack]

The Legacy of Kain series has probably the best storyline of all time, in my opinion.

VAE VICTUS!

THANKYOU! I agree, also I've never even met someone else who has played them!

8D

*high fives*

People don't know what they're missing!

Yeah, mind you last night I just convinced my Flat Mate to play the first Blood Omen, he's liking it ^_^

That game is near impossible to get. I can't find it anywhere, and Ebay always quickly zooms out of my price range. D8

I bought it on Trademe around a year ago, for pc. Was a ***** to get working, but it did in the end.

Hang in there, you'll get it ^^

I sure hope so.

Hear me, Legacy of Kain people! I am savvy on the vampiric exploits! (I have played them all.) However...I didn't really like Soul Reaver 2. Story was fine, but game was crazy-hard.

Anyway, I like a number of Final Fantasy stories (except 4 and 8), Shadow of the Colossus, and...to throw in a curve here...Shadow Madness.

 

[hermes]

Halo has a very underrated story, due to two things:

(1) People think that it's just another 'shoot the aliens' game with no real plot or backstory
(2) People think the Halo games revolve solely around the Master Chief (a huge criticism of the comics set between Halo 2 and 3 was that the Master Chief hardly appeared in what was considered 'his own comic series', despite the fact that it's been made clear several times that Halo is about more than just the Chief).

The thing is, it actually has a very well thought out backstory shown via (soon to be 4) games, 6 novels, a graphic novel and a comic series, plus the ambiguous Halo: Chronicles with Peter Jackson at the helm. It is about a whole universe of characters and stories and everything is linked, so I would consider it my favourite game story so far.

The problem I have with the Halo Universe is that the story is actually better in all sorts of side items that the games itself. Yet the game is the center of the universe and the thing that started all. Because of that, if the game doesn't sell my that the universe is more than a 'shoot the aliens' starred by an overpowered killing machine (kind of like Duke Nukem, but in space), it is very unlikely that I will invest in reading all those novels, watching all those movies and buying all those comics to prove me wrong.
It's similar to a discusion I had with another person that claimed that the last Pirates of the Caribean story makes perfect sense because if you invest several hours reading extra side information in the site it all becames cristal clear. If a movie is the center of your universe, you better sell me the universe in the movie.