What games that you have played have genuinely great stories?

[Zeema]

Infamous 1 and 2

and im enjoying Assassin's Creed story atm

 

[Reg5879]

The Metal Gear Solid Series...even though at times things could get a bit confusing.

Heavy Rain

Some of the Command & Conquers...some had great stories, others...not so much.

Erm...there are probably others but I can't think of anything else at the moment.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The stories to Hotel Dusk, Last Window, Infinite Space, Fire Emblem 7 and the Professor Layton series are very engaging and awesome.

 

[cfb_rolley]

The Metal Gear Solid Series...even though at times things could get a bit confusing.

Definitely agree! if you can sit through the 238456349853 hours of cut scenes. But I think the fact it's so involved that makes you want to know more. I liked bad company 2 as well for some reason.

 

[rdaleric]

Ion storms aracnorox (sorry for awful spelling) had a great story with some fantastic characters

 

[Flip-Shying]

Heavy Rain, the Half-Life series, and Red Dead Redemption.

 

[Sandernista]

New Vegas
ME1-2
All that jazz.

 

[dimensional]

Most of the ones I would have mentioned have already been said so ill just add Valkyria chronicles, quite a simple story (like most stories) but had a lot of depth and was told phenomenally well (imo).

On a recent note I enjoyed the story to Alice madness returns but I would hesitate to call it great, the ending was quite satisfying though.

 

[floppylobster]

These are games with stories that have 'heart', and that to me makes them good -

Panzer Dragoon Saga
Lock's Quest
Chronotrigger
Shadow of the Colossus
Ico
Another World (Out of this World)
Zelda: Majora's Mask
Zelda: Wind Waker

Aha! Nice to see Ico in there, thank you. I have a bit of a problem with the stories of Nintendo's main franchises in terms of story - there's just something to formulaic about each game for the stories to ever seem anything but adaptations of the original. Freaking love the games though.

Yes but the bullying of the skull kid makes Majora's Mask stand out. The dark tone and a theme of rejection really makes it one of the better Zelda's in terms of storytelling. And some of the side quest stories, like the girl who waits for her lover as the moon descends to crush her are very touching. Wind Waker is there for the way they tell the opening story of Link losing his sister using only Link's eyes. Most of the game is told through his expressions (there was a reason they went with that big cartoon face). Also the descent into the underwater castle (in black and white) is very memorable. As is the final battle.

I have heard that Majora's mask was darker then the rest and that intrigued me, but I've never actually played it, so you're the more informed one about that one. I've played Wind waker, A link to the past, Minish cap and twilight princess and I would say that none of those possess great stories, so I just made an assumption based on that.

Also I'm using a very broad interpretation of 'storytelling' as including theme, character, concept, setting, originality, plot and pacing. So it's quite possible, if you were to focus just on the plot, that you might not be as impressed. I recommend playing Majora's Mask after playing Ocarina of Time. It's like watching 'Alien 3' back to back with 'Aliens' in its tonal shift. And I mean that in a good way.

 

[lovest harding]

Phantom Dust. Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (Zoe's story line, specifically). Lost Odyssey. Planescape: Torment. Syberia (and its sequel). The Darkness. Star Wars: KotOR. Psychonauts. Deadly Premonition (the characters are the real bright spot, though). Mass Effect (both games). I know I'm skipping quite a few, but that's all I could remember off the top of my head.

 

[Woodsey]

The Sands of Time.

Simple, elegant, wonderfully written. The best example of how to write a developing relationship that's appeared in a game.

Unfortunately, most people's suggestions I can't help but think need to be in a sentence that reads "Game X has a great story... for a game".

 

[ImperialSunlight]

Portal 1
Portal 2
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (for iconic and worthy mythology)
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (for more developed and complex characters, more emotion)
Demon's Souls (It had a lot of depth and backstory for those who looked for it but didn't let its story get in the way of the gameplay. Also there was a lot of moral ambiguity due to the feud between mages and priests among other things. For those who are role playing you often genuinely feel bad for your actions as a result of how the story is molded. )
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age II (for story at least)
Super Paper Mario
Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed II
Most Games in the Fire Emblem Series especially FE9 and 10
Ratchet and Clank: Up your Arsenal
Fable 1 (depending on how you look at it)
Soul Series

Edit: Final Fantasy 1 (for actually introducing you to the stoy)

Probably more but I'm not at home so I can't look at my games and think about it.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

The Sands of Time.

Simple, elegant, wonderfully written. The best example of how to write a developing relationship that's appeared in a game.

Unfortunately, most people's suggestions I can't help but think need to be in a sentence that reads "Game X has a great story... for a game".

You have to remember that games have to integrate the story into the gameplay causing those who try to compare game stories to movie and literature based stories to find them smaller or like afterthoughts.

The problem is that Video game stories exist in a different medium than such stories and therefore must be considered by its own standards. While some may complain that a game like Mortal Kombat or Super Smash Brothers have near nonexistant storylines that do nothing but allow the indulgant fighting to be slightly more logical, if they had deep and complex storylines, they would have the complaint that it gets in the way of gameplay, much like later Final Fantasy games, whose cutscenes are often compared to movies.

 

[kidd25]

most likely they already stated all of them in this thread, but it seem that people get mad a good story for copying another story.