Best Game Stories??

[gaggle64]

Nintendo's plots are often just cannisters for their superb character writing. Majora's Mask is a superb story telling experience as you essentially save the world one individual at a time, while Animal Crossing makes you believe there are actual intelligences living and working in there. The Paper Mario series is stuffed full of witty dialogue and genuinly charming characters, and Midna from TP is easily one of the most interesting and enthralling video game characters I've ever seen.

[Jonnas]

I guess Gaggle said it all. Fire Emblem usually has great characters, too.

 

Earthbound has one of the worst stories I've ever seen, but the nice, quirky secondary characters made me go on to really appreciate the ending. And it has one of the few villains I've ever hated with a passion.

 

And Link's Awakening stands as the game that managed to create more emotions with the simplest of stories.

 

Nintendo games are like the 1st Season of Lost. It's all about the characters, really.

[Dan_Dare]

Bioshock

The Darkness - the story itself was good if a little standard, but it was perfectly told, and the music/ atmosphere of that game was astounding.

Chrono Trigger! - I agree with what Dan said about JRPG's. But most rules have their exceptions . A charming tale.

Beyond Good and Evil

 

I guess those are the ones that stand out in recent memory. I would have suggested Metroid Prime, but I know that it was pretty thin in terms of story...

 

And for the record; all Zelda games have shite stories. No really.

 

 

re: the darkness: The story was alright, but so badly let down by the voice acting of the protagonist that I found it utterly boring. oh well. Other characters- his girlfriend particularly, were far better and more interesting.

[mariosmentor]

re: the darkness: The story was alright, but so badly let down by the voice acting of the protagonist.

 

Vaan and Tidus make this guys voice seem like heaven.

 

I thought the voice was alright and fit the character nicely. However, the great dialogue probably helped. Poor dialogue can affect voice acting quite a bit.

[The Bard]

Really? I really liked the voice acting for Jackie, yes it was fairly typically New York esque, but I found it very ingenuous all the same.

[mariosmentor]

Really? I really liked the voice acting for Jackie, yes it was fairly typically New York esque, but I found it very ingenuous all the same.

 

Yeah the voice is fine, but it could have been done badly like it is in most games.

 

It's not the voice that makes it shine I think but the writing and direction of the voice actors.

[Dan_Dare]

to me he sounded like he'd been awake for about a week. His accent was fine but he sounded really, really tired. There was just no emotion going on. Also, his complete lack of surprise at having giant tentacles from hell burst out from his back made me loose alot of my suspended disbelief.

[Jamba]

Oh I forgot about Advent rising again! Really like the story in this and it was properly written out as well. In fact the other 2 games were already written but the original got a bad recpetion which was totally uncalled for.

 

Was really chomping at the bit for the sequel, shame really.

[Dan_Dare]

I heard advent rising was just a technical mess. shame, really- the idea of a properly thought out, well written game was a good one.

 

 

generally, game stories suck so hard and i think alot of the blame can be placed on the medium's inferiority complex with cinema. Most devs are all 'zomg, our game is like a film only you control bits of it!' Which is a complete sack of balls and we all know it. All they ever produce is tacked on useless exposition cut scenes to give nothing more than shoddy context to 'Macho Space Marine XXV' and his teenage power trip fantasy antics. Gears of War being a prime example: I've completed that game close to three times now and there are bits that just make no sense. none whatsoever. It's one of the worst told stories of all time with no decernable plot, character development or depth to it. Bullshit!

 

Games are not movies and shouldn't be treated as such (MGS can suck my nadsack, too fyi) they should tell stories by using spatial exploration, example not exposition and dialogue worked in to the game, not latched on like some parasite. In short, they should tell stories like Half life 2.

[Jamba]

In short, they should tell stories like Half life 2.

 

Please don't get me started on the storyline of Half Life 2. In short, I felt it was tacked on. The videos were a good idea but a very cheap one.

[Guest Jordan]

HL2, EP1 and EP2 have some characters which i truely felt for and enjoyed listening to.

 

There are so many games where i've skipped cut scenes because the characters are as interesting as a plank of wood.

[Dan_Dare]

Please don't get me started on the storyline of Half Life 2. In short, I felt it was tacked on. The videos were a good idea but a very cheap one.

 

so the way that every single area of the game was specifically designed as a piece of story telling didn't grab your attention?

 

dude you are so, so wrong. It's not the simplest means of telling the story but you clearly just missed it.

[Mundi]

to me he sounded like he'd been awake for about a week. His accent was fine but he sounded really, really tired. There was just no emotion going on. Also, his complete lack of surprise at having giant tentacles from hell burst out from his back made me loose alot of my suspended disbelief.

 

Well I loved his voice, felt like it was right for his character.

But his lack of surprise because of the whole tentacle thing was just really bad....

[Mr. Bananagrabber]

Half Life 2's story is the ultimate example of why video games can be a better canvas for plot and character development than film imo. It's a shame that for every Alyx and Eli there's a Master Chief and a Marcus Fenix.

[Jamba]

so the way that every single area of the game was specifically designed as a piece of story telling didn't grab your attention?

 

dude you are so, so wrong. It's not the simplest means of telling the story but you clearly just missed it.

 

I didn't give a rats ass about anyone but dog and alex the whole way through the game. And I still don't. Most of the characters had really good acting but the actualy emotional connection. From what I can tell, they made the game with certain events written from the beginning, like the set pieces and things like "scared people huddled underneath window". The main overarching story seems extremely tagged on. All on monitors and tv screens with the main bad guy almost telling you directly the main plot? Thats just like telling the player that they had to find some excuse to explain what was going on.

[spirited away]

I think that Valve are great at storytelling. The blend of cross-referencing, spatial exploration, and the odd form of exposition (the monitors/screens et.c - incorporated smoothly into the game world) really helped me to pick up the story in an unintrusive way.

 

Dan Dare, would you agree that games such as Bioshock, (that allow greater use of perception and exploration to piece together the backstory), possess stronger narrative experiences than say a GOW-style storytelling experience - that consists of exposition solely in the forms of drip-fed cutscenes and dialogue. I've always found that method detracts from the immersion of games - I like to feel as if im taking on the role of a character, not sheperding him to his lineated path, but being led their myself. Which is kind of why I don't mind the lead protagonists in narritive-driven games being insipid bores, because their lack of charisma means you can impose yourself onto the character, a la Bioshock, Gordan Freeman, MC.

 

Not sure if that paragraph makes much sense but ah well.

[Zell]

I think the best part of Bioshock's storytelling is the audiodiaries. Though it wouldn't have been achieved without the fantastic voice acting.

 

Metroid Prime's story was told in such an amazing way... why did they have to fuck it up and make it all Halo in 3?

 

I'm playing through Chrono Trigger at the moment and it has one of the best RPG storylines ever.

 

The part at the Ocean Palace was awesome.

 

[Jamba]

I think that Valve are great at storytelling. The blend of cross-referencing, spatial exploration

 

OK can you explain this because I don't remember a single bit of the storyline that was helped by this. I think that HL2 was very good at showing WHAT was going on just not very good at show WHY or building that much of an emotional link. In fact, like many people, I found Alex to be very annoying, unlike her Dad who was a dude.

[spirited away]

OK can you explain this because I don't remember a single bit of the storyline that was helped by this. I think that HL2 was very good at showing WHAT was going on just not very good at show WHY or building that much of an emotional link. In fact, like many people, I found Alex to be very annoying, unlike her Dad who was a dude.

 

Well maybe i'm getting my words mixed up but I learnt quite a bit about Freeman, his role and his backstory through references to the accident and emotions he evoked in other characters - bearing in mind I started at Half Life 2. Also just wandering around City 17 and taking in the sites, the people, the architecture, helps piece together the world and the situation that the human race finds itself in. I probably misunderstanding the concept of 'spatial exploration'.

 

The WHY is yet to come. Seems to be building up to a big climax.

[Jamba]

Yeah but you could see that as Valve just wanting to give Freeman a Mesiah role (which they did so much it actually REALLY pissed me off). And the references to Black Mesa were mere sprinklings really, mostly when someone said "remember me from black mesa?" which was just a way of saying "this is your friend".

 

There were only 2 things in the game that felt full of character and not diluted.

Dog and Lavern (and they weren't even human!)

 

The WHY is yet to come. Seems to be building up to a big climax.

 

Yay, 3 episodes later. Making it a feel a bit like Lost aren't we? What, with the carrot and stick and carrot and stick?

 

Lost actually sparks intruige though, making you speculate about both the WHAT and the WHY. HL2 gave you all of the WHAT (well all that you would be getting that episode) and all of the WHY is done by the screens. Can you see why I think that it's taked on?

 

My interest in what was going on completed disappeared as soon as I got on that water bike and I found myself just completing the rest of the game out of sheer force. Really, honestly couldn't give a shit about any of the characters or the story world (except for dog, i wanna take him home).

[McMad]

My interest in what was going on completed disappeared as soon as I got on that water bike and I found myself just completing the rest of the game out of sheer force. Really, honestly couldn't give a shit about any of the characters or the story world (except for dog, i wanna take him home).

 

So you didn't actually enjoy the gameplay of Half-Life 2 I take it then?

[spirited away]

 

Lost actually sparks intruige though, making you speculate about both the WHAT and the WHY. HL2 gave you all of the WHAT (well all that you would be getting that episode) and all of the WHY is done by the screens. Can you see why I think that it's taked on?

 

 

I think I understand what you mean by the WHY being tacked on now. I never really paid attention to the screens (bar the first few), because it was tedious having to decipher the verbose philisophical garbage that came from that old dude and thus I don't understand the motives and reasons behind everything. That would have been alright if it wasn't the only means of explanation. To me it was just reams of text ( with the subtitles on) that meant little. I feel a little shortchanged now.

 

To me the What is beautifully scripted stuff though.

[Jamba]

So you didn't actually enjoy the gameplay of Half-Life 2 I take it then?

 

Rarely. It all felt very smooth and pollished but from a gameplay point of view I just had a huge amount of "so what?" going on most of the time. I liked the first one because of the puzzles but there was very little of this as it was more tactical gunplay this time. It just felt like a shooter with the occasional gravity gun puzzle and even those were pretty poor. From a game point of view, I was fairly unstimulated for most of the game (i.e. all of the middle).

 

I think I understand what you mean by the WHY being tacked on now. I never really paid attention to the screens (bar the first few), because it was tedious having to decipher the verbose philisophical garbage that came from that old dude and thus I don't understand the motives and reasons behind everything. That would have been alright if it wasn't the only means of explanation. To me it was just reams of text ( with the subtitles on) that meant little. I feel a little shortchanged now.

 

To me the What is beautifully scripted stuff though.

 

True the WHAT was very well scripted. But lets extrapolate that into any other form of culture and what you have is a piece of media or art that tries to do very little other than what you see. This is why I think that it has no story as such.

 

Well scripted sequences with little attention to WHY anything is happening is the definition of an Action Movie to me. It all kind of turned out like Transformers the Movie (2007), accept with Sam the main character missing entirely (being the best bit of the movei btw). That said, everyone and his dog new that it was going to be a bit of fun with no expectations of it being a piece of classic cinema. But HL2 has herritage in greatness and variety of gameplay which was completely lacking.

 

I know Dan is going to hate me for saying this but I found the actual story, characters, gameplay and setting in GoW to be superior to HL2 in everyway. Sure it was very homo-erotically "marine cliche" but who cares? It new that and it even takes the piss with it. HL2 may have been technologically fantastic and groundbreaking which they deserve praise for but just like Crysis, its nothing that I want out of a game.

[Deathjam]

Don't care if I have mentioned this before. Just saw the final fantasy retrospective on gametrailers and there was so little love for Vagrant Story. Story is so deep and well told. And yet I get the feeling that barely anyone has played this game. If people here still have a PS1 playing device, get this game and try it. It still looks fine to this day and has a lot more entertaining features than just its story. It also has a wealth of replayability so you won't be done with it too soon.

[Solo]

Max Payne

 

(and its sequel)