Game With the Best Story? (For school assignment)

[AlloAllo]

Look, it's really hard to me to say this without screaming and writing in caps lock (yep, I am exactly that excited about this game) but I'll go against my entire being and write it as if it was just a normal game.

Planescape: Torment.


No question about it. It asks the biggest question of all ("What can change the nature of a man?") and, most of all, IT ANSWERS IT.

Spoiler

Transcendent One: "I have seen you live a countless lives, Broken One, I have lived your endless quests that accomplish nothing except spread your torment though the multiverse. Then, this is my answer and you are my proof: Nothing can change the nature of a man."
Nameless One: "You are wrong. If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear - whatever you believe can change the nature of a man. I've seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag's heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me."

It talks about the nature of men, it talks about how memories can change a person, it talks about love and forgiveness and the power of words- look, it's just perfect.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Portal 1 and 2. They blend a truly terrifying world and a feeling of isolation with brilliant and hilarious writing and dark humor in a way I have never seen any other game, movie or book succesfully do.
Like that.

And I really feel like you should at least meantion the possibility of true moral choices in games.

Like the one at the end of bastion. It had me thinking for 45 minutes before I finally decided what I should do. Best one I ever seen in a game.

 

[runnernda]

It's hard to say what the best story is, if only because what stories people like is so subjective. I mean, I love the story in Portal since it leaves so much up to the imagination. I think the story in Mass Effect is a good one, but I wouldn't call it the best. I would phrase it more along the lines of "Many gamers refer to Mass Effect as having one of the best storylines" etc etc.

 

[TibJib]

I always liked the story for Final Fantasy 4. It was probably the first game I played as a kid that had a story.

 

[SpaceBat]

Since it's about Narrative, I'd say Ico. Ico, MOTHERFUCKING ICO! I can simply not stress this enough. There are even people who have dissected the game's entire narrative and even explain why it might be considered art. Besides, the story itself is pretty sweet and you're seriously missing out if you don't play it.

Here are the top 3 games with best story IMO:
#1: Ico
#2: Shadow of the Colossus
#3: Planecape Torment

Yeah, Team Ico kicks ass.

 

[Darth Rahu]

Portal, Shadow of the Colossus, Mass Effect, Bastion, Braid, the list goes on dude.

Apparently the captcha for me is Existence... Braid it is then! Existentialism is very edgy!

 

[dickywebster]

I will just hold up silent hill 2 and leave it at that.

 

[Stealthygamer]

Shadows of the Colossus, Persona 4, Mass Effect, Deus Ex, Bioshock

I can go on forever

 

[mewmewgold]

Okami.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ckami
In my opinion this game is generaly beautiful in every way and the most appealing thing I've ever played.

 

[Infernai]

Metal Gear Solid,

Explaining it to anyone is like a university lecture but god damn is it epic.

^ I concur with this statement.

 

[Viirin]

I'm 31 and I've played about 30 MMOs, and so many thousands of games that I can only really say I've been a hardcore gamer with Console, PC, Handheld, Pen & Paper style like Dungeons and Dragons, made my own games, and played games made by friends that no one else will ever see.

That being said, Mass Effect is a definite jewel in storytelling, as even erasing Shepherd from the story and all gameplay, just the socio-political interactions between the fantasy races and the history within the game's universe can be talked about by fans for years, which has already happened. Even without playing it or having interest in games, the story can and has brought other people who simply overheard the story to find interest, even if just basing certain races psychology on our own and seeing how they would react given certain situations. If you can be thorougly entertained by a game's story without even acknowledging the game aspect of said game, I say that's a huge win for your essay's purposes.

Another game I find very impressively written is The Legend of Mana. Unlike any other game I've played, there are three different MAIN storylines totally unique to each other, and beating any of those quest lines gets you to beat the game. However, each of those three quest lines are emotionally involving, and unlike other games, the side quests don't feel like side quests (except the quests for Bud and Lil' Cactus). The first time I beat the Jumi quest line, I cried. I find that a well-told story.

If you tie together Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) 1, 2, and 3, then that's a great story too. The other games in Dragon Quest don't tie in with the rest though. In the first game, you find the hero "Edrick"'s equipment in order to save the world. In the third one, you can have incredible armor and weapons forged for you out of unique and powerful materials. At the end of the third game, the king gives you the title of "Edrick", which explains "who the F is Edrick?" and why that equipment is so awesome in the first game. Only by playing the three first DQ games could you get the emotional satisfaction and intellectual enjoyment out of it, otherwise it wouldn't mean anything.

Metal Gear by itself not so much, but just like Dragon Quest, play at least the first few games. The story gets richer and more convoluded than just in the first game, and it is very understandable even though its an extremely complex story; partially or entirely because it has to do with the behind-the-scenes workings of the government.

One of the other 'best' stories ever told, I say is Ultima Online. The starting movie is great in its openness. You create your character, start, and who knows what after that. No big overarching story or objective, you set your own agenda and goals, and each server has different issues and history- especially since the game came out as the FIRST MMO in 1997. Since then, the EM (event moderators) and GMs (game moderators) and even players have created villages, storylines, and the world itself is permanently different based on player actions within that server. No server has the same storyline now, they're all different as well as the landscape in many places. To my knowledge, Ultima Online is still the only MMO to allow towns to be permanently destroyed and rebuilt elsewhere if the players didn't band together in the town's defense.

 

[Pandabearparade]

Arcanum. An oldie, but the best game story ever told in my view.

 

[Mogget128723]

Bastion, anyone?

This, and Deus Ex Human Revolution.

 

[Jimbo1212]

Final Fantasy VII
Shadow of the Colossus
Bioshock
Silent Hill 2
& just to point out how a games storyline can almost change its genre;
Mass Effect (storyline makes it like a gripping film or novel, not a game)

 

[Erttheking]

Probably Mass Effect, but Halo 3 had some good moments.

 

[doomspore98]

The fallout series is very good with story through gameplay and setting, not sure if bioshock does it better I like both games. Story through story, shadow of the colossus hands down

 

[northeast rower]

I've never seen Shadow of the Colossus as anything besides an overblown "Over the Hedge". If you were to go with a great story I'd go with Bioshock or Assassin's Creed. It's a case of actual response to literature and philosophy (Bioshock) and a Dan Brown novel (Assassin's Creed).

 

[Trodamus]

This thread is difficult to approach because everyone's just piling up their most cherished plots of all time, without realizing that there's an essential question missing.

What makes a plot good? If you're writing this from a games-as-art perspective, you might consider showcasing the game with the most literary plot (read: the plot that employs the most literary devices). With the grade-boosting quote of "literature should be a vehicle for interpretation," you realize that games being a form of literary art is much more reasonable than you think.

So while something like Dragon Age or KOTOR have "good" plots that are epic or have a swathe of character archetypes we enjoy, games like Silent Hill (mainly 2), which employs foreshadowing, unreliable narrators and incredible, unanswerable questions that move our understanding forward the more we discuss it, ultimately are better. Same with ICO or Shadow of the Colossus, both of which leave much to the imagination with the level of inferred emotional interaction between the player avatar and his surroundings.

Metal Gear Solid (again, 2 most especially) is among the few games that actually fits within a literary movement (post modernism), especially notable in that it's actually uniquely Japanese in its post modernity.

So there you go.

 

[Whateveralot]

I really find Deus Ex's story a very amazing thing. Especially because Human Revolution is the first part of the actual storyline, it's an amazingly deep story. It changed my view upon the world. Every time I flip open a newspaper and read something about some new succesful prosthesis, I look upon it in a different way. Not that I'm sceptical, it just opened my eyes to the possibilities and consequences of technology. Also, the way the story is being told. All the details are just right.