Games with good story.

[Rabish Bini]

If you enjoy Star Wars, then Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords has one of the best stories around, completely deconstructing the entire Star Wars mythos and its shitty light vs dark dichotomy.

Other than that, the Metal Gear Solid franchise gets a lot of flak for its convoluted-ness, but if you just play the first 3 (not counting the MSX games), the story actually makes perfect sense with no major plot-holes, although you may need to play 2 more than once.

 

[DoPo]

If you enjoy Star Wars, then Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords has one of the best stories around, completely deconstructing the entire Star Wars mythos and its shitty light vs dark dichotomy.

Yes, while it's working within the Star Wars universe, KOTOR 2 further deconstructs a lot of RPG tropes/cliches. Especially ones employed by BioWare. The Light/Dark side can easily be substituted with the more traditional Good/Evil and the points raised in KOTOR 2 would still stand, for example.

Several times when Kreia lectures you, her words can be viewed as directed at the player and/or many other main characters out there. It's brilliant that way.

 

[Rabish Bini]

If you enjoy Star Wars, then Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords has one of the best stories around, completely deconstructing the entire Star Wars mythos and its shitty light vs dark dichotomy.

Yes, while it's working within the Star Wars universe, KOTOR 2 further deconstructs a lot of RPG tropes/cliches. Especially ones employed by BioWare. The Light/Dark side can easily be substituted with the more traditional Good/Evil and the points raised in KOTOR 2 would still stand, for example.

Several times when Kreia lectures you, her words can be viewed as directed at the player and/or many other main characters out there. It's brilliant that way.

The scene that stands out for me is that refugee at the start of Nar Shaddaa, where you're given the option of either threatening him or giving him a measly amount of credits, and Kreia shows you the outcome of your decision. I felt it was a perfect cross-section of the game's morality theme.

Goddammit now I have the urge to go play it again.

 

[Wary Wolf]

The Last Remnant:

Because the game has such a piss-weak protagonist and the gameplay is so God-awful that I never completed it. Therefore I can make up the end of the story myself, and that is probably better than anything the rest of the game actually had.

Sorry.

For something a little different I might recommend Sacrifice. A curious RTS that had a slightly different lore and story to the typical military based BS of C&C or Warcraft. The story was not as strong perhaps as many of the RPGs mentioned here, but it varied to a degree on the choices you made, giving some interesting replay value.

It also had some very different gameplay which possibly could have taken the RTS into a different direction, but at the time, the RTS was dying out anyway, so never really took off.

As I say, not a *great* story, but very different and better than many of the other RTS's I have played. If you like the genre, you might like to check it out from GOG or the like.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Soul Nomad and the World Eaters is my favorite for story/characters but it's rather spoilery to explain why.

 

[Gengisgame]

snipped for your convenience!

It's not something I just see, and it's certainly not something I read too much into. It's something that anyone can figure out, if they pay attention. It's certainly not pretentious, and neither am I. OP asked for a game with a good story, and Dark Souls is one of the best there is.

Judging by your grammar I can see that you don't really comprehend writing and storytelling, and that makes you upset, but it's really not a reason to quote me and throw a tantrum. Some people need things spelled out for them. For the OP I recommend Dark Souls. For you I would recommend Lego Star Wars.

I called your view pretentious, that is not a personal attack, I simply thought you gave the story more merit than it deserved, you made it personal, actually think about that and read over what you have said, if you can see reason then that bit about me throwing a tantrum should reflect on your own post but given your childish rant over such a basic remark I doubt it.

Given what you have written I believe that this is a case of you just being an overly sensitive fan and I highly doubt you will be able to even see that recommending a game that has a smattering of story element between countless hours of gameplay is a bad idea ON AVERAGE. These are opinions, but if you give out an opinion based on what people want aim for what is considered good by most unless they give you examples of what they like, if you can't even understand that how can you possibly recommend anything, it's why I stated that you aim for averages. It's stupid to say that you don't consider your own view pretentious, of course you don't, that sort of information is a given but that's still MY OPINION.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

The Witcher series
Deus Ex 1 and Human Revolution
Mass Effect series (until the very end)
Max Payne 2
Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite
KOTOR 2
Mafia 1
Morrowind (I liked it a lot)
Grim Fandango
Mafia 1
Bully
San Andreas and Vice City
Assassin's Creed Ezio Trilogy and Black Flag.
AC 3 had pretty good writing and the whole Templar vs Assassin was better than ever, but the mission structure was such a mess that the whole story suffered for it in the end. It's a real shame, because it could have been the best one.
MGS 3. Yes, it's got weird and bad writing, but it still manages to be good in a really weird and bad way.

 

[Chessrook44]

I feel like I bring this up too much, but... the Geneforge Saga. I love the themes and ideas addressed in the games, and if nothing else the story is interesting in that there is really no Good or Evil side in most of the games. Every faction has good reasons for their perspective, and every faction does terrible things. Only one faction is anywhere close to a "Good" faction, and they unfortunately are killed off, same with one of the closest "Evil" factions you can come across.

Five games in a series with 40 hours of gameplay per game MAY be a bit of a slog, but I'd still consider it a series worth playing for the story.