Good games with terrible plots.

[LifsAndlat]

At the risk of having every PC gamer and their dog trying to break my door down: Half Life 2.

An absolute joy to play, nice to look at, amazing game engine, but the plot is just batshit bonkers with a side order of "Huh?"

Where did the Combine soldiers come from and why were the enemies from the first game suddenly your allies? Every time I play it I feel I have managed to bypass an entire section of the game somehow.

Thing is, you kind of do. Half-Life 2 takes place roughly 2 decades after the incident at Black Mesa. After you accept the GMan's offer at the end of Half-Life, you're put into stasis for 2 decades. During this time, the combine take over the earth in what is known as "The Seven hour war" and the Vortigaunts, also opposed to the Combine, side with the humans. The thing about what happens in the Half-Life universe is, very little is told to you, you have to search and find it all yourself.

On topic, I'm still trying to figure out if their actually is supposed to be a plot to World of Goo, or if it's just supposed to be an amazing indie title.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

lost odyssey, fun rpg, HORRIBLE plot

Ok, you might want to explain exactly why - sure there were some plot holes, but the overall storyline and characterization were top notch.

I would have to repeat previous suggestions of the Kingdom Hearts series, and add Sacred 2. A fantastic hack-and-slash, but the story is presented in such a boring manner, and just seems to meander meaninglessly around - it's simply there to make you travel to all the different areas on the massive game map...

i would have to agree on the lost odyssey, the plot had its holes but overall was a rich and well developed storyline imo, especially the thousand dream things holy piss how long that must have taken to write out

but sadly i like the kingdom hearts stuff, maybe just nostalgia since i played it when i was younger but i understood hte story and i liked it alot actually, the gummi ship design was kind of fun so traveling from planet to planet was like a star fox intertwined with awesome hack n slasher

 

[wall5970]

Resident Evil 4. B-movie plot (but intentionally bad, and well executed bad intentions), but a fantastic game. The fact that it was supposed to be a bad plot, and was done amazingly, may disqualify it from this, actually.

Final Fantasy 12. Oh my God the plot was terrible. I kept holding out hope until the end, but... *sigh*... SPOILER ALERT: everyone is happy. As much as I like happy endings, I also like things to have to be sacrificed, which tends to bring out a lot more character development and depth and a more emotionally involving experience. That being said, the gameplay had vastly improved.

Katamari Demacy. This falls under the "intentionally bad" plot. It was goofy as fuck, but everything was generally lovable, including the piss-poor plot.

Manhunt. Loose as fuck plot, but most of the game was a muthafuckin murderfest. And who can argue with that?

The Doom series. Great FPSs. Terrible plots.

 

[CatmanStu]

THanks for the plot breakdown. I didn't realise I was part of such a huge interdimentional conspiracy. I thought I was just stopping some evil dude with a beard from killing some scientists. Now I know.

Also, I appreciate that there is additional story relevant material out there for certain games, but in my not so humble opinion if you have too look for it, what's the point in the game having a narative.

 

[Kuchinawa212]

I say TFU

A fun hack and slash IMMA PWERFULL JEEDII!!!!!1111 game. Just they mucked it up with "vader's apprentice. You're evil, but now you're good. Then you gotta right wrongs by killing everything in your way"

 

[bioshockedcriticjrr]

Gears of War series (MAARRRIIIAAAAA WAAAAAA!)
GTA 4 (I didn't give 2 shits about any of the characters)
'Splosion Man

'splosion wasn't really supposed to have a plot in my opinion, but thats just me
I'm gonna go with the opposite and say Silent Hill 2 for great story but outdated gameplay.

for the original answer, I'd have to say Assassin's Creed 2 and Condemned 2. The former devolved into some history ubergods stuff, which was inevitable. the latter become so stupid ancient mytical cults crap. as if we don't get enough of that. personally I'd like a game with the story of the first condemned and the gameplay mechanics of the second condemned

 

[hazabaza1]

Shadow Complex.
Just the simple question of how nobody found this base bigger than the friggin' pentagon a few feet below the ground. In the words in the Nostalgia Critic: It makes. NO. SENSE!

 

[The Great JT]

Good Game, Bad Plot:
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Seriously, it's like they wrote down "Black Hawk Down meets Bad Boys" on a blackboard labeled "Ideas We Can Fuck Up." The game is very solid, though, and at least it does the plot somewhat competently. The nuke scene and No Russian in MW2 were really good scenes.)

Bad Game, Bad Plot:
Final Fantasy VIII (The plot made NO sense whatsoever, even when it tried to explain the plot. Okay, from what I can gather, some sorceress who shapes her hair into bull horns and speaks in Mortal Kombat-ese (replaces C's with K's) is trying to possess another scorceress in the far past so she can compress time and destroy all of existance. Which shouldn't that kill HER as well? Maybe it's because I have that thing known as a BRAIN, but wouldn't you just use your powers to compress time and make everyone your slaves and then go conquer galaxies or something? 'Cause that seems a lot more menacing, villainous and likely to NOT result in heroes from the present kicking you in the face. Anyway, you know how the good guys beat her? They LET HER COMPRESS TIME. According to them, they let her do it so they can face her. Yes, it's akin to James Bond letting Goldfinger irradiate the world's supply of gold just so he can get his shot at him when he goes to a gold auction. And you know what happens as a result? Turns out the whole game takes place inside a time loop meaning your entire plot has been ENTIRELY POINTLESS. This plot is so bad it physically hurts me.)

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Metal Gear Solid 2.

In fact all the Metal Gear Solids that were not Metal Gear Solid 1, which wasn't terrible but merely very bad.

Why must you have a direct tap into my brain?

Also, the first couple Timesplitters games have terrible stories but great gameplay. By the time the third game rolled around they actually had a story worth paying attention to, and it was hilarious.

 

[belderiver]

Assassin's Creed. I don't even understand how they can foul up a story about killing people in exotic and historical places so badly. Would it have killed them to be straightforward and add those new edgy things called "endings" to the games?

 

[Lithium_Lollypop]

Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII...Gears of War (1), Devil May Cry 4...I gotta agree with Kingdom Hearts and Resi4.

I disagree with Final Fantasy X, though. I think all of the Final Fantasies made before 2003 were excellent. And then XII came out. I love the battle system and I thought the whole hunt-sidequest thing was excellent, but the story was so dull. XIII isn't much better.

 

[Enigma6667]

Gears of War series. Your usual action movie with gruff badass protagonists, and alien mutant villains. Even worse was the whole Maria bullshit. It's sad and all, but they just made it so damn annoying. Grow a pair, Dom.

 

[Nfritzappa]

Ninja Gaiden I, but more importantly Ninja Gaiden 2.

2 has better game play, but 1 is more cohesive and memorable.

 

[Davrel]

Just Cause 2

It looks beautiful and is SO much fun to mess about in but I don't have a fucking clue what my objectives are...

Then again I guessed there would be little 'brains' involved as from the offset it appeared to be a typical 'black-guy-dies-first'(literally) action adventure.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

Anything in the NES days (mostly anything) and you know why