what is the best story in any game (a conversation on stories in games)

[josh797]

ok so heres the deal:
i love games, but my favorite games are immeresive with stories that border on orson scott card quality or tolkien. my point is im looking for a game with immersiveness to your eyes, and a story that rivals great works of fiction.

2nd point: we all know games these days have3 crap stories. we try to tell ourselves that they are good stories when they are immersive or are more than mario beats the bad guy. but seriously i still havent encountered a game with a storyline that is amazing. sure some of them are great, but none even hold a candle to most books or a lot of movies. Portal? sure its fun and exciting, good writing and all but its story really doesnt make you think, it couldnt stand up to much analysis not like enders game or the matrix. to be honest, i cant think of any games really that are like this. heres the crux, everyone here could probably recall the stories of the great books theyve read, their captivating stories that we can recall years down the line and discuss the ideas at length, but i dont know about you guys, but i cant think of a single game where i can remember the story, what drove the main character, the ideas behind the games story. can any of you honestly name a game whose ideas stand up to intense examination?


to sum; what game would you recommend? what game goes beyond any other youve ever played. something whose story and immersiveness are award winning, where the immersiveness makes you play into the night and wonder why its suddenly getting bright. whose story makes you ponder for days coming up with new intepretations and analysis every time you think about it.

one game guys. what do you say?

EDIT: i wanted to add this. i know this is doesnt really exist in games right now, but im always on the lookout for a game whose gameplay matchs the ideas in the game. this is a rarity, but i think thats the other thing games have to adopt. in other mediums, their style matches their ideas. the style of writing in books is consistent with the material in a good book, a good movie uses camera lenses, editing styles, and angles that help display its subject material. photographs use black and white, plays use lighting and scenery. games still havent grasped this concept for the most part. perhaps braid fits this or i know september 12th does. for games to truly come into their own they have to reallize that they have material and gameplay that complement each other rather than having a character who mows down 1000s of guys single handedly and then talks about the comraderie hhe has with his brothers in arms.

 

[Aardvark]

Alley Cat. The story of a common scum bastard cat who lives in an alley. While sifting through the garbage one day, he looks up and spies a beautiful female cat in the window of an apartment high above him. Their eyes lock, it's love at first sight. The game is then the arduous journey to climb up to that window, high above dogs, clotheslines, other cats and projectiles being fired out windows, with the most obscure quit command on the face of the earth.

 

[josh797]

Alley Cat. The story of a common scum bastard cat who lives in an alley. While sifting through the garbage one day, he looks up and spies a beautiful female cat in the window of an apartment high above him. Their eyes lock, it's love at first sight. The game is then the arduous journey to climb up to that window, high above dogs, clotheslines, other cats and projectiles being fired out windows, with the most obscure quit command on the face of the earth.

really? really? i actually played this game. actually thanks i had forgotten this game. but it really doesnt belong here at all

 

[Aardvark]

The story is implied. The writers don't throw it in your face like so many modern games, it's up to you to discern the subtle details. The best stories always are. The writers give you the key points and let you fill in the gaps from there. If you're unable to fill in the gaps, so miss the story, then it is you who don't belong here.

 

[v3cks]

Mass Effect, in my eyes.

 

[josh797]

The story is implied. The writers don't throw it in your face like so many modern games, it's up to you to discern the subtle details. The best stories always are. The writers give you the key points and let you fill in the gaps from there. If you're unable to fill in the gaps, so miss the story, then it is you who don't belong here.

thats my point here. i dont want a game where im a blank face fighting some indeterminate evil *cough* halflife 2 *cough* as fun as that is sometimes. i think the great games are the ones that put you in someone elses shoes and ask you to consider that person. what do you think about his world? his actions? etc. just like the great books, plays and movies

Mass Effect, in my eyes.

isnt mass effect about building your own story?

 

[SquirrelPants]

Portal? sure its fun and exciting, good writing and all but its story really doesnt make you think, it couldnt stand up to much analysis not like enders game or the matrix.

I disagree. If you pay close attention, it tells many stories of its own: The story of Aperture Science, and how it fell to their own machine(GLaDOS), of a few survivors and their attempting to help anyone through the Enrichment Center in order to defeat GLaDOS. GLaDOS's semi-obvious sarcasm during the song "Still Alive", while she sang about how happy she was to still be alive somewhere(Probably a backup), she obviously was talking about her defeat due to again being backed up. Since she is a living, learning, AI being, she knew that she eventually wanted to escape, and Chell was her one chance.
It also tells a story of how one can be manipulated to work under intense pressure for a simple prize, as all of us do.
The Companion Cube represents a lover, a friend, one which you must sacrifice to move on: "The weighted Companion Cube cannot accompany you to the next test chamber and must be incinerated."(Or something along the lines of that quote.)

It's actually quite a deep story line, you just have to look past skin deep.

 

[TheBluesader]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines has a very unique story, as pretty much everyone you're working to help has questionable motives, and would just as easy crush you if it benefited them. Yet in the process of doing rather menial jobs for them, you start to see what kind of people they really are, and depending on how you decide to play, you can make decisions based on the subtlety of their inferences. I know it's just a game and the engine doesn't appreciate this, but the voice work is superb and the end results of the dialogue trees often give you a feeling that whoever you're talking to is actually paying attention to what you're saying, and thinking the same way you do.

If you're going for pure epic story and you have a PC, check out the The Longest Journey and it's sequel, Dreamfall. The gameplay of both is old school point-and-click and both are extremely linear, but I will go to my grave proclaiming that this series has the best story video games have every seen, even if it wastes a lot of its potential.

 

[goodterling]

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. There are much better games, but I can't remember their stories like I do this one.

 

[nackertash]

Im going to say the obvious one, Deus Ex.

 

[Candybar]

DoT(Day of the Tentikel or however you spell it) has a great Story, in my eyes it is a satire full of comments about our lives...
Also has a nice take on Evolution

 

[josh797]

-poke-

It seems you missed my edit earlier, but can you give me some examples of these games you're talking about?

i honestly dont know, perhaps starcraft, but the game has its story so far removed from its gameplay that i dont feel like im doing anything even remotely relevant. maybe i would actually put up portal there as one of the best. its something that truly challenges you, but still its obvious whose bad here, and the companion cube is really just an example of manipulation of a gamer. besides which glados is nearly a carbon copy of any other computer from space odysee wargames, eagle eye etc. who becomes self aware and take over, killing her owners. its great, but still not very original or even original at all. hmm. one could maybe say assasins creed, but again the plot is trite and been done a million times. maybe braid is a good example. i never played it but from what i heard, it really had you considering the ideas of regret and what i really was.

i dont know, this inability to come up with examples is why i wrote this thread. im looking for a game that is as memorable as the great books. games are better story tellers though cuz you get a chance to walk in the characters shoes. its much more personal than any book can be because you are so much closer to the actions. games dont seem to realize that though. either you are a blank slate like gordon freeman , or you are a hero with a plastic motivation agaianst a villain of pure unadulterated evil, who kicks little kids.

book example below. a spoiler on enders game if you havent read it.

Spoiler

do you all remmeber enders game? ender spent the end of the book fighting the enemy unbeknowst to him. how do you feel about that? was he use? but maybe it was appropriate because he was told that he would fight the buggers eventually. is mazer rackham a genius? or maybe hes a coward. or maybe hes a hero for sacrificing himself to train ender. all these questions and a ton more can be discussed in this book. can you think of a single game that can be delved into deeply or even at all?

 

[aeros320]

Thank you. You're one of the only people I've seen that sees that. Next to Bioshock, Portal is the best game I've ever played because it has a fully realized environment and tells an immersive story without practically saying a word. It's personally the closest attempt the industry's gotten to art in a game.

 

[Alex_P]

can any of you honestly name a game whose ideas stand up to intense examination?

Torment.

That was easy.

It certainly stands up to analysis and examination better than The Matrix or Ender's Game.

-- Alex

 

[Anarchemitis]

Sim City had a good story.

 

[xitel]

Mass Effect, in my eyes.

I have to agree. It didn't just have a good story, it has a fully fleshed out setting, and a completely defined universe. That's what I love in my games.

 

[stinkypitz]

I agree with some choices here, but I will throw in FFVI (FFIII I think in America). That game had several storylines and lots of memorable characters.

 

[Conqueror Kenny]

Don't jump down my throat here but I'm going to say Devil may Cry. Just looking at the game will make you think that the story would be "Oh no demons! Kill them!" If you really know what is going on in the developers mind then the story is great. It has got so many plot twists and keeps you guessing throughout the game.
It manages to not only provide a good story but it mixes humour in nicely keeping you entertained enough to make the cutscenes (which too many people seem to skip) seem like less of a chore.

 

[ldbmikey86]

Silent Hill 2 (or pretty much all of the SH series other than Homecoming)
Condemned: Criminal Origins (the first one, not the second)

They left a lot of unanswered questions and the detail in each character was really well done in my opinion.

And maybe I'm weird, but I liked Dark Messiah: Might & Magic's, and Brothers in Arms' stories a lot. Twist endings usually leave a big impression on me, I guess. And the fact that Brothers in Arms is based on a true story helps.

Edit- If I have to pick ONE, I pick Silent Hill 2.