One JRPG I loved for the plot is Eternal Sonata, which is set in a dream world, being dreamt by Frederic Chopin on his deathbed. The events in the dream are allegories of Chopin’s life. And it’s extremely hard to describe well…
Eternal Sonata always seemed… stilted to me. I don’t know, all the conversations felt like they were trying really, really, really hard to be philosophical and deep and meaningful rather than focusing on the plot and characters and letting the philosophy shine through that. Not my top example for that reason, but I suppose I can see why someone would put it on the list (aside from that the plot was pretty cool, if pretty weird). I still want Salsa to be my BFF, though.
The only happy feeling I had about LucasArts’ dissolution is that maybe now somebody will at least re-release Grim Fandango so I can get a copy for a sane price and it will also work on my modern computer.
And I loved Planescape: Torment so much that I pretty much literally said “shut up and take my money!” when the Kickstarter for the spiritual sequel, from the same people was launched in early March. (They’re taking PayPal funding through the end of the month!)
I can’t believe I’m the first to mention Telltale’s Walking Dead game. Fantastic storyline, keeps you on the edge of your seat, and almost feels more like a book/movie, though it’s still very much a game.
As far as plots go? Definitely.
Storytelling-wise? Some of the worst ever made.
MGS franchise is the poster child for having inconvenient codec convos and cutscenes, the pacing is often terrible and all over the place, etc.
And I love MGS, a huge fan of the series, but as far as story-telling devices, they fail badly. Great games though.
The plot of MGS would make a fantastic novel or movie though, and the story-telling would be much better.
Many of mine were mentioned but here goes (some in the hate thread also):
Bioshock. For the exact reasons mentioned above. I could not have worded it better.
All three Mass Effects minus the very end of the final one.
I liked the story (stories, really) of Dragon Age. The second one was not awful and I appreciated the fact that they focused the scope on a single city for the story but I would not put it at the top.
KOTOR
I remember really enjoying the story of Arcanum. I wish this game would be remade.
I also remember really enjoying the stories of the SSI Buck Rogers games more so than the D&D “Gold Box” ones.
No One Lives Forever had a great, funny plot with amazing set pieces.
I cried at the end of Red Dead Redemption.
my enthusiasm for adventure gaming is tepid. the puzzles in those are generally less engaging than dedicated ones, and exploration is more fun in 3D FPSs like the new Fallout titles. so what’s left - the storytelling. i’ll nominate The Longest Journey. it kept me playing just because i wanted to learn more about April’s adventures and her view of it in her diary. i don’t know if the story is a good one, but it was fun listening.
Wing Commander 2. A simple but good story well told.
Going way back, Mafia!. The plot is ripped off from Goodfellas, but it is a really good ripoff with great characterization and pacing.
I think you could go back to WC1 as well. A surprising amount of characterization, flexible story, and possibility in that game.
I really liked the story behind Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter. Very well done back stories, etc…
I also have to nominate the entire Fallout series, (and by pre-extension, Wasteland)
Most will probably disagree, but I enjoyed the Call of Duty:Modern Warfare(and 2/3) single-player stories with Soap, et al.
The Wing Commander games were very well done as others have said.
Deus Ex had the best plott plot of all the games I’ve played. I love conspiracy stories though.
World in Conflicts : Soviet Assault deserves a mention for managing to be an RTS with a better ‘Cold War turns hot’ story than anything since Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising.
999 on the DS, and its sequel Virtue’s Last Reward on 3DS/Vita have fantastic (if convoluted) plots and storytelling. Ghost Trick on DS (and I think now on iOS) has a really wonderful story as well.
I would say Metal Gear Solid 3 was the best of the series for plot and storytelling. The first was pretty close for both.
But the second while having a really intriguing plot had one of the most laborious ways of telling it. And the fourth was just awful all around for that. Someone really needs to impress upon Hideo that more is not always better. Streamlined stories tend to pull people in much more than a plot that seems someone threw everything against the wall to see what sticks. Four had a lot of promise but got too caught up in its own grandiose ideas.
Yes. I was going to say Wasteland as well. The actual “in-game” plot was decent, but it was the fleshing out of the whole thing with the “paragraphs” that made it shine. (For those unfamiliar, in 1987 (88?) when Wasteland came out Interplay had decided that the story they wanted to make wouldn’t fit on any reasonable number of diskettes. The game itself took up 4 5.25" floppies as it was. So they wrote a lot of NPC interaction in various passages in a book that came with the game.)
I also want to throw out that Interactive Fiction is full of some intriguing plot lines. The independent ones that have come out of the IF competition have had some great ones.
But on a commercial level, the Infocom classics A Mind Forever Voyaging and Trinity are among the best conceived plots.
The recently released BattleBlock Theater’s story is fantastic and fantastically funny. I can’t wait to get to the end.
Oh, thinking of old-school in addition to Grim Fandango, The Dig really sucked me in.
The plot in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was pretty good.
Even without the Planescape setting, I am excited. If Numanera is half as good as The Book of the New Sun that inspired it, it’s going to be a hell of a game.
I’m torn as to whether Portal/Portal 2 (and I think you have to consider them together) has a “plot” as such, or whether it’s just all backstory added for color while you’re busy solving problems and jumping through holes. As backstory goes, though, the Cave Johnson recordings alone are brilliant.