Recently I've been quite bored with all the games I have, and would like to play a game with a really good and engrossing storyline. In the past I have played a few games that I hold in very high regard because of their great storylines, and I'd like a game that may be able to contend with them. Here are a few games I've played, in which I really enjoyed the story:

The Longest Journey
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Mafia
Planescape: Torment (never completed it, got stuck fairly early on)
Still Life
Heavy Rain
Mass Effect 1 (I have 2, but I haven't been impressed by it thus far)
Red Dead Redemption
Uncharted 1+2
Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines

While this is not a huge list, it's really the only games I can think of that truly had a great story. I like all sorts of genres, besides RTS, so I'm willing to accept pretty much any recommendations if they have a really good story. While graphics aren't super important to me, I'd prefer (note: not required) that they look at least somewhat decent. Also as a note I've pretty much played all of the big name titles for the recent consoles except anything on the Wii.

Also for the sake of a discussion, and not just a thread to recommend me stuff, what is everyone's favorite story in a game?

Most recent of what I have played, Darksiders.

Castlevania looks really good.

I also liked the Halo Reach campaign.

Morrowind and New Vegas entertained me, I liked em.

Mass Effect 1

Black Ops story was good if your into the special forces/espionage thing

I saw Kung Fu Hustle again, that's a really good movie

Mass Effect (1)
Morrowind
KotOR (1)
BioShock
System Shock 2

You've probably played some, if not all, but, just listing them for the sake of listing them because they're all amazing games with great stories.

EDIT// Ohh, Halo: Combat Evolved is pretty good, too.

I also like Crysis a ton; Crysis and Crysis: Warhead are probably my favorite recent games, but the story is sort of... strange; it's like the developers put a bunch of potential enemies and environments on a dart board, hit threw 3 darts, and said "Hmm, Koreans, Ice Aliens, Tropical Island.... that'll be interesting."

Well, recently Red Dead Redemption is my favorite story in a video-game. It's really epic, and might even bring a tear to your eye.

There's also Halo: Reach. But that's only relevant if you've played the previous Halo games.

GTA IV also has an awesome story. The DLC packs make the story even better, and deeper.

We can't forget Heavy Rain either.

There are a couple more that I can't remember at the moment though..

What platforms are we talking here?

Beyond Good & Evil immediately comes to mind. It's an old Gamecube game, but it's out on Steam too. Very good story.
Kotor 1 is a must as well if you've never played it.

Undoubtedly PC, at the very least, judging by his Avatar and the structure of his post.

I generally mostly play on PC, but I also have an Xbox 360 and a PS3.


I played a bit of Beyond Good & Evil a while back, but didn't make it very far as I couldn't get my controller to work correctly. I may have to give it a second chance, since it seems to be highly regarded. I've played KotOR 1 and 2, and definitely enjoyed them a lot.

The Longest Journey

Haven't seen that game being mentioned for a while now. That is the only game, from every game I've ever played, which I can actually use this over-used word:

Epic.

In that case, the first game that came to mind was Heavy Rain. It's got a great story and great visuals, both of which you asked for. Also:

• Uncharted 1+2 - Excellent series with great characters. I wouldn't necessarily say the stories are great, but following the characters through them and seeing how they interact with each other is excellent. Uncharted 2 is undoubtedly one of the best all around games of this generation.
  
• KOTOR - Great story, and fairly decent graphics considering it's age.
  
• Mass Effect - Great story also. Some people like the story of the second better, but I personally enjoyed the story in the first a lot more.
  
• Red Dead Redemption - Much like the Uncharted games, this is full of great characters in a largely untapped setting. Good story and all around great gaming experience.

Some of those might suit you. Those are just the first few that came off the top of my head.

Play Bioshock

nuff said

I've played all of those at one point or another, and all of them are very good games. Uncharted 2 definitely had a very engrossing story, can't believe I forgot it in the OP. I've pretty much played most if not all of the AAA releases on consoles in the past few years.


Definitely played that, it was good, but not sure I'd add it to my list of games with amazing storylines.

Half-Life series or Portal?

Whether it looks decent is debatable, but I have yet to see any game stories that compare to Xenogears.

Very true, I suppose my idea of a game looking decent would be something like the old Black Isle and BioWare RPGs (Baldur's Gate, Planescape, Arcanum, etc.) and newer. I've tried to play some of the older adventure games, like Day of the Tentacle and the like but I never made it very far.

I take it you have played The Witcher, eh? ^_^

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines


Then say "storyline", and not "story". Stories are more than just the path they follow. BioShock was the most philosophical and artistically thought out game lately.

I dont think anyones mentioned this, or believes this for that matter, but I though Call of Juarez had an awesome single player storyline.

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines: Has a very interesting and intriguing plot with some fantastic characters, and thankfully doesn't fall into the usual melodramatic trappings that most other game stories do. You really feel like you're being jerked around through all the politics for reasons you can only barely grasp, and even by the end you don't completely know what the hell happened, which is fitting in letting you know that despite how badass a vampire as you are, you're still an insignificant spec in an world that honestly doesn't give a [censored].

Shadow of the Colossus: The minimalistic narrative provides just enough to let you see things as they are while leaving you a lot of room to put your own spin on things. Was the protagonist a hero to admire for doing everything it takes to save the girl, or was he an obsessive fool who committed so much wanton death and destruction to fulfill his selfish desires? The ending is especially poignant.

Demon's Souls: I honestly expected this to just have an excuse plot meant to weakly justify the tromping-around-killing-and-being-killed thing. Boy, how wrong I was. It borrows a lot of pages from Shadow of the Colossus' brand of storytelling, using a lot of minimalism, fantastically-designed environments, and the game mechanics itself to get its points across. It hints and implies a lot of things about its world, but leaves everything open enough to let you put your own interpretation on things.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The world is grim, there's a lot of political backstabbing going on in the background, few hints of a happy ending on the way. Only disappointing this is that Square just couldn't keep using this kind of story in any future games (let alone future FFT games :facepalm:)

Sword of the Berserk: Yeah, I'm kind of biased, sue me. It's cutscene-heavy, which is always annoying, and the localization kinda' svcks, but it's a side-story in a masterpiece written by Kentaro Miura.

The first KOTOR has my favourite storyline of any game so far

Dragon Age.
I really liked how the stories (they can be different) progress. I liked the characters and how they interacted.

I heard Enslaved was kinda "meh" gameplay-wise, but had a great story.

I've liked the stories of most games I play, except for games with no real plot like Left 4 Dead and racing games.

I'm just going to throw out my favorites:

Metal Gear Series (Great characters, good plot twists and awesome gameplay.)
Snatcher (Lacking in gameplay[It's and old adventure game], but has an awesome story. The ending was rushed but still satisfying. Cyberpunk awesomeness!)
Policenauts (Another adventure game but not as old as Snatcher. Awesome story, great characters. Very sceintific story.)
Zone of The Enders: The 2nd Runner (This one has great gameplay, and a good story that goes with it.)
Killer7 (Most [censored] up game I've ever played.)
No More Heroes 1 & 2 (Straight forward story, but has some great characters.)
Shadow of The Colossus (I think Xetirox coverd this one pretty good.)
Mafia (Great story. That is all.)

Yeah, I like Hideo Kojima's and Goichi Suda's games.

Some honorable mentions:
Knights of The Old Repblic
Shenmue
Star Ocean: First Departure
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Grand Theft Auto series

I'd highly recommend Beyond Good and Evil, Sanitarium, and VTM: Bloodlines.

I'd also recommend Psychonauts- while the story itself would probably only qualify as reasonably good, the combination of story+characters+atmosphere is absolutely top notch.

Starcraft 2 had the best story ever! Sorry I can't say such a thing.
Anyhow I liked Mirror's Edge I just wish there was more backstory about the past.
Metal Gear Solid series was pretty good but a tad confusing.

The game that I've played recently with the best story would have to be Amnesia: The Dark Decent. It's one of the few games that I would play just for the story (although the other parts of the game are amazing, too).