Games With Story

[NatVac]

I'm big on story in games. Here's an email I sent to a friend in 2002, with some reformatting.

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Here are a couple of RPGs and related adventure games I've tried and can recommend:

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1) Deus Ex, of course. It's effectively a first-person near-future science fiction Half-Life-like version of NWN, with lots of obvious D&D influence. It's another stop-the-plague story told via the Unreal engine, with in-game cutscenes and conversations. There's only a single character class to start, but experience points can be distributed amongst different skills and weapons proficiencies, and the nanobot canisters you find as the game progresses provide ability choices, followed by upgrade enhancements of these choices. This makes for a myriad different specialization possibilities.

Excellent plot. One very good plot twist. Different actions on your part results in different plot paths, conversations, and consequences down the line. There are even three different endings. Very good gameplay, with a bit of replayability because there are so many different ways to accomplish an objective.

This is one of the top five games I've ever played. I am frankly quite surprised you haven't tried this one.

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2) The Wheel of Time. Third-person pseudo-RPG based in Robert Jordan's WoT universe. You play the part of Elayna Sedai, a Brown with almost no channeling ability, who's Keeper status is resented by some in the White Tower. It's all here: Trollocs, Myrdraal, the Children of the Light, Shadar Logoth, its killing tendrils AND its Hound, the Ways Between and the evil that lives there, even Ishamael the Forsaken and those spiffy cuendillar seals. Guess what? You wind up having to save the universe.

Excellent use of the Unreal engine, but awkward predefined-hotkey inventory management. I recall some frustration in battle encounters with choosing the appropriate offensive/defensive weapon from the 40 types of ter'angreal. Balefire's hot, though. ;-)

One of the game's levels is actually a game type called Citadel, where you have to fortify a prison with trap and manpower deployment to protect the prisoners from an impending attack. This game is based on one of the multiplayer game types.

There's a key plot revelation about midway that stuns the player, but makes the ending cutscene the perfect denouement. It made me feel like Robert Jordan had scripted the plot.

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3) Outcast. This near-future (to start) adventure game has a simplified automatic skill point distribution based on what you do, and cooperation from the locals is based on your reputation -- even item pricing is affected, if I remember correctly -- so be nice and do the side quests. The major plot twist in this game is one of the best I've encountered, evoking a visceral feeling that I've had only once since, while watching "The Sixth Sense".

The voxel-based graphics engine is cool, but limited in resolution. You have in-game cutscenes, and an in-game choice of third-person and first-person view, great for ranged weapon usage. Quests are somewhat tedious in that the solutions are quite scattered in this very large world. Only eight or ten save-game slots.

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4) Anachronox. "Far" future third-person party-based RPG. Uses the Quake II engine with a couple of nice enhancements like a great particle system. There was more humor in this game than in all the other games I've ever played _combined_. Excellent unfolding plot spans three expansion-contraction cycles of the universe. Pure RPG turn-based battles. Minor plot twist just before the final battle.

Interesting spell setup: Differently-colored beetles can be collected and aligned on a hexagonal grid to build powerful offensive and defensive "spells". Normal gameplay is interrupted (as part of the plot) by one of a series of mini-games you have to complete to move on. They were not to my personal taste.

It has more concrete problems, though. Many of the bugs were fixed in updates, but shame on Eidos for forcing Ion Storm Dallas to release it before it was ready (it was very late). There's a poor design decision to prevent game saves during one long, long, LONG series of heavy-duty battles just before the final encounter. My party died the death of a thousand cuts, almost a thousand times.

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5) System Shock 2. Relatively near future RPG/FPS, full of a constant eerie tension punctuated by some real surprises. Three character classes (unbalanced; see below) to choose from. The grid-based inventory management was a pain. Weapons deteriorated very rapidly and could jam at any time, a game design flaw that Looking Glass owned up to by issuing a patch to reduce the decay rate, and turn it off if you wanted.

I didn't finish this game; I trained in psionics (equivalent to a sorcerer/wizard) and there was one place in the game where I could only die because I didn't have the firepower to take out a particular turret. Later I learned that most play the game as a weapons expert (e.g., fighter) because it doesn't have the weaknesses of the tech cil (thief) or the psionicist. I might try again, later.

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Except for System Shock 2, these games have a plot I rate at nine or better, on a scale of one to ten.

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Since then, I've played very few games where the story enthralled me. I highly recommend Psychonauts, a console port of a platformer that I actually liked (and you cannot fathom the depths of my hatred for console ports and platformers!). You play as a character seemingly modeled on roles that Michael J. Fox would play. Your friends have literally lost their minds, and you have to help them get those minds back. It's extremely funny and clever, with very creative level design (10/10). "T V!"

If you get this game, get the patch that fixes the camera viewpoint in the butcher's circus level to avoid frustration.

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Okay, if you like your games to have a good story: What did you play that you liked for plot or story?

[rockingmtranch]

Hmmmm...I'm not a real RPG person but these sound like fun.

[audioave10]

It's obvious that with an intellect like NatVac has, he won't easily be
fooled by modern games so-called stories. I'm perfectly fine with a story like "Condemned: Criminal Origins"...but I liked "Painkiller" too!
Stories in games now are written (if you can say that) for youngsters
because their parents money is what's on the minds of developers and
are pressed that way by the publishers. In the old days the PC's were
owned by adults so stories were written for them. If that makes you feel old, Natvac, I'm sorry but I'm old too.

[busetibi]

for me it would have to be Myst, I found it the most immersive game I've ever played as well as the most frustrating, most of the puzzles were extremely hard(case in point, third Island, you're walking on a steel gantry then the gantry floor ends you see the missing piece is raised, you can't jump the distance, so you have to find a way to lower the raised section, when you first enter the Island there is an old boiler with cobwebs around it which is a long way from where you are now (this took me a whole week to figure out what to do) the solution? you had to find a match which would light the boiler which in turn lowered the raised gantry section) , all my gaming to date had been FPS, but I liked the concept and bought the game, little did I realise it would consume me for nine months, yes, thats how long it took me to finish it.
four note books crammed with my notes, everytime I met/interacted/found something I would write it down, a kinda running commentry.
I haven't played any of the sequels, I've wanted to but the thought of going through all that again holds me in dread.
but, I really enjoyed Myst, maybe when I finally give up work and find time on my hands I may try them

[jamie1992]

for me it would have to be Myst, I found it the most immersive game I've ever played as well as the most frustrating, most of the puzzles were extremely hard(case in point, third Island, you're walking on a steel gantry then the gantry floor ends you see the missing piece is raised, you can't jump the distance, so you have to find a way to lower the raised section, when you first enter the Island there is an old boiler with cobwebs around it which is a long way from where you are now (this took me a whole week to figure out what to do) the solution? you had to find a match which would light the boiler which in turn lowered the raised gantry section) , all my gaming to date had been FPS, but I liked the concept and bought the game, little did I realise it would consume me for nine months, yes, thats how long it took me to finish it.
four note books crammed with my notes, everytime I met/interacted/found something I would write it down, a kinda running commentry.
I haven't played any of the sequels, I've wanted to but the thought of going through all that again holds me in dread.
but, I really enjoyed Myst, maybe when I finally give up work and find time on my hands I may try them

I have myst, and i know what you mean, my god, its the second most time consuming game i played, the first was X-Com enemy unknown, which i played for what must have been 2 years constantly just trying to complete it, and everything my dear god, at 13 playing that game, really makes it hard, especial on Superhuman mode. *Wipes Forehead* Thank god i dont have to do it again, i still play it not and then, but only for an hour or 2 to pass time, unless i have a really bad urge to play, which i then play it for a couple days but depends how i feel.

Anyway back to myst, yep, i still have the game somewhere, never completed it, my brain isnt good enough to get me through it.

Might play X3 Reunion with xTended later, that game goes on forever, literaly, have you build your business and everything, very cool. (Y)

[EggChen]

It is a sad reflection on modern games that I cannot think of a response to Natvac's original post.

[NatVac]

Looks like there's a time limit on editing one's posts in this forum, too.

I am not a fan of the RPG genre, either, rockingmtranch.* But the email was sent to an RPG lover, so I was trying to persuade him to stretch into other game genres by suggesting "crossover" games. Here's some qualifications, with a ranking from least-RPG to most.

Outcast is essentially an adventure game, a 3D version of Myst with some shooting to deal with the enemy impediments the game put in your way to make it last longer. The minimal RPG part: Quests affected reputation, which affected pricing of resources from traders and the like and how easy it was to get info out of NPCs.

The Wheel of Time was "pseudo-RPG" similar to a third-person STALKER.

Deus Ex was FPS/RPG, and I only played the game once or twice before modding out the experience points contribution. Proximity mines "know" you have more experience, so they take longer to detonate? Come ON -- give me a break!

(I did the same with STALKER, reducing the inaccuracy contribution by the Marked One. In fact, the first mod I released was an FPS version of the game.)

But the devs did a wonderful job of fleshing out decision trees in the game. What you did early had a big impact on what came later. There has been lots of replayability in this game for me.

System Shock 2 is also FPS/RPG, but with RPG classes and a form of leveling up the character you choose to play.

Note: That SS2 "tech cil" is actually "tech s p e c i a l i s t", but this forum apparently thinks it's an ED drug reference.

Anachronox was the only true RPG, with turn-based battles, a party system, experience points you can distribute among your party members after each successful battle, etc., etc. I enjoyed it because of the great story -- it made me care -- and the humor. I hated the dice-roll battles; your character would fire after you chose what weapon to use, and if the computer determined he'd miss, then he would actually point his weapon off to the side and fire.

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Stories in games now are written (if you can say that) for youngsters because their parents money is what's on the minds of developers and are pressed that way by the publishers. In the old days the PC's were owned by adults so stories were written for them. If that makes you feel old, Natvac, I'm sorry but I'm old too.

audioave10, that doesn't make me feel old. (Being older than you makes me feel old. ) Yes, it's all about the money; we can pay higher prices for much shorter games. But it is sad that life again has become easy, so we have the techno-ADD instant-gratification generation with their demand for the short-term ephemeral pleasures instead of the deep and abiding satisfactions we have known. (Actually, I want -- I DEMAND -- both. )

Sigh. You know a restaurant is good when you hear the conversational praise of exiting diners. Folks departing fast-food establishments are NOT talking about the food. But the money's in fast food, and long-term thinking is a lost skill.

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As for Myst: Four notebooks, busetibi? Nine months? That's persistence! I'll bet you really enjoyed your "A-ha!" moments.

I've played (and completed) all the Myst games up to Uru, which made me physically sick with its laggy 3D rendering. The original was my favorite: Awesome graphic artistry, great music, perfect mood setting, and yes, great story. "Bring me the blue pages!" "No, bring ME the RED pages!" busetibi (and jamie1992, even if you don't finish Myst), I found later games in the series far easier.

Riven was okay, but the CD changing drove me nuts. I hear they later put it on DVD.

There were some weaknesses in the later games. One trick was to force you to play the Towers of Hanoi puzzle in Myst IV, and then make you replay it with a slight twist, as if they just wanted to make the game longer. The Peter Gabriel song in that game's dream sequence was perfect for the mood, though, and the background music has always been suited to immersion. Myst V was only memorable for me in that it was a fitting closure to the series.

One feature of a couple of Myst games I liked was multiple endings. Hmm, same with Deus Ex and STALKER...

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It is a sad reflection on modern games that I cannot think of a response to Natvac's original post.

That made me laugh! My posts often leave folks speechless -- unless you count snoring as speech. But you meant there's no modern games with story that come to mind. Ah.

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*I have Neverwinter Nights, but I stopped caring long before I could finish it. But the aforementioned RPG gamer was a pencil-and-paper D&D player from the beginning.

I want chance based on observation (did I miss something important?), skill, thinking and puzzle-solving (example: Quake's end bosses often required figuring out the trick), not on dice-roll. I dislike the gameplay in every turn-based game I've tried, even that in Anachronox.

There was a point in the final level of an episode in Doom where you first enter a room with lots and lots of ammo for the late-game weaponry you have. "Oh, oh!" I thought -- and rightfully so: all the ammo in the world wouldn't stop the bad things from coming.

[Nightwatch]

I played a good number of games, not almost all, but still a good number. I hugely enjoyed Ghost Recon (OGR) , a very tactical, surgical, moody game, which makes you feel that you're really there while trying to sneak-crouch towards a sniper position, or a full blown out gun-battle. I also enjoyed the spectacular number and quality of mod and the modding community there. Story? Yes it has a very solid story, and amazingly Red Storm Entertainment had in its time managed to predict what was to come in a broken USSR almost to the day in the future, only missing the events by a few days. This is more of a prediction actually, which prompted me writing that Red Storm Entertainment seemed to have had better analysts than the -some current- ones who were trying to predict where they were going nowadays.

I also enjoyed Soldier of Fortune, in a rather lighter fun basis, a Spy/Spec. Ops storyline, cool as it gets.

But neither those, nor any of the other games that I've ever played has even come close to Deus Ex. Period.

It's a highly active, exciting, quiet often even bloody game. But it is also more than a game; it is a "philosophy in the making" in the heat of the battle fronts... and in the dark corners of the corridors of power. A deep look into the humanity, while not making one to be able to escape from questioning the history of mankind (not that creation stuff, it's a naked look at the development of humanity as a society which has come a certain -current- point with dragging and piling up all the problems that it itself has caused along the way.

Yes, Dues Ex, the game... maybe not, for it may be even more.

[Balious]

A game with a good story that I enjoyed was Fahrenheit. Weird but interesting storyline resulting in many twists and surprises (I totally did not understand the game without playing all the way through, still dont understand some bits).


Myst I always wanted to play but never got round to it. I now have it on DS and stuck at the beginning straight away. Talk about a hard game.

[MeanderingBeing]

Hmmm... Can't say that there are many games out there with phenomenal story. Kinda sad really. I'd say the first Dawn of War was kinda neat. You know, with Gabriel Angelos fending off orks and chaos while his Brother Librarian is overcome with heresy. It was definately neat.

Another game (series) with awsome story was Dues Ex. I think there are few games with that kind of twistiness and complexity. And personally, and I know I'm going to bombed for this one, my favorite was Invisible War. But I agree with NatVac, Dues Ex is a definite in the gaming world.

I agree with Busetibi, the Myst series is very good. Good story line, immersive gameplay, and it makes you think unlike most games on the market.

Mechwarrior 3 didn't hinge on its story telling, but rather the awesome gameplay, but I still think its story (however linear) is quite alright.

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines was pretty nifty too. Don't Open it!