Gaming Video Games With Good Storytelling

caid

Full Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
8,293
Location
Dublin
I kind of feel the best video game stories are from stuff like Dark Souls or Shadow of the Collosus. They feel like they couldn't be done in other mediums rather than sitting the player down to watch a movie / have npc's talk at you for 5 mins, which always feels kind of uninspired and an ill fit.
Tell the story by environmental ques and boss design - the animations etc.
 

esmufc07

Brad
Scout
Joined
Aug 7, 2007
Messages
49,876
Location
Lake Jonathan Creek
I kind of feel the best video game stories are from stuff like Dark Souls or Shadow of the Collosus. They feel like they couldn't be done in other mediums rather than sitting the player down to watch a movie / have npc's talk at you for 5 mins, which always feels kind of uninspired and an ill fit.
Tell the story by environmental ques and boss design - the animations etc.
Not a metal gear fan then :lol:
 

caid

Full Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
8,293
Location
Dublin
Not a metal gear fan then :lol:
Oh ... I guess i do like them but i have to be in a pretty specific mood. Closer to wanting to watch a movie than play a game. I've enjoyed a few game with a fairly run of the mill story. Last of Us for instance. I just think its spectacularly tough to do that well in a video game and theres a billion failures amongst the odd success.
 

caid

Full Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
8,293
Location
Dublin
Speaking of Last of Us i thought one part that really caught and elevated the mood was at the end controlling Joel as he wanders about the hospital. Just the dialogue thats thrown out by NPC's and the general stress, anxiety about wanting to find ellie quick. It really caught me at the time. I dont think it would have worked anywhere near as well if it was just told via cutscenes. Same with ellie really, most of the reason i liked her / cared about her was because of random dialogue she throws out in the general course of playing the game rather than the cutscenes.
 

Chairman Steve

Full Member
Joined
May 9, 2018
Messages
7,046
Westwood C&C games had underrated stories I felt, back when stories in video games were laughed at. The good faction endings are usually bittersweet at best and they set up a lot of neat little story points that they could have paid off in later games if they didn't end up getting taken over by EA.

LucasArt Adventure games were cool for stories too. I like the fan theory of the Monkey Island games that what you see on the screen is a kid's imagination and the reality is its a bunch of kids role-playing pirates (and not actually pirates) with eachother in a theme park, which is why there are so many modern references and devices in it even if it's supposed to be like 1800s and kids can't envision what it was like back then. End of Monkey Island 2 leans heavily towards this. Grim Fandango and Full Throttle were great too.

Half-Life has a good story to it in the sense that you play with that POV of Freeman, and there are no cutscenes elsewhere to tell you what's up coming or what is happening elsewhere. All you've got is what you see as you go through and what people are saying (which may or may not be true).
 

jackal&hyde

Full Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2018
Messages
4,220
The Gothic series was one of my favorites. It had the darker fantasy aspect before the Witcher was a thing (in video games).

The Baldur's Gate series, especially the second one are incredible too. They are old school and more difficult to get in too now but once you do, you can never leave.