What games do you think have some of the most compelling story lines? Games that you just have to finish because you NEED to find out what happens at the end?

Half Life and Half Life 2 are definite top-tiers. Valve made you care about the fate of humanity, and I found myself emotionally connected to many of the characters.

Recently, Prey did the same thing for me. Quite an amazing renter if you ever want to pick that up.

Prey was a really unique game.

Dead Rising, Vice City, Mercenaries and Splinter Cell

Half-life series was really good at storry telling. Mafia really affected my feelings..

And I want to mention Full Throttle - It's quite old - but the story was really good.

Dead Rising, Vice City, Mercenaries and Splinter Cell

Vice City I agree with, but the Splinter Cell story didn't suck me very much. After each game comes out people hate me though, because I always try to replicate the moves on everyone in real life.

Vice City I agree with, but the Splinter Cell story didn't suck me very much. After each game comes out people hate me though, because I always try to replicate the moves on everyone in real life.

I tried to replicate the moves but I lack the patience. I'd rather sit back and pick them off with some sort of projectile in true Rainbow Six style.

Most of the "early" games I still remember well where games I mostly played because of the ongoing story.

One of the first Games where I really could not stop playing because of the Story was Loom from Lucasarts. With Loom they started a series of adventuregames wich managed to geeply engross me into their story. Will Zak McKracken rescue the world from the alien mindbenders? Whats up with Dr. Fred Edisons mansion and will the purple tentacle really take over the world? And then there was this young fellow named gybrush who seeked to become a pirate.
The later more mature Lucasarts games also featured some good and compelling storys. Though the beforementioned Fullthrottle didn't quite "click" for me. Not because the story was bad or somthing, but because im not a fan of either wild west or biker storys.
Grim Fandango and The Dig on the other hand.... grim had a very nice twist to the whole afterlife theme and the Dig could have easily be a blockbuster movie. The story was created with stephen spielberg and the dialogue was written by orson scott card. towards the end of the game there was a deeply moving monolog by an alien I remember still very well.


And more recent I was enjoying the Longest Journey series. Especially the second games had a very deep and very moving storyline.

Another example would be Farenheit/Indigo Phophecy. Though the story was not THAT rich, it was presented in a way that you want to see what happens next.

ps:
Reading about Full Throttle in this thread has moved my mind into the adventure direction so this was a bit adventureheavy but the list of games I could name here is much longer. I guess the Bioware RPGs has to be named here also before I finish this post ;)

I want to second Grim Fandango. The whole game was well-written, excellently paced, and brilliantly acted - on top of which, it had a really unique idea, which is a real rarity in videogames.

I want to second Grim Fandango. The whole game was well-written, excellently paced, and brilliantly acted - on top of which, it had a really unique idea, which is a real rarity in videogames.

Make that a third. Best adventure game of all time, hands down. The Zork/Return to Zork games also had a pretty good story.

I always found the stories of Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, etc... breathtaking.
I was stuck to my chair for hours enjoying the excellent lore!



Well this is sarcastic gamer for a reason isn't it? :p

Half-Life:s story is =Aileens kill e'm all.
I mean WC3 have a beter story,
Grim fandango is defenetly higer on my list.

And the story in C&C RA1 is prity cool in the begining with Tanya oO shes so good;)

strange that nobady mentiond "Zelda" I'm not a big fan, but can think of some.

Half-Life:s story is =Aileens kill e'm all.

You've never played the game. Anybody who has ever played either of the games (especially the 2nd one) knows that it is anything but a run and gun.

Half-Life 2's story is astoundingly well-presented, and it's really a lesson in how to reveal information to the player.

And just to beat the dead horse again, Bungie would've done well to take a page out of Valve's storytelling book for Halo. Both games (Half Life and Halo) have very dense back-stories and fantastic mythology to build on, but only Half-Life has done a decent job of making you believe it.

Then again, that's probably due to the larger human element in Half-Life 2; there's plenty of opportunities to see and interact with other people (no matter how limited that interaction is).

In Halo, it's just the Master Chief running around badly-designed alien architecture alone - it's missing the other people who can give you additional background and pieces of the story, not to mention showing how the human race is(n't) coping under Combine occupation.

"Don't drink the water. They put something in it to make you forget."

It's all those little throwaway lines that fill in so much of the bigger picture, that builds up the Combine and their approach - more so than any Halo-style outright EXPOSITION CUTSCENE! could ever hope to.

My favourite part of Half-Life 2 is that opening section between getting off the train and meeting Alyx for the first time. There's so much information there about the world and how it works, and it's all effortless - there's no outright explanation; just like Gordon Freeman does, you've got to pick things up as much from what people don't say as what they do.

Half Life 1 and 2 definitely.
Speaking of older games, especially Lucasarts (Full throttle was cool) one of the first games I probably got into cos of the story was Day of the Tentacle. That was a great game :)

As for newer games i'd say KoTOR is up there, anything in the GTA series. Hitman Blood Money was actually kinda cool too... I'm not saying it's the best story in a game or anything, but as for my 360 collection thought it was worth a mention.

anything in the GTA series
I don't know about GTA2, but the original Grand Theft Auto was extremely light on plot.

Man I can't believe that no one has brought up the most riveting story of all time!!! Super Mario Brothers FTW!! "I'm sorry but the Princess is in another castle." and then even when you beat Bowser and save the Princess you learn that you have to it AGAIN!! whoo did that game send me on an emotional rollercoster!

Pacman.

Total ownage. In a class by itself.

Game0ver Emm.. What's it plot?

P.S. No one played Mafia: The City of the lost heaven?

Plot for Pacman:

Eat dots, stay alive. Best story ever.

:rolleyes: Halflife series