Games with Powerful Narratives

Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 EP1 & EP2

Portal

Max Paynemadman608

Yeah.

Bioshock

Indigo Prophecy

Half-Life 2

...

Max Paynemadman608

For sure.

The games in the article were good picks too.

And my addition is The Suffering

Planescape: Torment

Final Fantasy X

Spec Ops: The Line

This, and The witcher 1&2. Metal gear is also great imo.

Becarefull, Lulu's watching !

Leisure Suit Larry.

• Fallout 3- There were moments during Fallout 3 that I literally got chills. Now I know a lot of long time FO fans don't like a lot of the changes made to the canon, and those are totally valid reasons. But a game that truly weaved it's story and aesthetics and characters together in a compelling way, Fallout 3 may not be the best at this type of storytelling, but it struck a chord with me.
• Half Life 2- I'm not the world's biggest Half Life fan. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But I can still appreciate it's pacing and storytelling strengths and applaud it for those strengths. The guys at Valve just have a way of tying everything together and no game demonstrates it better than HL2.
• InFamous- This is a game that weaves it's story into each city block of it's game world. From the underground levels to the streets littered with fallen civilians to the different feel to each segment of the city map, this is a world torn apart by tragedy. And it reads through the design in every conceivable way.

Too much HL2 ITT. If that's your go-to answer, you're definitely not playing enough story-driven games.

Recently, I'm going to nominate The Swapper. I particularly liked the questions it raises about what is "life", which forms of life do we value and which should we value. When you really take the time of absorbing what the game is trying to say, it can really make you think.

^ Hopefully The Swapper 2 will go multiplatform. Why should you have all the cool stuff !?

@Lulu_Lulu: You can probably run it on the computer you're posting on. And I'm having a hard time imagining how it could work with a gamepad. Or why they would make a sequel.

^ lol, Im using my cellphone. And my laptop runs on Linux, still learning how it works and still need to get WinE.

Wind Waker: Not only does this game tell a powerful story about regret, the dangers of looking back, and having to to take risks in order to grow, it does so with strong metaphor that seaps its way into the very setting of the game. A world dotted with islands housing people who wonder what their lives would be like if they set out to finally see that island they've watched from a distance, but never acting on their curiousity because the life on their island is all they've known. It's the same way the King of Hyrule forces children into roles of the past to desperately reclaim his own world of old: Hyrule. In the end he realizes what he's done is wrong and wishes for a future for these children. A future that is a risk, but its a risk necessary for progression. Wind Waker is a game that speaks a strong truth about human development and does so extremely effectively.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. The "main" ending really wrecked me for a few days, having had a turbulent history with my own father.

MGS3: Snake Eater. I tried so hard to avoid pressing X at the end of the fight with the Boss. It felt so wrong, and the game made me feel like a bastard for doing it.

House of the Dead: Overkill. A powerful story of two good friends being put through a trial by fire that forces them to truly examine their inner selves, and realize how dependent they are on one another to survive, and to love.

I would say that FF13 was smart in how it handles how people deal with lost.

The Tales of Xillia is a fun story to go with even if it has the same plot point that all the other "Tale of..." games have,

Games I would say are not good are:

The half life games. They are just a travel from point A to point B game.

The Witcher games There a large amount of trying to get the player to think but that is it problem it drags the story that way.

Spec-Op the Line - This game is many people ideal of deep story. My problem with this story is that the emotionality part comes from how a human should feel and not from the the story. It is so underhanded in what it does. It is like a pro athlete opening doing drugs and people still call him the greatest athlete ever.

Bioshock

Spec Ops: The Line

The Darkness

That's a five years old topic! Narrative really depends on how you like a story to be told. Some like more scenes and less gameplay, some like the opposite (especially in video games) some like more action/dynamic scenes and less dialogue, some would rather the opposite. Some schools teach film makers to try and minimize dialogue as much as they can and depend on other ways to tell a story and some don't see any problem with that.

In my opinion, I hate games with lots of text. It sure gives depth but I would like it if it was from NPCs and was optional. I hate both tutorials and exposition. I like to figure out the story, even simple details, through gameplay. A perfect example of this would be team Ico's Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. You could tell how close Ico and Yorda were getting by waiting for them to hold hands or sit together on the sofa when saving the game. The closeness, the bravery and determination, you can learn about it all through the gameplay of those games.

Final Fantasy X

Dragon Age: Origins

Mass Effect trilogy

@ gamingqueen

Best Post so far, well done ! :) .

• Mass Effect games
• Metal Gear Solid games
• Red Dead Redemption