[Games as Art] What is the best writing in all of video games?

CT Phipps said:
Yes, the answer is that I have no taste.
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Best answer I have seen yet. Anybody that can't enjoy the old Fallout games has really shitty modern taste inclinations like my younger brother and cousin. Problem is I see supposed 45 year old men that think Fallout 3 is pinnacle Fallout. You know what I think when I hear that? Moira. Megaton. Green haze. I mean Knight of the Old Republic 1 and 2 are examples of good writing in a RPG. If you want it delivered in cinematic Red Dead/Mafia 3 style I can understand not liking it as much. I think Phipps likes fancy presentation in his games. What do you think of MGS?
 
Eh, I don't hold it against you, @RangerBoo. I'm not trying to be pretentious. I come here primarily because I don't think many other boards get deep into the subjects of games.

6. Fallout 3

I think of this game as my favorite for emergent storytelling. There's a lot of stories about people who died horriby and their failures in life that are only found if you examine the environments. A couple of skeletons in a bed surrounded by Med-X, a teddy bear flapping in the wind of a protection shelter, and the blasted environments. I don't think the writing in Fallout 3 is particularly good or bad since I think it's just basically a retelling of Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. You're looking for a water chip, you fight Super Mutants, and you talk John Henry Eden/The Master to death.

What is best in Fallout 3? Tranquility Lane. Vault 101. Paradise Falls. The stuff that's out of the way.

7. Fallout 2

I prefer Fallout 2 over Fallout 1 for more or less only one reason: New Reno. I think of New Reno as an eye-opener for what you can do in a city and its atmosphere. I loved becoming a Made Man for the Bishops and all of the wonderful things like porn, Boxing, and drug dealing that is to be found there. I just didn't get that feeling from anywhere similar in Fallout original recipe. I also feel like the Enclave is a stronger villain than the Master because I like the subversiveness of the American fanatics being just a bunch of oil-riggers that have deluded themselves into thinking they're the new Master Race.

Best Part: Already said

8. Dragon Age: Origins

I think Dragon Age: Origins triumphs over DA2 because it is such a big and expansive storyline. David Gaider really made a universe that I felt was vibrant and alive. Sadly, I feel like the gameworld got progressively worse with each section until Inquisition that removed everything good about the setting. I remember someone said, "Dragon Age is a game world about friendship and the bonds we forge." And I was like, "For me, Dragon Age is about Duncan stabbing the fuck out of a guy because he didn't want to drink poison."

Best part of the game: Denerim, City Elf Origin

9. Knights of the Old Republic

I'm going to be honest that I'm not a big fan of KOTOR2 because it feels like it was written as Chris Avellone wanting to take down the principles of Star Wars. Which doesn't really work when you're making a Star Wars game. Kreia, for example, seems to think the Force acts like God vs. the Devil when the Force is a part of everyone and everything. While it's much more binary Good vs. Evil, I love the original KOTOR for its expansive worlds and fun character moments. It really is my second favorite of all Bioware games.

Best part of the game: Korriban.

10. The Witcher 2

A lot of people love The Witcher 3 much more than this game but I feel like the politics and characterization of The Witcher 2 is stronger. I loved the characters, twists, turns, and more introduced in this game. Starting from the fact that you can spare your enemies in the first round to the fact that you can just let the Big Bad go in the end. I also felt Triss and Geralt's romance was really powerful here.

I say the best part of this game is the politics.
 
Today i learned that Vault 101 is "out of the way" in Fallout 3. You know, the intro of the game.

I wish it was actually out of the way, so i could ignore some of the worst writing in fiction.
 
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CT Phipps said:
Eh, I don't hold it against you, @RangerBoo. I'm not trying to be pretentious. I come here primarily because I don't think many other boards get deep into the subjects of games.

6. Fallout 3

I think of this game as my favorite for emergent storytelling.
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Reaction to Fallout 3 2007-08 Live.
 
Imagine the first people to read, or be read the script for this scene aloud.

Imagine being the prop fabricator; being told what to build.
 
Remember when it was argued that traditional role-playing mechanics are racist and sexist? Oh it still is.

Sorry, little bitter from a time when the video gaming industry was critical of fan responses to its projects so it concocted a bullshit narrative based off of the events of real people who were raped to justify making horrible decisions. Oh, that's still going on?

Nothing wrong with enjoying Fallout 3.

Best writing of all time. Wait is this a troll? Anyways.

Best writing of all time? It's hard to say. Videogames base alot of their key aspects on film and novels that are art in of themselves, so how do you define such a subjective topic into videogames?

There are many types of writing. There is story based writing, and lore and world-building based writing.

For me personally, the lore of the Thief games always tickled my bones. The setting, the atmosphere depicted, all of it blends together for a wonderful work of "art" that stands alone in its own universe.

As far as character dialogue and a traditional "Story" narrative, blockbuster console games seems to have that more covered. Metal Gear Solid, Last of Us, ect. Things such as that.

Perhaps I might even play Persona 5 one day.

I feel that videogames are best at lore and world-building but are poor at giving a traditional story narrative a run against other media.

The most "Immersed" in a traditional story I have been has been the games of Warren Spector, Chris Avellone, then Hideo Kojima. I don't play very many JRPGS, so I know that they would have some more prime examples of this.
 
CT Phipps said:
6. Fallout 3

I think of this game as my favorite for emergent storytelling. There's a lot of stories about people who died horriby and their failures in life that are only found if you examine the environments. A couple of skeletons in a bed surrounded by Med-X, a teddy bear flapping in the wind of a protection shelter, and the blasted environments. I don't think the writing in Fallout 3 is particularly good or bad since I think it's just basically a retelling of Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. You're looking for a water chip, you fight Super Mutants, and you talk John Henry Eden/The Master to death.

What is best in Fallout 3? Tranquility Lane. Vault 101. Paradise Falls. The stuff that's out of the way.
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Funnily enough I feel that is Fallout 3 biggest problem. Bethesda focused so much on environmental storytelling in Fallout 3 that Bethesda had no idea on what to do with the story for the main game which, in Fallout, that should be the most important thing. Will give credit where it is due, Bethesda is good with environmental story telling but dialogue, quests and main story wise they leave much to be desired.
 
RangerBoo said:
Bethesda is good with environmental story telling
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Not really? A lot of the times it's absolutely retarded. I don't think a corpse having a convenient note detailing how they lived before dying is good enviromental storytelling.

Not to mention, it's extremely easy to do since you don't have to setup character motivations, any story progression or anything that actually takes effort. Bethesda basically uses it as a crutch to fill the world with stuff to make it seem filled with content.

Bethesda at this point used it so much that people think their enviromental storytelling is somehow good when it isn't. It's lazy and repetitive. This is just another thing where people try desperately to find things redeeming about Bethesda games that something as simple as enviromental storytelling gets them praise.
 
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Norzan said:
Not really? A lot of the times it's absolutely retarded. I don't think a corpse having a convenient note detailing how they lived before dying is good enviromental storytelling.

Not to mention, it's extremely easy to do since you don't have setup character motivations, any story progression or anything that actually takes effort. Bethesda basically uses it as a crutch to fill the world with stuff to make it seem filled with content.

Bethesda at this point used it so much that people think their enviromental storytelling is somehow good when it isn't. It's lazy and repetitive. This is just another thing where people try desperately to find things redeeming about Bethesda games that something as simple as enviromental storytelling gets them praise.
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Oh, don't get me wrong. Bethesda Fallout 3 and 4 are shit compared to New Vegas and it's storytelling. The descent into madness of Mr House's older brother and the storytelling in Dead Money blows everything Bethesda did in 3 and 4 out of the water. The difference between Bethesda and Obsidian with Fallout was that Bethesda would rather tell then show.
 
3 and 4 have a lot of environmental storytelling but very little of it memorable. The only one I remember is the dysfunctional family that was preparing for the apocalypse across DC

By comparison I remember absolutely random and minute shit like the guy in Bison Steve paying for a ransom to get back his wife or the Sierra Madre staff complaining about Sinclair. Primarily just because environmental storytelling is a nice flavouring but being your bread and butter is not it's strong suit.

If the atmosphere is already meaningful and laid on thick then environmental storytelling is a nice finish.
 
It's really a shame that this thing with people thinking Bethesda has good enviromental storytelling overshadowed a lot of the fantastic examples in many other RPGs. New Vegas has a lot of it, most of them great, and it hardly, if ever, gets brought up when talking about the good parts of the game. Not to mention New Vegas stroke a good balance between regular storytelling through questlines and enviromental storytelling.
 
Honestly, I've always put New Vegas about Fallout 3 but I figured I'd share why I like it. I will say I utterly HATE Dead Money. I *WANT* to like it but the damn thing just doesn't not fit my view of the setting. There's a bunch of immortal tribesmen with no personalities and impossible to interact with, magic replicator technology in the Sierra Madre, immortal holograms serving as stand-ins for ghosts, and all of the companions are severely compromised so you can't communicate with them in a meaningful way.

I prefer Lonesome Road and I feel that was a very broken-base sort of game.

Honest Hearts is my favorite by far, followed by Old World Blues.
 
CT Phipps said:
Honestly, I've always put New Vegas about Fallout 3 but I figured I'd share why I like it. I will say I utterly HATE Dead Money. I *WANT* to like it but the damn thing just doesn't not fit my view of the setting. There's a bunch of immortal tribesmen with no personalities and impossible to interact with, magic replicator technology in the Sierra Madre, immortal holograms serving as stand-ins for ghosts, and all of the companions are severely compromised so you can't communicate with them in a meaningful way.
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Of course the Ghost People can't be interacted with as they are more or less feral ghouls who have been mutated by The Cloud. The holograms were there to add atmosphere to the setting. To make it into a literal ghost town. The companions were compromised as they were forced to work with you against their will and are only helping you to help themselves. The replicators I can kind of get but at least the DLC had an explanation for them.
 
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Thief: The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age offered players an arguably unparalleled stealth experience, excellently portraying the role of a master thief in an interesting world. With it's excellent gameplay the duo offer amazing sound, great music and smooth mechanics that make you feel apart of the world. It also had serious style with a bastard for a protagonist and a thrilling almost horrific story complete with beautiful cutscenes.


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I liked the writing in the Homeworld and Myth games.







*Many cutscenes in the Homeworld games are done in-engine; you cannot get the whole story from the pre-rendered scenes.

 
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Not at all controversial, but probably PS:T with New Vegas, Fallout 2, and BG 2 following behind.
 
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