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Best Videogame Writing Since 2005, Any Genre?

Peter

Arcane
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
1,550
Can't recommend Kentucky Route Zero enough if one can handle indie artyness. There's a literary quality and complexity to the story, characters and prose that is seldom seen in games. Anyone who's into pomo, southern gothic and/or magical realism literature should get a kick out of it, I think. It's also a very beautiful and atmospheric game in addition to being wonderfully written - but again, only if you can handle a hipsterish indie aesthetic, which I know a lot of people on the 'dex have a problem with.
 

Trotsky

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
2,831
The Witcher series by far and I'm glad you mentioned 2005 because I also agree that was the last good year in gaming and a turning point for the industry.
 
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Joined
Oct 9, 2015
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2,095
Location
DFW, Texas
Lol fuck off with that shit. You are just proving my point when you use those kind of moderntarded buzzwords.

Don't you mean "post-moderntarded"? I have to agree with your sentiments though. The only thing postmodernism does is criticize. It doesn't construct anything new. It is aqua regia.
 

Kem0sabe

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2011
Messages
13,076
Location
Azores Islands
By genres,

FPS: the darkness... It's fucking great, play it.

RPG: Age of Decadence, gritty, realistic characters, fun for a couple of playthroughs.

MMO: the secret world, good writing and atmosphere but tends to go on and on with fucking faux philosophical character dialogues.

Adventure: longest journey, another one by funcom, and with an interesting sci-fi story, which is a rarety these days.

Strategy: starcraft 2 trilogy, it's fun space opera with cool characters, shit blows up, people die all heroic and stuff.

Action adventure: uncharted series or the last of us. It's AAA movie game time, mindless but in a good way.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
4,548
I'm looking for the best writing in videogames since 2005, RPG or otherwise. This is including quests, dialogue, storyboards, and cutscenes.

The Legacy of Kain series has always been my favorite in terms of story, but that is pre-2005. I'm partial to horror and really enjoyed the general atmosphere of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Both of which are based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Neither however, really had an intricate plot IIRC. At least not on the level of the Legacy of Kain games.

What videogame stories really stood out from 2005 to present?

Should go check out The Secret World, it borrows a lot from the horror genre and some stories could come straight out of a Lovecraft novel. The writing and the overarching plot are also really good.

Hey, I've been wanting to play that one for a long time. I was put off by negative reception during release though.
 

pakoito

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
3,086
INB4 Portal hipsters.
[...]
And Undertale (2015).
[...]
Others worth mentioning are Gunpoint (2013), Primordia (2012) and the Stanley Parable (2007/2013).
Total lack of self-awareness.

EDIT:

INB4 Portal hipsters.

Psychonauts (2005).
Jazzpunk (2014)
Stanley Parable (2007/2013).

:prosper: you lack a massive dose of self-awareness son.

Dang! Beat me by several hours.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
4,548
By genres,

FPS: the darkness... It's fucking great, play it.

RPG: Age of Decadence, gritty, realistic characters, fun for a couple of playthroughs.

MMO: the secret world, good writing and atmosphere but tends to go on and on with fucking faux philosophical character dialogues.

Adventure: longest journey, another one by funcom, and with an interesting sci-fi story, which is a rarety these days.

Strategy: starcraft 2 trilogy, it's fun space opera with cool characters, shit blows up, people die all heroic and stuff.

Action adventure: uncharted series or the last of us. It's AAA movie game time, mindless but in a good way.

That can be a great quality or terrible one, depending on context.

I loved the Legacy of Kain series for this reason but despised Planescape: Torment for the exact same.

Soul Reaver #1 and Planescape: Torment were both released in 1999 and feature the classic voice-acting of the late Tony Jay.

All of Soul Reaver's story was revealed through voice-acted cut scenes but PST relied on its heavy use of in-game text and dialogue.

LOK still makes a shitload more sense to me than PST ever does or did.

Maybe I'm comparing apples and oranges here, but then again, subsequent games in the LOK franchise became increasingly worse and convoluted with each release.
 

pakoito

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
3,086
Unepic had a couple of funny dialogues, but I don't know how well they translate into English. I can't help a lot in the storyfaggotry front.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,328
Location
Flowery Land
SWAT 4. While it has very minimal script, the briefings, 911 calls and dialog from non-hostiles do wonders to establish the atmosphere. It really proves that a little detail goes a long way. This is particularly true of the 911 calls as they aren't strictly needed from a gameplay point of view, but they establish how the civilians are paniced and such.

When a guy incapacitates one of your officers, you can totally understand the desire to cap him despite him being on the ground from getting a sock full of lead in the face
 
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communard

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2012
Messages
1,379
Location
a gay mans ass
People who bring up LA Noire deserve to have their faces cut off. That shit is 100% a straight James Ellroy rip-off minus the awesome elements.

root kill these fools.
 

Shammy

Learned
Joined
Aug 21, 2015
Messages
200
Location
California
Soul Reaver #1 and Planescape: Torment were both released in 1999 and feature the classic voice-acting of the late Tony Jay.
God I miss the dude; his voice had the right amount of gravel to make anyone sound awesome.

Really a testament to how effective good VA'ing can be in a game.
 

buzz

Arcane
Joined
Apr 1, 2012
Messages
4,234
Any Rockstar game since San Andreas at the very least had great writing and storytelling. You need to shut your stupid face already.
 

communard

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2012
Messages
1,379
Location
a gay mans ass
Any Rockstar game since San Andreas at the very least had great writing and storytelling. You need to shut your stupid face already.

I have no beef with the rest of the Rockstar catalogue even if I would very much hesitate to call the writing in any of their games "great" by its own merit. It generally works well in the context of the game systems at work.

LA Noire's writing primarily suffers from having to carry a shitty fucking non-game by itself (I guess with some help from the neato facial animations). And no, it's not good enough to do that even if it wasn't a shameless fucking rip-off. Which it is.
 

Doktor Best

Arcane
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
2,849
What about the Alan Wake?
Vanishing of Ethan Carter is just like that without the stupid shooting and with the best graphics in any computergame to date.

Gesendet von meinem GT-I9000 mit Tapatalk 2
 

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