The 25 Best Stories In Video Games

A young village boy named Fei Fong Wong straps himself into a giant robot (called "gears") in order to defend his people, only to eventually be hit with a bout of amnesia and wake up learning that the machines have taken on a mind of their own (quick, someone get a hold of Ahnold!). The game's intro video begins with the words, "I am Alpha and Omega," so you knew you were getting yourself into something deep...or at least a beginner Greek lesson. While Xenogears' popularity didn't reach the critical mass of some of the games on this list, it easily deserves a spot for effectively melding cannibals, Freudian philosophy, theology, and—ah, yes—a video game that wasn't half-bad.

We love stories about minions rising up and taking down overzealous bosses (word to Office Space), which is why Eidos' gutsy tale of Raziel resonates so much with us. Soul Reaver's main character is given the death sentence at the beginning of the game by Kain, the game's eponymous bastard who refuses to sacrifice his life in order to save the land of Nosgoth. Raziel has to fight through hell (almost literally) and back—and even through his four brothers, who serve as boss characters on the various levels. The grim story ends on a bit of a sour note, dovetailing into a cliffhanger that sets up a sequel, but the means to that end were just too unforgettable not to warrant some dark, soul-devouring love.

Perhaps no game released in the past 10 years has been so heavily driven by narrative than Quantic Dream's haunting choose-your-own-adventure story about the Origami Killer. After losing his son in a car accident years earlier, Ethan Mars blacks out and discovers his other son has gone missing, leading to a lengthy and criss-crossing story that ties together the lives of four characters. You can knock the game for—well, for not being a "game," per se—but its heavy dramatic moments and pure grit ensured prevented you from shaking Heavy Rain from your mind for weeks.

The game that time forgot. Released under the banner of the slowly dying PS2 console in 2006, Okami was largely (and sadly) ignored by the public until it was reincarnated a couple of years later for a Wii re-release. The beautifully rendered game is about Amaterasu, a sun goddess who has taken the form of a wolf, teaming up with a village warrior in order to protect their people against an eight-headed dragon-serpent named Orochi. The story is made even better by creative watercolors that are used to bring life to the action, and by traditional Japanese folk music that enhances the game's remarkable aesthetic.

The more we think about Rockstar's breakout game of 2010, the more we think John Marsten, the game's main man, is one bad muthashutyomouth. A former gang member forced by the government to hunt down his old outlaw buddies, Marsten takes up arms in order to save the lives of his wife and son, only to eventually meet his Maker. Oh, wait—spoiler alert. Sorry.

Did you know that the official language of the afterlife is Spanglish? It's true! Grim Fandango told us so. LucasArts' 1998 title was so wacky, it could only have been developed by one man: Tim Scafer (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend). The game tells the story of one Manny Calavera, a travel agent of the Department of Death who must deal with his corrupt colleagues' sending the newly departed on a four-year journey to the Ninth Underworld. Yes, somehow it all makes sense within the context of the game, so if you haven't played this oft-forgotten cult classic, you know what you have to do.

Met with critical (but not commercial) success, Planescape: Torment is probably the best role-playing game you've never heard of. Games that injected such emotional vigor into their stories were few and far between in 1999—still a relatively early period with regards to gaming innovation—so the vision set forth by the developers at Black Isle Studios was a bit ahead of its time. Still, the story of The Nameless One's journey to reclaim his memories and put together the pieces of his destiny is a moving one. Heavy, man.

Nathan Drake may be the male version of Lara Croft of Tomb Raider fame, but the biggest difference is that Naughty Dog backs up his climbing adventures with a deep, winding story infused with real archeological myths that come to life. And including a hot journalist and a chain-smoking sidekick doesn't hurt either. The first two chapters in the series had Nate the Great kicking ass all across the globe, from the shining city of El Dorado to frigid mountains of Nepal, which means the Lawrence of Arabia-inspired third installment can't come soon enough. Our passport is almost full!

Before Ken Levine was exploring the viability of political ideologies through his BioShock series, he was overseeing Irrational Games' debut title, System Shock 2. After answering a distress signal on the planet Tau Ceti V, a crew of soldiers is infected by aliens called The Many and are brainwashed to do their bidding. Your character's mission: Turn them into intergalactic roadkill and escape, Snake Plissken style.

In less than four years, Portal has helped turn Valve's darkly hilarious cult classic (originally released in compendium The Orange Box) into a viable stand-alone commercial success. GLaDOS, the game's sinister robotic antagonist, brilliantly helps tell the story of Aperture Science's quirky existence, as it leads you—hopefully unsuccessfully—to your doom. With Portal 2 just around the corner, get ready to once again explore why the cake is a lie.

Role-playing games on the PC have become nearly extinct, but nearly a decade ago, the second installment in the Baldur's Gate series made a convincing argument for being one of the most complete games ever assembled. And it all started with a long, sweeping story about escape and survival from the devious experimentations of elven mage Jon Irenicus. BioWare (Mass Effect, Knight of the Old Republic) spent only two years developing this sequel, but that's all it took for them to create one of the most immersive RPG stories ever.

Rumor has it that this Square Enix/Disney collaboration came about through executives from each company bumping into each other on the elevator. The result is one of the most refreshing takes on the role-playing genre, fusing a traditional RPG story about a "mysterious dark power set to doom the world" with the magical world of Disney characters. Mickey, Goofy, and the slightly dyslexic Donald team up with Sora, Riku and Kairi to rid their worlds of the ever-increasing army of Heartless who want to steal the Kingdom Hearts, which controls all of the hearts in the world. How could we be so heartless and not have this slick crossover on this list?

Part Blade Runner, part Starship Troopers, the Mass Effect series stands out as one of the more amazing recent achievements in video game storytelling for its well-choreographed space opera. Commander Shepard leads a rag tag group of biotics, engineers, scientists, and soldiers against an ancient race of aliens called the Reapers who have awoken en masse to invade the universe. If that's not epic enough for you, developers included some alien sex too. So at least there's that.

Are video games art? We won't go down that road, but this 2005 title by Team Ico is often given as the undeniable answer behind that argument, and for good reason. Shadow of the Colossus is essentially a love story about a boy named Wander, who is thrust into battle against 16 various colossi in order to save a girl. The developers, to their credit, succeeded in creating an effective game through minimalist design. It's quite the solitary experience, as Wander's journey is driven both by immersion into the lively (yet largely barren) Forbidden World and by the accompanying soundtrack, which often evokes an emotional undercurrent of its own.

Conspiracy theorists got their kind of game when Deus Ex appeared in stores at the turn of the century, ready to capitalize on all of the Y2K-the-world-is-ending hysteria. With tinfoil hat firmly in place, you play as JC Denton, a genetically engineered agent who must track down the source of the Gray Death, an Illuminati-created virus that is quickly killing everyone in the world. With the creation of a new world order within reach, Denton traverses the back alleys of high society and even Area 51 to get to the bottom of things, only to arrive at a final confrontation where you decide the fate of the world. Hey, no pressure, though.

Disregarding the still-raging argument within the gamer community about whether VI or VII was the better Final Fantasy game, we're putting our money on the former. Released in the States as Final Fantasy III, Square Enix (then still only Square) really put the Super Nintendo through the grinder by focusing on the details that make storytelling great: plot, music and character development. The story focuses on a war between The Empire and the Returners (rebels), which is a riff on the Star Wars canon is we've ever heard one. Take the shot, Luke!

It's hard to imagine how game creators are able to create such lengthy games in just a couple of years, which is why Bethesda's fourth installment of their Elder Scrolls series ranks so high here. If you're into long-winding stories, look no further: Oblivion is our favorite story of the game developer's series, which almost single-handedly made the first-person RPG a viable mainstream genre. For the sake of time and space (the game is several dozens of hours long), just know that you and your swords, amulets, and power rings beat the medieval snot out of the Mythic Dawn, a cult that successfully kills the Emperor's sons and opens up portals to what looks a lot like hell. At least that's what the little imps that want to eat you say.

The No. 9 video game character of all time should take heart that the video game series that writes his paychecks has fared a bit better, sliding in a slot higher. Kratos goes questing to avenge his own death and betrayal at the hands of his father, Zeus, while beating back the Titans who also want to rip Olympus' god-in-chief a new one. Long story short, there's a lot of blood spilled, eyeballs gouged, and threesome had in this one, making it an instant fan favorite.

What's this? An extension of the Star Wars brand that didn't make us feel shame? Yes, please! BioWare's take on the popular sci-fi universe was a sight for sore eyes as, gamers had been subjected to various interactive incarnations that just didn't sit well. Not the case here—KOTOR introduced us to Darth Malak, a Dark Lord of the Sith who has commandeered a legion of Sith minions against the Republic. The Republic's fate lies with you, a starfighting veteran with a bad case of amnesia who can either utilize good or evil to achieve goals, with each branching path of morality leading to a unique plot-twist ending.

The series has had its ups and downs, but Resident Evil has spent the past 15 years showing what a bunch of strapped-to-the-gills cops can do to an army of braindead villagers in Raccoon City. The epic saga of the Umbrella Corporation's failed T-virus initiative has led to five main games depicting confrontations that tie together at various points in the storyline, as well as numerous spin-offs that give a little bit more background on the shady dealings of the medical conglomerate. As canonical a universe as you'll find in gaming.

Each title in the Silent Hill franchise may have its own stand-alone story, but each is set in the mysterious town of Silent Hill. The town symbolized not just a really crappy place in the Northeast Corridor (we're guessing somewhere in Vermont), but also a place that pitted each protagonist against their own thoughts and nightmares. We think, almost without question, that Konami's second in the series was the best in doing so, where James Sunderland arrives at Silent Hill to investigate the sad passing of his wife. In doing so, he unleashes the monsters of Silent Hill, built from his own hopes and fears, and helps to add to the game's fantastic story. Pants-wetting enthusiasts need apply. Unless it's the fetish kind, in which case maybe not.

The cool factor of physicists everywhere jumped by a factor of ten when Valve released their debut first-person shooter title in 1998, breaking the mold for how video game scripts were put together. Their main man, Gordon Freeman, has become an icon of the industry, as his story of survival of an alien invasion in the Black Mesa Research Facility and the subsequent enslavement of the human race by the Combine was told without the use of any cutscenes whatsoever—which were normally a crutch for weak storytellers. We're still waiting for Half-Life 2: Episode 3, which would be the *counting on fingers* fifth title in the series, and then maybe we can finally start the HL3 discussions.

Trying to process all of the franchise's plot minutiae would probably turn the sanest of fellows into a tiger-blood-addled maniac, so we'll spare you the details. Nevertheless, political intrigue and global conspiracies don't come better than this. While the series admittedly took a slight tumble with the second title (where protagonist duties were taken up by Raiden instead of Solid Snake), Konami's flagship third-person stealth games took interactive cinema to a whole other level, especially in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which capped the storyline. That's the one with the 60-minute-long cut scenes (which admittedly turned the "game" into more of a watching experience). Still, the choreography, directed by legendary game developer Hideo Kojima, helped to advance the medium's storytelling potential like no other titles before.

The game opens with the swinging arm of a clock tick-tocking—ironic, since anyone who grew up on Chrono Trigger knows that once you start playing, you can kiss your free time goodbye. Square Enix's legendary role-playing game depicts the life and times of Crono and his six other buddies as they battle through time in order to prevent the world's destruction at the hands, er, claws, er, giant vagina of Lavos. It's considered one of the best SNES games of all time, and is one of the first to have multiple endings based on the various choices and scenarios within the game. In other words, you can blame your multiple Mass Effect playthroughs on this.

Unforgettable tales of good versus evil are hard to come by, but in 1998, Nintendo released what would become the almost unanimous pick for the best video game ever created. Link and Ganondorf clash once again as the fate of the Triforce, which houses unimaginable and godly powers, is up for grabs and Hyrule princess Zelda is kidnapped (as all good video game princess are). Ocarina of Time is a magical story that pushed the N64's capabilities to the limit in delivering fantastic sound effects, music, graphics, and attention to detail, making it out pick for the best story in all of gaming.