Is the story in a video game important to you?

[Gikoku]

And if so, have you ever felt any emotional connection with the story and the characters?

I find story to be very important in games where it matters (mainly RPGs, but also some adventure & shooter titles). I've never cried from a game before, but I did have some heart tugging moments with a few titles, as well as games that brought out other emotions that I never thought possible from a game once immersed. A few titles that brought out various moments of emotion for me were Final Fantasy 7, The Darkness, Mass Effect 1, Fallout 3, and Bioshock.

BIG WALL OF TEXT

Playing the original Bioshock in the middle of the night brought some surprising emotions to me, fear being one, the refreshingly creepy environments and haunting atmosphere kept me on the edge of my seat constantly. The fear of not knowing what was around the next corner, followed by the intimidating thumps of a Big Daddy's walk, just gave me goosebumps. Having to choose whether or not to harvest or save a Little Sister had often been a difficult choice, and as such.. I commonly saved them.

Final Fantasy 7, not my favorite in the series but it was my first. The characters were easy to get along with and the story was surprisingly well-written, but the breaking of various cliches is what got me hooked most for its story. A certain someone dying didn't actually birth much emotion from me, what did however, was seeing the warrior Cloud Strife crippled, muted, and confined to a wheelchair that tugged at my heart... top that off with a gloomy score by Nobuo Uematsu and you've got a pretty emotional moment right there.

Fallout 3, simply put.. did not like the story much, but seeing a band of Super Mutants pillage a town of actual characters was pretty shocking. That, and watching my dog and companions get mutilated by Raiders and Deathclaws and NOT being able to be brought back.. well, that sucked.

The Darkness, I'm not much a fan of shooters but when I played this I was quite stunned at the lengths the Devs went to get you attached to the characters. Being able to relate to the pain of the main character's losses with a realistically and grippingly told story on a path for revenge, had made for an easy emotional connection.

Mass Effect, there aren't many games that leave me regretting a past decision that eat away at me as I continue forth like this one did. Having to kill off various characters that become memorable favorites isn't enjoyable, but it also ended up being a good part of the storytelling.

TL;DR
- Fallout 3: Raiders and Deathclaws killing my dog and companions! sadface.
- Bioshock: Creepy atmosphere, didn't have guts to harvest little sisters.
- FF7: Main hero gets crippled and left as a braindead mute in wheelchair.
- Darkness: I will.. have.. Revenge.
- Mass Effect: I killed Wrex.

 

[Quistrix]

I've had games make me go "Wow, this is so sad." Or whatever plenty times.

Final Fantasy X for example, the ending itself was very emotional. I won't admit whether I wept or not. The entire story was very gripping, the main reason that drove me to the end. Much of what more recent Final Fantasy games are lacking. The music in this game, especially To Zanarkand - I found also added to the whole emotional feel of this game.

With Fallout 3, I thought the makers were very clever to establish an emotional side to things very early on; having your Father go missing and you have to go search for him out in a dangerous wasteland. Having your character simply be a courier with no known history in New Vegas didn't seem to grip me as much.
Your dog in Fallout 3, much like in Fable 2, gave you an other emotional attachment to the world. As, for me anyway, I actually cared about his welfare - even though, yes, he wasn't a real dog, just some dog in a game.

Games that have moral choices involved typically connect you more. Like Bioware games for example.
The Dragon Age series has had the right idea with giving your characters back stories. As does the Mass Effect series. And the moral choices in these games have always seemed very in-depth, moreso even than the Fable series. And the Fable series seems to like to make a big deal out of its apparent 'in-depth' moral choices.
Also: Commander Shepard's death at the beginning of Mass Effect 2 tugged a few heart strings.

I mostly tend to get the most from RPGs due to the usually brilliant storylines. So, to answer the titled question: Yes, the story in video games is important to me.

 

[queenofdisco]

Absolutely in fact if a video game hasn't got a story or a decent one I'll end up flinging it like a Frisbee out and at the window cleaner's head as he wakes me up and see's me stark naked, I suppose I shouldn't sleep with my blinds open but anyway...

I really only have a few of my video games left, and any that don't have a story usually are kept for a few months. I've basically only kept multi-player games and story ones. I have had emotional attachment to a character before (Kaim in Lost Odyssey) its not the gameplay that does it for me its the scenes called memories which is actually a few pages of writing you have to read, yeah yeah its cheating on a games behalf but still its in a game.

Bioshock for me freaked me out a little, I only played during 11pm-5am with doors and blinds and curtains shut, man that was the most immersed I had ever been in a game, scared the jebus outta me at some points.

Fallout 3 did near the same thing except I played it all day and all night, at first I stopped playing because it was like a caveman was trying to take on the russians during the cold war, I had a led pipe and a couple of bullets to spit at scorpions and ants the size of a lion and no bloody health-packs. I ended up quitting and went back to Bioshock(I bought them together) but after completing Bioshock, I went back and played it till I lvled up enough and ended up playing 100 hours in fallout 3.

I played the demo of Darkness pretty pretty prettyyyy good.

Mass Effect, yeah one of my favourite games ever. Definitely some ties there like who not to upset, not wanting rex to die and what not, I killed him once and then regretted it forevers. Gears of war probably has given me the most goosebumps, that game gives me a pure adrenaline rush.

Legacy of Kain also gave me some thrills, the characters the world, awful lot of sentiment and not wanting to see the world effed up, but in the end I lost count of what was going on with all the time travel and paradoxes and what not, they should make a movie for lazy people like me.

Dragon age as mentioned by the dude above.... Morrigan I was pretty ****ed off I couldn't go find her, probably my fav character ever, so in short theres been plenty of games out there that have made me feel something but only one to make me cry (Lost Odyssey, which I still haven't finished)

 

[Gikoku]

I really only have a few of my video games left any that don't have a story usually are kept for a few months. I've basically only kept multi-player games and story ones. I have had emotional attachment to a character before (Kaim in Lost Odyssey) its not the gameplay that does it for me its the scenes called memories which is actually a few pages of writing you have to read, yeah eyah its cheating on a games behalf but still its in a game.

Oh my god, how could I forget about Lost Odyssey. I was almost about to boohoo in one of those written stories, plus a lot of them really opened my mind on various things. Definitely one of the deepest characters I've come across for a game.

 

[L0ki]

Again, it depends on the type of game. Single-Player games, I say yes. To me, Single-Player games NEED a great story line. Although, back in the 80's and early 90's, most games barely had a story line, yet were incredibly fun to play (I.E. Tetris, Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Duck Hunt, etc.).

Some Single-Player games that got me good (In no particular order):

Red Dead Redemption (I'm not gonna lie, it got me choked up and I was speechless near the end).

Final Fantasy 8 (Had the best love story, in my opinion, than ANY of the other Final Fantasies).

Final Fantasy 7 (Had one of the best story lines, I'm not counting all the crap that came out AFTER FF7's original story).

Chrono Trigger (I love how it had a good story line AND had back story for all the characters).

Xenogears (Yet another great story line with great back stories for characters).

Legend of Dragoon (" ").

Lunar (I thought the entire series was great, not just part 1. Yes, I know I'm naming a bunch of RPG games, but majority of RPG's in my time, were the only games with true story lines).

Then there's Multi-Player games, which have no back story what-so-ever, but they're just ridiculously great and addictive (Again, in no particular order):

Counter-Strike (1.6 and Source. I'm not counting Condition Zero, since Condition Zero was meant to be a Single Player Counter-Strike, although it did have a Multi-player option).

Team Fortress Classic (What made this fun was the team work involved in beating the other team).

Team Fortress 2 (Currently extremely addicted to this game. Not only is it like TFC, where you need team work to win, but they've got more in-depth with the characters. Not any story line or back story, but rather produced all the "Meet the..." videos, and they added flare to the "classes" a great deal, unlike any other FPS I've ever seen).

Tribes 2 (One of the first FPS Team Work games I've ever played).

Day of Defeat (Classic and Source).

-----------------------------------------

With that being said, as I stated earlier, I'm highly addicted to Team Fortress 2. I bought it years ago when it was first released in 2008, but because I was just ending my Counter-Strike: Source "career" (I used to play in Leagues and compete competitively for money), I was so busy with Counter-Strike, that I barely had time for Team Fortress 2 and only played it every once and a while; However, now that it became Free-to-Play (Which, I highly encourage you all to go download it on Steam and start playing), and the player base increased over night, I started getting heavily addicted to it, again.

Sooo... I leave you all with their "Meet the..." videos. Enjoy.

Meet the Spy

Meet the Demoman

Meet the Sniper

Meet the Soldier

Meet the Scout

Meet the Medic

Meet the Engineer

Meet the Heavy

Meet the Pyro (There isn't an official Meet the Pyro video yet. It's the last class to be made a video, so this "fan video" is the best for now.)

 

[Dark Drakan]

Story is extremely important to me in games as if i dont care about the characters or the plot i tend not to pay much attention to what is going on in the game. When you care about people and situations you seem to be more drawn in and appreiciate the little details more and you also appreicate the developers that bit more for taking the time to craft a good story.

 

[Skotekal]

I LOVE stories in games. But only one game has almost had me cry, and that was Red Dead Redemption. Oh God that was an amazing but heartbreaking ending.

 

[HeroOfCrapsalot]

NOT WALL OF TEXT

Story is almost everything to me in a game unless it makes up for it well in gameplay or heavy action.

 

[Aions]

it helps, but its not necessary IMO. Like in saints row 2 i had no idea wtf was going on but it did not matter, i still had loads of fun in that game. assassins creed 2 had a good story and that pushed me to keep playing. and ALL mario games have little to no story and they are still hella fun

 

[Tsuyu]

Is the story in a video game important to me?

Take a guess

 

[Sephiroxas]

Stories in games never really got to me as much as movies do. Game technology hasn't reached the point yet (at least for me) to tug on my heart strings at all. They lack far too much in Voice Acting, Character Facial display of emtion, and demeanor. If the character can't ACT the story well enough for me, the story is really..Bleh... The only company that's gotten close enough for me has been Valve.They work damn hard on giving their characters facial expressions and hand gestures and the sort.

Games only really ever make me feel adrenaline and other games put me on edge or freak me out:
FEAR
Bloodshot Condemned 2
Tomb Raider II (T-rexs man..o_o)
Dead Space (Boo factor)
AMBER
Bioshock
Castlevania

 

[Dark Drakan]

Stories in games never really got to me as much as movies do. Game technology hasn't reached the point yet (at least for me) to tug on my heart strings at all. They lack far too much in Voice Acting, Character Facial display of emtion, and demeanor. If the character can't ACT the story well enough for me, the story is really..Bleh... The only company that's gotten close enough for me has been Valve.They work damn hard on giving their characters facial expressions and hand gestures and the sort.

Hopefully the motionscan technology Team Bondi have used in L.A. Noire will start to bridge that gap soon when its a little more advanced.

 

[Tyloric]

I really don't feel like making a long and detailed post so my opinion boils down to this: story isn't necessarily as important to me as good writing is (yes, there is a difference).

Take Borderlands for example. Terrific game that has a very weak story, but that story is well written and the characters are hilarious and it makes you want more.

 

[Necromancer]

Hmm, it's a somewhat hard to explain how I feel about the story of a video game. I'll start by saying that if a game doesn't have a very good story, it's really not a big deal to me. For example, none of the Fable games have amazing or incredible stories, but they are my favorite games anyway because of other things like their gameplay and customization. However, if a video game or video game series has an incredible and mind blowing story like Assassin's Creed, then the story becomes one of the main reason I play the game or series.

 

[SelfAppointedGunslinger]

I LOVE stories in games. But only one game has almost had me cry, and that was Red Dead Redemption. Oh God that was an amazing but heartbreaking ending.

Yeah the red dead redemption story was one of the best I've seen in a long time, really enjoyed the key themes of the game such as the one that everyone's past catches up with them at some point in one way or another.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

Legend of Dragoon (" ").

GOOD GOD......******.. I LOVE YOU

i was distraught when a certain "L" character died. he got replaced by King Albert but it was never the same. the plots twists and turns... each disc i beat was a triumph and when i'd beaten all four it felt like i'd lived and learned so much.

good guys turned bad, bad turned good, the game was bound to have a happy ending from the start. even so, when you entered a those boss fights i'd go in thinking "there's no way i'm gonna beat this thing" just because the games lore was presented so well. even though the game was mostly linear, so &$@%^(* good.

I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE
I ADMIT IT

 

[Cain]

With Fallout 3, I thought the makers were very clever to establish an emotional side to things very early on; having your Father go missing and you have to go search for him out in a dangerous wasteland. Having your character simply be a courier with no known history in New Vegas didn't seem to grip me as much.
Your dog in Fallout 3, much like in Fable 2, gave you an other emotional attachment to the world. As, for me anyway, I actually cared about his welfare - even though, yes, he wasn't a real dog, just some dog in a game.

Yet they aren't clever enough to make their own original story.
On topic, I do think the story in a game is important. Bioshock, as others have said, was scary and I enjoyed the twists, and I felt a bit betrayed when Atlas turned out to be Frank Fontaine
I also felt sad when my dog died in Fable 2. Having built up an emotional attachment to it, being unable to help my dog and then not bring it back when I chose sacrifice, really dealt an emotional blow. And as somebody else has noted, Commander Sheperds death came as quite a shock.

 

[L0ki]

Personally, I liked Fallout 3 a great deal. I've played Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics. Great games, dull graphics (Of course, for their times, it was awesome). So when Fallout 3 came out, I was mind blown by the graphics. I was in awe. The story steered away from the normal Fallout-esque game, yet keeping a familiar characters (Such-as Dogmeat) or places like the Vaults, still made it feel like the Fallout world to me and I didn't have a problem with it.

I did not think the story was horrible, neither. Sure, the Brotherhood of Steel didn't have the same feel to them as the other games did, but the reason is EXPLAINED in the story of Lyons' BoS. So does that ruin Fallout 3 or the series in general? No, it doesn't. The story is laid out right there in the game. I actually prefer Fallout 3 over New Vegas. True, New Vegas sticks to the original story line, and the Brotherhood of Steel are like the original BoS we've come to love and hate, but there was nothing added to it. Graphics were about the same as Fallout 3, the story line made me feel like I was playing the original Fallout in 3D. The only thing I liked about New Vegas was the Factions, but other than that, it was completely boring and when I beat it, I never touched it, again. Hell, I've even bought the DLC's for it and have yet to play them.

 

[Cain]

Personally, I liked Fallout 3 a great deal. I've played Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics. Great games, dull graphics (Of course, for their times, it was awesome). So when Fallout 3 came out, I was mind blown by the graphics. I was in awe. The story steered away from the normal Fallout-esque game, yet keeping a familiar characters (Such-as Dogmeat) or places like the Vaults, still made it feel like the Fallout world to me and I didn't have a problem with it.

I did not think the story was horrible, neither. Sure, the Brotherhood of Steel didn't have the same feel to them as the other games did, but the reason is EXPLAINED in the story of Lyons' BoS. So does that ruin Fallout 3 or the series in general? No, it doesn't. The story is laid out right there in the game. I actually prefer Fallout 3 over New Vegas. True, New Vegas sticks to the original story line, and the Brotherhood of Steel are like the original BoS we've come to love and hate, but there was nothing added to it. Graphics were about the same as Fallout 3, the story line made me feel like I was playing the original Fallout in 3D. The only thing I liked about New Vegas was the Factions, but other than that, it was completely boring and when I beat it, I never touched it, again. Hell, I've even bought the DLC's for it and have yet to play them.

The story wouldn't be so bad if it hadn't been rehashed from Fallout 1 and 2. And Lyons BoS is ok, but it could've been explained better. Elder Lyons walks into the Pitt, a place extreme poverty and mutation, slaughters most of the population, as you would expect from brotherhood members, but then gets all emotional over about 50 people being attacked by super mutants? And was there even a need to change them? Having them refuse to help the people of the wasteland could've opened possibilities for you to deal with them, such as trying to convince them otherwise, or working against them by stealing tech that might help people in need. But no they had to be a bland white knight of the wastelands faction.
And don't ever compare Fallout 3 to the original. Fallout 1 allowed you to interact with each faction and town, and gave you an ending for each one, as well as being able to join the mutants. Fallout 3 railroaded you towards the end, with you being given no choice but to help the brotherhood of steel, and then being given a choice at the end to put some FEV in project purity. What if I wanted to play a character who wanted to help the enclave as soon as he heard of them? Eden seemed more than happy to give me the materials to kill a lot of people., why wouldn't I be allowed to join them.

 

[moonfever]

Story is everything in my games. I play RPG's only. Fable games are my favorites, closely followed by Mass Effect. Nothing like saving the Galaxy. Dragon Age is next . Interesting story. There are others. ^_^