Just finished Silent Hill 2 - iz pretty good story. One of those games I played through only for the story really. I sure as hell didn't stay for the camera, combat, or eye-strain-friendly brightness!

All the half life, including the supreme overlord of tie - ins, portal.

FF7 and metal gear solid 1, with mass effect just behind them.

I'd have to go with the Legacy of Kain series. I'm a huge fan of the over complicated convoluted -up-the-arse storyline and LoK delivers. No other game story has had me mentally screaming OMFGSTFU!!! so many times. If I had to pick a single game from the series it would be Defiance, seeing as it finally kind of wrapped up the story in a semi-satisfying way - opposed to every other game which just bitch slapped you with cliffhangers.

Other than LoK, I heartily enjoyed Morrowind's emphasis on detail, moral ambiguity, and the theme of uncertain history.

The World Ends With You - honestly, a very original story, original format, and you really got to care about the characters. The fact they actually had pretty witty dialogue was a huge plus.

*raises hand* I am also a huge fan of FF9's story. I think it has the strongest/most complete story out of all of them, and it honestly got me teary eyed at the end when Garnet and Zidane were reunited. The end of X made me bawl like a baby. I also rather liked FFXII's story, but I'm very interested in political science and that sort of thing just appeals to me.

This isn't even a contest. Dynasty warriors 1 through 227,614

Half-life are the only games that made me think about the story while I wasn't playing.
The G-man is just too mysterious...
I want Ep.3!!!

Deus Ex. KotOR. Vampire TM: Bloodlines

Zero Wing - All your base are belong to an extremely polite cyborg named CATS. Your base has been destroyed. Your comrades are gone. As the lone survivor of CATS' attack, you are completely alone. At this point, there's nothing left to fight for. Everyone is dead. Nothing can ever bring them back. You can't save anyone. You can either fight in vain against CATS or simply lie down and accept the destruction to which you are on the way.

But... there is still something left to fight for. You're not fighting to save some princess, or even the world. No. You're not fighting for a person. You're fighting for an ideal. You're fighting for the most honourable cause known to man. You know what you doing. You're fighting.... FOR GREAT JUSTICE!!

Indigo Prophecy, Mass Effect, Warcraft 3 has an epic storyline, I also love The AoM story.

Halo!!! (BRING IT ON!)

King of Dragon Pass: Heroic Epic/Nordic Saga style storytelling ftw.

KOTOR- had a great story that was immersive and did the star wars series well

Half life- all the half life games (Portal is in there)

Mass effect- just plain wonderful

Brace yourselves....Enchanted arms, its a really good game, just very hard to find. (story was/is amazing, im not done yet)

Chalk up another one for Final Fantasy IX. Far more tongue-in-cheek, yet at the same time poignant and moving, than VII (in my opinion).

Erm..god of war 1 and 2 anyone?
But nothing beats Pokemon:
Oak: Fulfill my childhood dream of collecting ALL FIVE HUNDRED AND WHATEVER POKEMON IN THE WORLD!!!!!1

nilpferdkoenig:
Knights of the old Republic, hands down

Far and away my favorite storyline of any, ever. The plot twist was so unexpected... Well, Hell, I still think about it. Same for Kotor 2, even though it wasn't finished. Plot twist was still exciting and fun. None of the boring Level-up bullshit that made me quit Final Fantasy 12 after just getting out of the dungeon... And all of the fun of FORCE LIGHTNING!

Zelda: Majora's Mask for the same reasons as mentioned many times before :p

Legend of Kartia as close second

then MGS...

I think everyone who is GOING to play that game already knows

Doesn't anybody, besides me, love the storyline of Final Fantasy Tactics? The complex story line of Ramza, the son of nobility, who turns against nobles after the cruel death of his best friend, Delita's, sister, Teta. Ramza becomes a heretic and enemy of the church after finding out that it is being used to create war. Delita uses cunning to stab everyone he's associated with in the back. Of course the story get's a lot deeper than this with the incorporation of the stones of the zodiac and character classes. Please tell me someone understands what I'm saying!

Majen:
Doesn't anybody, besides me, love the storyline of Final Fantasy Tactics? The complex story line of Ramza, the son of nobility, who turns against nobles after the cruel death of his best friend, Delita's, sister, Teta. Ramza becomes a heretic and enemy of the church after finding out that it is being used to create war. Delita uses cunning to stab everyone he's associated with in the back. Of course the story get's a lot deeper than this with the incorporation of the stones of the zodiac and character classes. Please tell me someone understands what I'm saying!

The Problem with the story in FFTactics is... that the game was REALLY poorly translated, so it wasn't conveyed very well. Though I have it on good authority that the PSP version is like playing a different game, and that the story thoroughly rocks.

*edit*
Nevermind.

As long as titles are getting chucked around, 'Immortal Defense' has one of the best plots I've ever seen in a video game. A real mind-f***. Just google it and try the demo.

Mass Effect, Silent Hill, Condemned not that crappy second one, Eternal Sonata, Guilty Gear.

FFIX? Ugh, no way. It had great characters and humor going for it, but the story itself just doesn't capture. It happens too much in the background, never really making the main characters real players in it and is just too incoherent. My opinion, but just no... It's a great game but the story isn't really the driving force there, not as much as in many other RPGs, I mean.

Anyway...

Silent Hill 2.
The plot is impossible to fully understand, at least by rational thought. Perhaps that's exactly why it hits a little deeper with its dark surrealism. It's hard to analyze what makes it so great, since the nature of the plot. Let's just say that I really love the way a real enviroment in the game turns into a fantasy of human's inner, dark emotions.
It's not as much about your usual horror, rather than an attempt to portray a mind dealing with a deep psycological trauma.

Final Fantasy VII.
Don't hate it just because it's popular. Isn't it funny how the greatest and most charming stories tend to be in their core quite straight-forward? I think FFVII is that, despite its slightly convoluted reputation. Little bit like in LotR, the main objective always remains the same, get from point A to point B, point B being Sephiroth.Between those points many things change and we learn much about the heroes and their motives.
Despite the fact that the characters might not be the most deep ever seen, their stories that are almost alway touching, make up for it.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.
Seriously, no love for CoM? Especially storywise, it's far superior to KHII... While it lacks those über epic-moments, thanks to the hardware, it also shows much more well-thought storytelling, that dwells much deeper into the personalities of Sora and Riku. The plot doesn't simply have couple highlights, as especially KH2 does, but proceeds much more coherently, slowly building for the conclusion.
It's nice to see Sora's personality being shaken a little, when he forgets and leaves behind his friends in chase for a false memory; Something that Sora normally would never do. Also the idea of the maincharacters having their memories always furher manipulated as the plot moves on is pretty unique and intresting twist. They make a slowly proceeding sacrifice by losing their real memories, without even realizing it, to get closer to an answer to the mystery.
Riku's story is pretty well done too. It's dark and even tragic, without the usual angst. Someone might argue, but I belive that's the case... Riku just doesn't go emo about his guilt and burden, but actually struggles against the darkness that tries to overcome him. It's also nice how true the story stays to the themes of friendship in the series, as when Riku loses hope or strenght himself, it's his friends that ultimately save him.

Axeli:

Final Fantasy VII.
Don't hate it just because it's popular. Isn't it funny how the greatest and most charming stories tend to be in their core quite straight-forward? I think FFVII is that, despite its slightly convoluted reputation. Little bit like in LotR, the main objective always remains the same, get from point A to point B, point B being Sephiroth.Between those points many things change and we learn much about the heroes and their motives.
Despite the fact that the characters might not be the most deep ever seen, their stories that are almost alway touching, make up for it.

You also forgot the crappy, crappy translation but yes, it does have a good story, it's just not as good as FFVI or FFXII, but then again not everything can be.

PedroSteckecilo:

Axeli:

Final Fantasy VII.
Don't hate it just because it's popular. Isn't it funny how the greatest and most charming stories tend to be in their core quite straight-forward? I think FFVII is that, despite its slightly convoluted reputation. Little bit like in LotR, the main objective always remains the same, get from point A to point B, point B being Sephiroth.Between those points many things change and we learn much about the heroes and their motives.
Despite the fact that the characters might not be the most deep ever seen, their stories that are almost alway touching, make up for it.

You also forgot the crappy, crappy translation but yes, it does have a good story, it's just not as good as FFVI or FFXII, but then again not everything can be.

Hmm... Had you stopped at FFVI I might've let this one slip, but... Look for a FFXII review in the reviewing section sometime soon...*

I don't find it awfully difficult to forgive VII's translation, because A) I still get most of the time how the message was supposed to come through B) I don't find it completely fair to blame the game for because of some incompentent transaltors did their job badly, unless it's truly horrible, so much that it's impossible to really tell what the original text wanted to tell you.

EDIT:
*You know, because it's gonna be a loooong rant of things the game does wrong :P

Planescape:Torment, best ever. 2nd, Anachronox, specially the part where the "identity" of the bad guys is revealed, and 3rd, KOTOR II, which would probably be first if Obsidian hadn't been presured by Lucas.

"I heartily enjoyed Morrowind's emphasis on detail, moral ambiguity, and the theme of uncertain history."

Absolutely, the two stories behind what happened at the Red Mountain are great.

Now, don't start hating me here, but what's the big deal about Portal? You can't seriously mention it in a "Best story" thread, the game has no story. Yes, what goes on in the game is almost perfect, and the dialog is awesome at worst and god-like at best. But story? No, not really.

Anyhoo, to my nominees...
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, best of the best in my mind. Honorable mentions go to The Getaway, craptastic game, but I love the story (I'm a big fan of Guy Ritchie's "Lock, Stock..." and "Snatch")

I mentioned three games. I'll give you FFVII - decent kids story. I thought about it some more. Every other game I played had a poor to mediocre storyline.

I can't agree with Fahrenheit / Indego Prophesy. It sufficed as a game plot but it wouldn't stand up as a film or book. It started brilliantly but turned dreadful towards the end. So many plot holes it was almost hilarious. As a film it would have been 'The Sin Eater' (which I consider to be the worst film I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing) level of bad.

Ocarina, FF X, Ico and Timesplitters 2
Ocarinas was the first game I played with an immersive story and remember
Final Fantasy X's was just epic, I adamantly prefer it to VII for my own reasons
Ico didn't have excessive story, but the atmosphere around the simple plot was compelling, I really need to play Shadow of the Colossus.
And Timesplitters 2's was just fun and inventive with regards to the respective time periods.
Oh and I'm a Halo fan, so go figure. Please don't judge me there though ;D.

the MGS series is the only big game thats truely unique, the shooters are all rehashes, and i too agree with FF IX

Melaisis:
I liked Lylat Wars, although it was more for the character design than actual 'I WILL AVENGE YOU FATHER!' plot.

That's so true, The character story's in the Starfox series are really good. Starfox Assualt was by far the best in the series