I'd like to throw in Sacrifice and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Both games have excellent writing and voice acting. Sacrifice is rather dark and gloomy with a (mostly) subtle sense of humor. Giants is anything but dark and gloomy, and the humor is definitely not subtle. The former will make you thoughtful and give you quiet chuckles, the latter will have you slapping your thighs and gasping for breath.

A bit of an odd choice, but Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. There's not much of it, considering it's a platformer, but what is there is delightfully written.

Also, Fallout: New Vegas has some really good writing, though not all the time.

On a less artsy note, I've always been impressed with the writing in Monolith titles like FEAR, AvP2, and Condemned. It's not high art, but it's solid, relatively mature, and gripping. Then there's Shogo...not as mature, but still a fun goofy ride.

If you liked the writing in Planescape: Torment I suggest you try Mask of the Betrayer, the expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights 2. It gets compared to torment quite a lot, and it's probably the closest you'll get to the same quality of writing.

Can you create a character directly for it on sufficient level? I tried to claw my way trough the original campaign and while it's not bad, I don't really enjoy it.

The LucasArts games all had great writing.

Heavy Rain...seriously guys, come on!

i wouldnt say indiana jones, maniac mansion , day of the tentacle, full throttle, sam and max or monkey island 1+2 was great writing. (the blasphemy!)
they were great games, but it wasnt mainly because of the story

loom and the dig however

First games that came to my mind are Metal Gear series, Xenogears, both Witchers and Vagrant Story - those stories appealed to me the most:)

Yes you can, you are automatically leveled up to level 18 if you create a new character for the expansion.

Really? I don't think the stories of those LucasArts adventure games were that great really. I mean they were fine but the games were always far far more about the characters and their dialogue to me. Especially Sam and Max. Like the comics, the plot's secondary to the dialogue.

Cryostasis tells its story very well.
I Have No Mouth... is one damn fine example of an adventure game. Very well written.
The Last Express is also pretty damn fine and not something you're going to appreciate every detail of on your first play through.

Yeah, me too. It's looking like it's going to be well worth the wait.

Homeworld. I have never been more drawn into a game's story than that game. Te sequel was good, but not as epic.

- BioShock
- BioShock 2
- The Witcher 1 - 2
- Dragon Age 1
- Mass Effect 1 - 2
- Portal 2
- Brothers In Army: Hell's Highway

Persona 3 and 4.