I agree with your agreement. :D

Games are such a departure from other mediums of story telling that it's still a baby. It's not a novel, it's not a movie or television, it's not a stage play, it's not a comic book, it's none of these things, but it can incorporate damn near any of them into its own interactive experience.

Also, all other forms of medium are over a century old, some incredibly ancient. When novels first started coming around, they had a special set of challenges to face while trying to convey a story that art murals and oral tradition and even stage plays didn't have to face. When film came around, they had the whole history of novels and all other forms of story telling to learn from, yet could only take those so far while trying to figure out how to tell a story that was both long enough for people to enjoy, yet short enough that each script wasn't a 100,000 novel in itself. We're just experiencing that growth in games now, only games offer the bizarre challenge of being able to have all the challenges of telling a story that all other mediums have, on top of figuring out how to make an actual game out of something.

After all, we've had games that literally take on the style and/or presentation of comic books, film and novels.

Once more, I find Daniel Floyd and Co. have explained the problems of writing stories in games oh so very well:

[url=]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1887-Video-Games-Bad-Writing[/url]

From the bottom of my story-loving heart, I am waiting for the day we get our own lexicon of famous story tellers in games, who can fully marry the game play to the story and still tell a story as amazing as anything found in the best novels, comics, movies and shows.

We're getting there, though, and already have quite a few gems -- yet nowhere near as prolific in terms of quantity of quality as novels or movies. The first few Silent Hill games, the first God of War, Mass Effect 2 and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic just to name a few.

I wanted to capture what this thread came up with, so I created a mix. Only games with 2 or more favourable mentions were included:

http://www.gog.com/en/mix/great_stories_forum_favourites

If anyone can think of a better name for the mix, I'd be happy to change it.

Great Expectations...?

Not bad, but presumably the title should let people know (a bit more specifically) what's inside. "Great Expectations" makes me expect disappointment.

The Longest Journey.

I like that. Changed.

Planescape Torment, no doubt about it. What's more epic than the discovering of your true self and exploring the boundaries of your world?

This post has gained my official stamp of approval.

Planescape was released on GoG shortly after this thread was created, so you're the first one to "vote" for it. If anyone else favourably mentions it in this thread, I'll be sure to update the mix.

Screamer
1nsane
Flatout

Plansescape: Torment.

Make it so. :D

I made a list of games with good writing. This is NOT the same as a good story, but since most games with good writing also have a good story, I think it's still appropriate:

http://www.gog.com/en/mix/games_with_good_writing

Planescape Torment, totally

And the "father" of Fallout, Tim Cain, also worked on the development of Arcanum, so chances are that you'll like the game.
Here a interesting video where Tim talks about Arcanum > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4XVW6qcuzM

Thanks everyone for help. I will save the list you made Lafazar, add few titles in my mind and I will slowly purchase them all. Now I only need to wait until BG2,Temple of Elemental evil and Icewind dale series will come to gog.