1) Planescape: Torment. No game can match the depth and breadth of this game in terms of story. Could have been the Citizen Kane of video games, if only more people had paid attention to it.
2) Killer7. Mind-bending, weird, deep, allegorical in a non-obvious way, and with several layers. Would have made a good David Lynch movie.
3) I want to say the Legacy of Kain series, but if we have to name just one game, I'll say the first Blood Omen. What looks to be your basic tale of "saving the world" soon becomes much, much more than that - as the story is really as much about Kain himself as it is about the world of Nosgoth. Simon Templeman's unparalleled narration helps things greatly, too.
Really, outside of BioWare, Suda51, Team Ico, and Silicon Knights/the Soul Reaver team, I can't name any development teams who concentrate so much on delivering a good story - and succeed with any regularity. Dev teams seriously need to start hiring some real writers.
"'Casual games' are something the 'Game Industry' invented to explain away the Wii success instead of actually listening or looking at what Nintendo did. There is no 'casual strategy' from Nintendo. 'Accessible strategy', yes, but ‘casual gamers’ is just the 'Game Industry''s polite way of saying what they feel: 'retarded gamers'."
-Sean Malstrom
