| selnor said: Mass Effect series has by a long shot, the best storytelling of any game. And the most tense story moments. In 2007 people loved the last 3 hours of ME1. And in 2010, people were blown away by the first 2 hours and final 5 of ME2. |
It tells a story well, and the interaction with characters is good, but at the end of the day the story is simplistic and the mechanics really do scream out at you. My first play through I loved it as I just played it as I would make the choices. However, in the following play throughs the game mechanics of paragon vs renegade interrupt immersion and story telling. So I'm going to have to disagree with you on that point.
If you liked the story telling in Mass Effect then I recommend you try the original Deus Ex. It was released in 2000 and runs on the old UE1, but it still has some of the best story telling in a game to date. As someone above mentioned, instead of just prompts and text (although it has that element as well), your actual actions determine a lot of the story details.
For instance (SPOILER) at one moment you meet a mechanic acting very strangely and if you look hard enough find a dead body of someone dressed like him. You can either choose to kill him or ignore what's happening, but your actions (completely unprompted and therefore your own) determine whther another character lives or dies.
After Deus Ex, games like Mass Effect and Bioshock are simply building on the foundations laid by Warren Spector and Ion Storm.
