And you know this because you've played both?  IGN awarded KOTOR "Best Story".  If you have played both you'd know that the story can be as shallow as you want it to be or deeper than you thought possible.  The amount of detail each character has and the amount of branching in the story more than exemplefies "deep".  There are certainly some good ones on the OP, but this one certainly belongs on the list.  GameInformer ranked it #2 all-time in top ten all time game plot twists.  In fact, from Wikipedia (on KOTOR):

"has seen success as the game of the year from many sources including IGN, Gamespot, Computer Gaming World, PC Gamer, GMR Magazine, The Game Developers Choice Awards, Xbox Magazine, and G4.^[3] Interactive Achievement Awards awarded it for best story and best character development.^[3] IGN gave KotOR additional awards in Best Sound (Xbox category), Best Story (PC category), Xbox RPG Game of the Year 2003, PC RPG Game of the Year 2003, Xbox Game of the Year 2003, PC Game of the Year 2003, and Overall Game of the Year 2003 across all platforms. In 2007, IGN listed it at #27 on its list of the Top 100 Games of All-Time.^[4] "

But, hey, what do all these people know.  Clearly they are shills. 

I don't think they're shills, I think their expectations have been lowered so far down that anything resembling a underlying message in a video game is met with fawning journalists and accolades all around.

easy

this is actually a fact you could say


it's XENOGEARS

that's way more than a game story
schopenhauer, nietzsche, freud, the bible etc.
philosofies blended together in one the most amazing stories written in the 20th century..

I prefer the deeply existential themes of the original Super Mario Bros. Miyamoto was ahead of his time. "Your princess is in another castle"? Sounds like Sartre to me.

No particular order

Max Payne
Mass Effect
System Shock 2 (too many young people on this forum list Bioshock but not System Shock, amateurs)
Xenogears (although I about killed my TV when I hit the "Fast-Forwarded" part of the game, I was so pissed)
Alice
KoTOR

I'm sticking with the fact that MGS2 is godaweful, imo.

Anyway, story is divided into two sections, script, and character development.

Usually the deepest storylines are some of the most mediocre. Therefore, I will forgoe a "deepest storyline" list, and just say that Baulder's Gate 2 probably wins that argument.

IMO, and in most JRPG's like Disgaea or GrimGrimoire, character development is by far the leading draw. So, I really love character development, and care very little about the overall script as long as I make friends with my characters, so that said, my list in no particular order goes:

Final Fantasy VIII
Chrono Trigger
Phoenix Wright series
Metal Gear Solid 1 and 3
Fire Emblem: PoR/RD entries
KOTOR
FFX
Tales of Symphonia
FFVI
FFVII
Disgaea

These are some classic games that you can ply only for their storylines and they will be good. I'm sure I'm leaving a few out though.

Vagrant Story, FFTactics, Killer 7, and FFXII fall into that deep storyline with no character development mold.

You contributed something very positive to this post imo, for once.

I forgot the Silent Hill series. Particularly part 2. I should be shunned for that. Silent Hill 2 has arguably the best story in a console videogame.

what are you talking about?
silent hill? chrono trigger? final fantasy viii? metal gear? tales of symphonia? phoenix wright?


you really have no clue as to the deepness and intellectualism of Xenogears if you can even consider those games as heaving a deep story..

I think Ajax was joking...maybe.

i can't blame you though
Xenogears' been a sleeper hit amongst the rpg community world wide
and is not a game for anyone

it was even almost denied release on the north-american market
because of it's religion critic parts

it never saw an european release but that's got a different reason