I don't play RPGs so that may be why.

Half Life 2, kill the enemies, save the world. Zelda OoT-TP, kill Ganon, save Hyrule. I played Prototype earlier this year, horrible story. In some cases the heavy focus on story hurts the game, Prototype. In others it seemed to help a mediocre game, Bioshock. Advance Wars, I hated all the story crap but it's still a great game.

My most played game this gen has no background story whatsoever, Team Fortress 2. I still don't know why Red team fights Blu so much and I don't care.

TF2, Portal, any fighting game, NSMB, Mario Kart, Wii Sports, Braid, Plants v Zombies, Left 4 Dead, World of Goo, the list is endless.

Games do not need stories. Text adventures and their modern day CGI versions do.

Portal and Braid both had fantastic stories that helped make them great games. Just because they don't sit you down and force you to read the story doesn't mean it doesn't exist and both of these games are helped immensely by their stories.

@Pyro

Sounds to me like you're losing a lot by dismissing the narrative in games like HL2 and Portal.

Even every great book can be stripped down to a ridiculous skeleton of a plot. The Odyssey is about a guy having nautical adventures to get back home. The Road is about a guy surviving with his son in a post-apocalyptic world. Pale Fire is (probably) about a mad man stalking a writer. Moby Dick is about a mutilated man wanting his revenge on a whale. How silly is that?

That's not all there is to narrative in books and the same happens in games. A lot of it is how exposition, immersion, interactivity is handled as it intertwines with the gameplay - and great games can do it wonderfully. Again, look at HL2, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, Portal.

Not all games require a story. Not all games require music, or colour, or voice acting, or 3d graphics. Saying that no game needs any of these things sounds off, and very limiting.

PS: text adventures are games, exactly like textual MUDs that predated graphical MMORPGs. They are interactive experiences with goals, rules, an outcome. Why exactly shouldn't they be considered a game?

The humour in Portal definitely added to the game. GLADOS was hilarious as is every character in Team Fortress 2. Still doesn't need a story though.

I've only played a couple of hours of Braid but I can't say I've even noticed a story, just some dinosaur who tells me the princess is in another castle. Awesome music though, nice artstyle too.

Story might make a good game great but I've yet to see it happen. I see cutscenes and dialogue hurt games more often than help them.

@werekitten

Haha, you're not far wrong. I missed the boring monolog in HL2 that ended with the instructions for the rocket launcher because I didn't want to stand around for 5 minutes listening to someone bleat on about stuff I didn't care about. I worked it out for myself eventually though.

Yes or else they get very boring.

^This for the most part.

This makes me cry.

Sounds to me like you need to start drinking decaf.

The same here