Worst stories that you've seen in a video game?

[Kuro Pit]

Let's face it alot of video games have bad stories. What are some of the worst that you've seen?
Two really come to mind for me.

Shadow the Hedgehog
This game was trying to be "serious and mature", but it's stupider then alot of the other Sonic games. The story is incredibly stupid and complete nonsense. The dialogue and voice acting are bad. The many possible paths barely connect the story. Shadow's use of guns and cursing is just stupid.

Final Fantasy XIII
There is no context in the story whatsover. There is no exposition explaining the rules of the world. You're just thrown into a situation and expected to read datalogs. Most of the characers are unlikable (though i do like Lightning) And there are alot of stupid elements (A chocobo chick in Sazh's afro, really?).

 

[AKool28]

Ummmm... Lego Batman? lol

 

[Suffa]

Resistance BS

 

[PixelKnot]

Shadow the Hedgehog
This game was trying to be "serious and mature", but it's stupider then alot of the other Sonic games. The story is incredibly stupid and complete nonsense. The dialogue and voice acting are bad. The many possible paths barely connect the story. Shadow's use of guns and cursing is just stupid.

Agreed.
One of the endings with Shadow killing Eggman was laughable.

For me, the worst story for a Sonic game though, Sonic 06 wins!

 

[Buckybuckster]

Ummmm... Lego Batman? lol

How dare you insult the sublime bliss that is Lego Batman!! Anyhow, bad stories.....I always thought the original Tekken had a wonky story. Might as well throw in the majority of most fighting games for good measure. Love how they try to shoehorn in a story to explain why the combatants are beating the crap out of each other. My favorite fighting game series Virtua Fighter is a prime example.

 

[akhi216]

All fighting games.

 

[Kamehameha]

I am going to have to say Mario. Why? Because it is so popular and it is fun to knock on something that is popular, right? Hey, I grew up with Mario and loved it, but two plumbers going around jumping on mushrooms and collecting coins? Yet the game is such a success for the simplicity, so many of you will say it didn't need a story. Still, I wanna list it just because.

The Dragonball Z game for PSP, I forgot what it was called but Shin Budokai Tenkaichi or something? Horrible story. Most DBZ games had horrible stories though. Or they were too far off from the original or not detailed enough.

Resistance Burning Skies. Loved the game, hated the story.

The Vita version of Mortal Kombat.

There are others, but can't think. I will post more if I can remember others. Would be nice to have a list for the best stories in games.

 

[Ace]

Final Fantasy XII

the plot to the game was so deep that at the end, you still didn't know what the hell just happened. It would be a good story if you could understand it, I may replay it.

 

[Buckybuckster]

Agreed.
One of the endings with Shadow killing Eggman was laughable.

For me, the worst story for a Sonic game though, Sonic 06 wins!

Laughed so much at this pic, I had to snag it for use as a wallpaper for my Vita! I love the WTF look plastered on poor Knuckle's face! Thanx Pixel!!(y)

 

[Haytt]

Prince of Persia (2008)

Well, the story itself isn't THAT bad (nothing great, though), but the ending is so wtf. There are people who liked, but for me, it was very lame

The 3rd Birthday

uhm, i have a question about this game: wat.
Despite the general disappointment with the game, i actually liked the gameplay. ;p

 

[Buckybuckster]

Prince of Persia (2008)

Well, the story itself isn't THAT bad (nothing great, though), but the ending is so wtf. There are people who liked, but for me, it was very lame

The 3rd Birthday

uhm, i have a question about this game: wat.
Despite the general disappointment with the game, i actually liked the gameplay. ;p

Well, when you consider there was a time when the best ending you could ever expect from a game was a big ol' black screen with the words GAME OVER in the center, POP's ending can't be too bad!

 

[PixelKnot]

No problem, Buck.

 

[Haytt]

Well, when you consider there was a time when the best ending you could ever expect from a game was a big ol' black screen with the words GAME OVER in the center, POP's ending can't be too bad!

Yeah, I think you're right, Bucky.

 

[Yanikun]

Maybe the Kingdom Hearts franchise. I'm not in a good place to judge since I only played one and didn't even finish it yet, but it's just so disjointed, convoluted and poorly paced.
I tend to not think very highly of stories in video games because it's very hard to mix the elements of a quality narrative with the needs of strong, compelling gameplay. I feel like one is always going to suffer.

Besides, only very few stories are strong enough that they can be sustained over 10, 12+ hours of a video game campaign. You're bound to have shitty, pointless dialogue, overlong exposition, a lack of focus, and slowdowns in the pace of the story. I think stories should be kept to a minimum, enough to enhance the gameplay, set up an atmosphere or a tone, and to stay focused, but that's it.

 

[benna]

The Vita version of Mortal Kombat.

lol Although I agreed with those listing 'all fighting games', I have to disagree with the mortal kombat one. I thought it was so corny that it was funny. I'm actually enjoying it. So bad its good.

The DOA 5 story, though... holy cow, this is 'so bad its bad'. Makes me wince. Ditto for Virtua Fighter (also my favourite fighter).

I think the difference is MK is Americans doing corny Americans, wheres DOA and VF is Japanese designers doing what they 'think' americans would do.

Here's an example of how hard it is for Japanese to do English... I want to know what Yani-kun's girlfriend thinks of this Its funnier if you know Japanese, cause the English teacher is saying what the girls are saying in 'english' back to them in 'japanese' just to show them how odd they sound.

 

[Yanikun]

Here's an example of how hard it is for Japanese to do English... I want to know what Yani-kun's girlfriend thinks of this Its funnier if you know Japanese, cause the English teacher is saying what the girls are saying in 'english' back to them in 'japanese' just to show them how odd they sound.

We've watched the first video before actually, we thought "cool box" was really funny.

You should see Japanese people trying to speak French. This is Ryoko Hirosue from a French movie (she doesn't know how to speak French, but she learned with phonics for the movie). In this scene, she's learning how to pronounce the word "hole:"

 

[Tygamr]

Almost all of Gameloft's games, especially the NOVA series and the Modern Combat series.

Resistance: Burning Skies wasn't absolutely horrible, but it just felt very flat and unmotivated. Just extremely generic. Can't even really remember the main thing driving the plot- you're trying to save New York from evil aliens? Just doesn't stand up to other Resistance games.

Rage- the story started off strong, but it ended too quickly, and the ending was terrible, with an anti-climactic, easy final level. I felt like I was only halfway through, and then credits started randomly rolling. Stayed true to the title I guess.

Force Unleashed 2, didn't have a completely horrible story, much like Rage. The biggest issues were it was too short, the story was overly simplistic, and teased you with a bunch of red herrings, making you think that the story was something more than it was. Nowhere near the storytelling quality of the first game.

Admittedly, I haven't really played too many games with absolutely horrible stories (that I can think of, at least). FU2 and Rage (probably even Resistance BS too) pale in comparison to several of the other games mentioned here, but I haven't really played many games with bad stories.

 

[Haytt]

Almost all of Gameloft's games, especially the NOVA series and the Modern Combat series.

Resistance: Burning Skies wasn't absolutely horrible, but it just felt very flat and unmotivated. Just extremely generic. Can't even really remember the main thing driving the plot- you're trying to save New York from evil aliens? Just doesn't stand up to other Resistance games.

Rage- the story started off strong, but it ended too quickly, and the ending was terrible, with an anti-climactic, easy final level. I felt like I was only halfway through, and then credits started randomly rolling. Stayed true to the title I guess.

Force Unleashed 2, didn't have a completely horrible story, much like Rage. The biggest issues were it was too short, the story was overly simplistic, and teased you with a bunch of red herrings, making you think that the story was something more than it was. Nowhere near the storytelling quality of the first game.

Admittedly, I haven't really played too many games with absolutely horrible stories (that I can think of, at least). FU2 and Rage (probably even Resistance BS too) pale in comparison to several of the other games mentioned here, but I haven't really played many games with bad stories.

Thank you for remembering me about RAGE. When I thought I was in the mid of the game, I was actually in the end. A lot of things not explained, also.