Games with truly interactive stories?

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MrEID

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#1  Edited By MrEID

Good evening, duders. 
For my final year of university, I'm supposed to write a dissertation on some aspect of modern storytelling. (It's a rather broad topic, isn't it?)
Now, being an avid gamer as well as an avid reader, one of the ideas I've been kicking around is doing my dissertation on interactive fiction. Looking at 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books, possibly roleplaying, D&D and the like. And of course, video games.
My hope is, if I do this, that I'd be able to use examples to highlight the kind of impact that player immersion can have on a storytelling experience, such as the events on Virmire in the original Mass Effect, and also the limitations of narrative that hinder true interaction. For instance, in Fallout New Vegas,

I'd also like to try and get a few thoughts on the subject from the people behind these games.
 
Which brings me to the point of this post! I'm hoping my fellow Giant Bombers might be able to point out a few shining examples I might have missed? I'm thinking of revisiting the Mass Effects, the Fallout games, Heavy Rain and possibly LA Noire, and contacting Bethesda, Bioware, Obsidian and Quantic Dream. 
 
Are there any other games you can think of that I should take a look at? Any other developers you think would be worth contacting? (I realise it's probably quite unlikely I'll get to interview the likes of Bioware and Bethesda, after all.)
And for the purposes of more general discussion, are there any other moments in a video game you can call to mind that highlight either the possibilities or the pitfalls of including you, the player, in actually telling a story? A decision that really gave you pause? A moment where you altered your game world irrevocably? Or a moment of 'player choice' that was just really disappointing in hindsight?
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Grumbel

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#2  Edited By Grumbel

Well, I consider Mass Effect to be incredible shitty at interactive story telling. The situation at Virmire for me boiled simply down to: You didn't spend enough points in "Conversations" (or however that skill was called) thus the game forced you into a obviously stupid and trivial to avoid part of the dialog tree doing stuff that you don't want to do. Well, that was essentially a "fuck you" moment, very very damn near to completely spoiling the game for me, only saved by an earlier save with enough unassigned skill points left to work around the issue. The game also had a few other situations where not having enough points in some skill lead the dialog tree run in circles when you didn't want to do the stupid thing. 
 
In Mass Effect 2 I ran into a very situation that spoiled my second playthrough, didn't have enough points in the proper skill and thus lost loyalty with Miranda and it was impossible to regain it, as there where no more missions left to do. Completely breaks immersion having such fake stuff happen in a game. 
 
Fallout, all of them, is also  full of that stuff where the outcome of dialogs depends on dice rolling, again breaks immersion, spoils the fun and just leads to a lot of annoying load/save orgies.
 
So in essence: Mixing game rules and interactive story telling is something I consider horrible game design.
 
As for good examples of interactive story telling, Facade is pretty damn interesting. While the interaction in that game is a little limited, with most of what you try to say getting ignored by the NPC, the game does allow you to say anything you want whenever you want. It is by far the most dynamic interactive story telling in any game I have seen so far.
 
Alpha Protocol was also pretty interesting, it fallows a similar setup as Mass Effect, but it didn't fall into the trap of obvious good&bad choices, thus everything felt much more organic and you wouldn't constantly get frustrated by a wrong choice. It also had actual consequence to what you did, unlike Mass Effect which didn't much care for if you played as Asshole Shepard or Nice Guy Shepard.
 
Another very interesting game is The Last Express, it is one of the very few adventure games where the player character is the magic agent that makes the world advance, in that game you play in (pseudo) real time and stuff just happens around you, you can be there to watch or intervene or not. It' has one of the most alive feeling environments I have ever seen in gaming.
 
Storytron is also worth a look, while it as this point looks like a failed attempt, it has a very different take on interactive story telling then regular video games. Same deal with Sleep is Death, very unique take on the topic sidestepping much of the issues that you have in traditional games.

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AhmadMetallic

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#3  Edited By AhmadMetallic
@Grumbel said:
Well, I consider Mass Effect to be incredible shitty at interactive story telling. The situation at Virmire for me boiled simply down to: You didn't spend enough points in "Conversations" (or however that skill was called) thus the game forced you into a obviously stupid and trivial to avoid part of the dialog tree doing stuff that you don't want to do. Well, that was essentially a "fuck you" moment, very very damn near to completely spoiling the game for me, only saved by an earlier save with enough unassigned skill points left to work around the issue. The game also had a few other situations where not having enough points in some skill lead the dialog tree run in circles when you didn't want to do the stupid thing. 
 
In Mass Effect 2 I ran into a very situation that spoiled my second playthrough, didn't have enough points in the proper skill and thus lost loyalty with Miranda and it was impossible to regain it, as there where no more missions left to do. Completely breaks immersion having such fake stuff happen in a game.  
I must agree there. While those games blew my mind with their story's massive magnitude and their extremely well thought-out and realized universes, i always wished i could close my eyes and let the story-related interactive aspects just disappear because i wanted to watch the story progress, I didn't want to be a part of it. 
Simply because the story felt pseudo-interactive. They give you the impression that you're calling the shots and shaping the story as you go, but it was really set in stone and you didn't have enough choices or actual story-altering power. The "you missed your fucking chance" kind of elements (like your miranda example) really really killed the second game for me. 
Love the rest of your post btw, very interesting read! Gotta love vidya games 
  

@MrEID:  The first game that comes to mind when i want to think of a genuine, dynamic, organic and authentic story that actually immerses me in the world and makes me pause and think before i speak and make decisions (as if i l were having those dilemmas or conversations in real life), is The Witcher
I'm relatively new to RPGs, but i don't think being a newbie is what's blowing my mind about The Witcher.. i've played many story-based games with choices, and a few RPG's such as ME 1 & 2, Oblivion and Dragon Age (going to play KOTOR and Vampire: The Masquerade when i beat The Witcher) 
 
So as i was saying, The Witcher has probably thee most engaging and dynamic/organic-feeling story i've ever seen. It feels real and human, there's natural-feeling romances going on, great political schemes and conflicts that feel real, and the extremely unique player position where you're not another ordinary human person like you are in most games, no, you're a mutant human called a Witcher (a monster slayer), and you're trying to finish your quest (find the bad guys and avenge your friends). 
That's the most interesting part for me, the fact that you're a unique type of person in the world and you're trying to adapt to the current issues and trying to approach them in a way that makes sense, making friends and foes in the process and being forced to take sides even though you've always been a neutral antisocial sort of person. 
 
I've never enjoyed an RPG enough to play it addictively, but i've been eating up The Witcher for weeks and i can't stop, so what does that tell you?
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JoeyRavn

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#4  Edited By JoeyRavn

999: Nine Doors, Nine Persons, Nine Hours plays exactly like a "Choose your own Adventure" book. It has a lot of endings and it forces you to replay the game choosing different options in each playthrough to unlock the "true" ending. One of the best games I've ever played.

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FluxWaveZ

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#5  Edited By FluxWaveZ
@JoeyRavn: The only true options one can choose in 999 are the doors, aren't they? I wouldn't say that's very interactive.
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zus

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#6  Edited By zus

yeah i agree with the above comments that as far as truly interactive stories go, the major triple AAA houses aside from Bethesda might not be your best bet. The others you mentioned are very good at making you feel as if you are causing actual interaction with the plot-line while still funneling you down the same narrative with minor, although non-vital, changes depending on your decisions. You spoke about Obsidian before, and if you want to really check out a game where more than any other it definitely feels like your actions matter (although I highly doubt they did), their horrid spy-rpg Alpha Protocol is worth a look; the one thing that game does phenomenally well is deal with your choices.

You could also look at games that purposefully take away your ability to influence decisions. Bioshock comes to mind with its ending, which is basically like a big F-U to players affecting the narrative.

On a broader note: what about involving games that take a much larger scope to player-driven narrative? Something like Civilization 5 or The Sims where you basically tell your own story that is entirely made up of how you interact with the world with each new game. Progressive narratives like these might make for an interesting chapter in your dissertation.

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JoeyRavn

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#7  Edited By JoeyRavn

@FluxWaveZ said:

@JoeyRavn: The only true options one can choose in 999 are the doors, aren't they? I wouldn't say that's very interactive.

Well, that's how you play a "Choose your own Adventure" book. I mean, game. You are given the option of going into door 1, 2 or 3 and, based on your decision, the story branches to one direction or the other. That's what the OP was looking for, interactive fiction. The good thing about 999 is that, in the end, all those possibilities are valid and make sense in the context of the game. In other words, there's a meta-narrative that ties them all together, even if those endings are mutually exclusive.

It's a fucking great game :P

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FluxWaveZ

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#8  Edited By FluxWaveZ
@JoeyRavn: Sure, but I guess I was thinking something more impactful like along the lines of Heavy Rain, where you truly have a lot of choices and these choices can bring about several distinct results. In 999, the only decisions a player truly has, like you mentioned, is the doors and minor dialogue scenes like the "brain shock" puzzle. These choices don't bring about many different results or scenes; only the availability of certain doors as well as the endings and some of the dialogue changes as well.
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deactivated-59a31562f0e29

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Look up Facade if you're researching nonlinear narratives. There's quite a lot of theory around the subject but not a massive amount of practice.

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JoeyRavn

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#10  Edited By JoeyRavn

@FluxWaveZ said:

@JoeyRavn: Sure, but I guess I was thinking something more impactful like along the lines of Heavy Rain, where you truly have a lot of choices and these choices can bring about several distinct results. In 999, the only decisions a player truly has, like you mentioned, is the doors and minor dialogue scenes like the "brain shock" puzzle. These choices don't bring about many different results or scenes; only the availability of certain doors as well as the endings and some of the dialogue changes as well.

Well, again, the OP mentioned he is using "Choose your own Adventure" books. 999 is one of the closest examples to that genre in terms of video games. I don't see why my suggestion is so far-fetched.

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FluxWaveZ

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#11  Edited By FluxWaveZ
@JoeyRavn: I guess I've not read enough "Choose your own adventure books", but in my recollection they had way more branching storylines depending on the decisions you made compared to 999. There are many more decisions to take in those kinds of books and many more outcomes because of that compared to 999. I guess I'm just stuck on the quantity of those possibilities. But yeah, 999 definitely has an interactive story.
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blackbird415

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#12  Edited By blackbird415

HOLY SHIT LOTS OF WORDS!

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axiomatiq

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#13  Edited By axiomatiq

My senior paper for my english degree was on the formation of narrative in video games, and I looked at facade and Far Cry 2 as case studies (Far Cry 2 more for aspects of immersion and story in traditional open world games).  Definitely check out facade if the other posters haven't convinced you yet.  There is some great scholarship out there on narrative in games which might also help.  I'd recommend this book as well as gamestudies.org in particular.  Good luck with your paper.

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JoeyRavn

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#14  Edited By JoeyRavn

@FluxWaveZ said:

@JoeyRavn: I guess I've not read enough "Choose your own adventure books", but in my recollection they had way more branching storylines depending on the decisions you made compared to 999. There are many more decisions to take in those kinds of books and many more outcomes because of that compared to 999. I guess I'm just stuck on the quantity of those possibilities. But yeah, 999 definitely has an interactive story.

Well, from the few I've read, they are basically variations on the same theme. Let's say the book's about the Titanic. You could end up drowning, saved by a boat or killed before the ship begins sinking. Or maybe you don't even get on board the Titanic because you choose not to in the first page. Sure, the amount of choices in much greater than in 999, but in the end, all the possibilites are contained inside that theme, "the Titanic". The same happens in 999. You get different outcomes within the same story. I guess 999 is a good case example for the OP because the way all the different endings interact in order to get the "true" ending.

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tim_the_corsair

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#15  Edited By tim_the_corsair

Not sure if this will help you with your research, but I interviewed Drew Karpyshyn from BioWare (one of their Lead Writers) for the Escapist a couple of years back, and he discusses the differences between writing for games versus writing a static, novel based narrative (he does both).

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_156/5001-A-Creative-Force is the article. He is also very easy to contact via his website, if you want to speak to him directly, although he's obviously a busy dude.

Beyond that (and the games already mentioned), I'd suggest taking a look at Deus Ex 1 & 2, and (as weird as it will sound) the old RTS Dark Reign. It presented the main core of the game as almost a history lesson, with the player able to take on the role of either opposing side in each scenario rather than choosing the good guys or bad guys. Story wise it is nothing special, but I think it stands up as an interesting example of non-traditional experimentation with how to present a story.

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xaLieNxGrEyx

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#16  Edited By xaLieNxGrEyx

Catherine is the best example I've seen so far.  
 
 
Silent Hill 2 wins a mention as well.
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#17  Edited By Animasta

Alpha Protocol seems like the easy answer, to me

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#18  Edited By NinjaHunter

I don't really have any examples of games where the player can alter the story in drastic ways other than what has already been mentioned but as far as what kind of impact interactive stories can have. I always thought that the microwave tunnel sequence in MGS4 was an amazing moment. Slowly guiding Snake through the tunnel as he suffers through a barrage of radioactive waves while you basically mashing a single button is similar to what past games in the series have done but there's something about this specific one that creates a connection with the character of Snake and not just emotionally but physically as well.

When you see Snake slowly degrade from walking to barely being able pull himself through this area as the speed of which you have to mash the triangle button is increased. By the end of this sequence I was on my feet, my arm, exhausted from mashing the button so much that I started thinking, "I'm not sure if I'm going to make it!" and then when I finally did, Snake collapsed to the floor as I collapsed back into my seat. I never had a connection to any character in any other medium like that before. One of the reasons I play video games.

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SeriouslyNow

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#19  Edited By SeriouslyNow

There's really only one game made so far with a truly interactive story and that's Deus Ex. Mods (such as the Nameless Mod) and games which followed in its footsteps (like Alpha Protocol) hint at the same level of interactivity with the player but aren't nearly as well manipulable as Deus Ex is.

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#20  Edited By MrEID

Thank you, bombers!  I really don't know what to say!
I was expecting a few more suggestions, but wow! You've all given me loads to go on! Games I haven't heard of, books, websites, interviews, new ideas... 
Seriously duders. Thank you all so much. You've all given me a lot to think about with this report, and I think it could be good!
 
Now, Facade is downloading and Alpha Protocol awaits my attention on my desk. Time to do some research!

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#21  Edited By Make_Me_Mad

Alpha Protocol is, in fact, a pretty good game.  Just pay attention to your reticle and realize that unless you actually take the time to aim your shots, you probably aren't going to be headshotting people with a pistol from across the room until you level up your skills.  I think too many people went into it expecting pinpoint accuracy from the start.

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#22  Edited By SilverBulletKY
@Grumbel said:
Well, I consider Mass Effect to be incredible shitty at interactive story telling. The situation at Virmire for me boiled simply down to: You didn't spend enough points in "Conversations" (or however that skill was called) thus the game forced you into a obviously stupid and trivial to avoid part of the dialog tree doing stuff that you don't want to do. Well, that was essentially a "fuck you" moment, very very damn near to completely spoiling the game for me, only saved by an earlier save with enough unassigned skill points left to work around the issue. The game also had a few other situations where not having enough points in some skill lead the dialog tree run in circles when you didn't want to do the stupid thing. 
 
In Mass Effect 2 I ran into a very situation that spoiled my second playthrough, didn't have enough points in the proper skill and thus lost loyalty with Miranda and it was impossible to regain it, as there where no more missions left to do. Completely breaks immersion having such fake stuff happen in a game. 
 
 
I think the point is that's life.  You may do things or not do things in life that affect people's decisions that you cannot change.  Just because you want someone's affection (Miranda) doesn't mean that she's going to give it to you.  Maybe you don't like it, but that's life.  I think it's working as intended.  Great game.
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AhmadMetallic

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#23  Edited By AhmadMetallic
@Make_Me_Mad said:
Alpha Protocol is, in fact, a pretty good game.  Just pay attention to your reticle and realize that unless you actually take the time to aim your shots, you probably aren't going to be headshotting people with a pistol from across the room until you level up your skills.  I think too many people went into it expecting pinpoint accuracy from the start.
hmm.. should i give that game a second shot? perhaps when i upgrade my PC in a few months
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#24  Edited By Tennmuerti

@Ahmad_Metallic said:

@Make_Me_Mad said:
Alpha Protocol is, in fact, a pretty good game. Just pay attention to your reticle and realize that unless you actually take the time to aim your shots, you probably aren't going to be headshotting people with a pistol from across the room until you level up your skills. I think too many people went into it expecting pinpoint accuracy from the start.
hmm.. should i give that game a second shot? perhaps when i upgrade my PC in a few months

you should

After a 1st play-through i did 2 more, one as a guns blazing roughneck and finally a 0 kill run.

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AhmadMetallic

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#25  Edited By AhmadMetallic
@Tennmuerti said:

@Ahmad_Metallic said:

@Make_Me_Mad said:
Alpha Protocol is, in fact, a pretty good game. Just pay attention to your reticle and realize that unless you actually take the time to aim your shots, you probably aren't going to be headshotting people with a pistol from across the room until you level up your skills. I think too many people went into it expecting pinpoint accuracy from the start.
hmm.. should i give that game a second shot? perhaps when i upgrade my PC in a few months

you should

After a 1st play-through i did 2 more, one as a guns blazing roughneck and finally a 0 kill run.

Wow is that even possible? 
Man, i dunno. That sounds very tempting, and Geno's high quality screenshots were also very pretty, but i played the game (finished the tutorial and reached the villa in Morocco or wherever it was) and i just felt like the controls were dull and the game wasn't rich with enough diverse content to keep me engaged.
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Tennmuerti

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#26  Edited By Tennmuerti

@Ahmad_Metallic:

Yea it's possible. You basically stealth around and knock out everyone. Those that you can't sneak to easily you can use a silenced pistol with tranq rounds (they are expensive, hence the sneaking). When defeating bosses simply choose the route to let them live.

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Grumbel

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#27  Edited By Grumbel
@SilverBulletKY said:
I think the point is that's life.  You may do things or not do things in life that affect people's decisions that you cannot change.  Just because you want someone's affection (Miranda) doesn't mean that she's going to give it to you.  Maybe you don't like it, but that's life.  I think it's working as intended.
It didn't work as intended, because it was fucking stupid mechanic and just pulled me out of the experience. In real life for example I have the option to talk to people, regain their trust or not lose it in the first place by having stupidly restricted dialog choices. In Mass Effect 2 you don't have that option. If you lose trust late in the game it doesn't matter what you do, you can't regain it, you can't talk to them and spending all the rest of the missions with them won't change their mind either. Even worse, keeping a unloyal character around will actually kill them on the last mission, by some heavy object falling on them or something equally stupid and unrelated that happens completely outside the regular game mechanics after you defeated the last boss.
 
Now don't get me wrong, I love Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. They have a great universe and great stories and I like that I can essentially chose the Paragon answer all the time and a good outcome all the time without any nasty surprises, its rather flat and predictable, but I am ok with that as it feels more like point&click adventure then like a RPG that way. But whenever they tried to enter "choice" into the story, be it choosing which crew member died in Mass Effect 1 or that loyalty crap in Mass Effect 2, it always felt gamey, pointless and frequently even just plain unfair (not enough XP points disallow damn obvious dialog choices, can't get Legion early without killing your crew, that whole last mission crap, etc.).
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#28  Edited By vasari

Alpha Protocol was the most underrated game of 2010. It's easily one of the best RPGs I've ever played, and its flaws are grossly exaggerated.

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Grumbel

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#29  Edited By Grumbel

Another interesting game to mention might be Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, that game essentially creates a psychological profile of the player as it goes, both by directly asking question, as well as some more indirect things, such as observing what the player is looking at. And while the influence on the story that has, isn't all that huge, there are a few small things that do change. So while it might not be revolutionary, it's a mechanic that I haven't really seen that way in other games.

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#30  Edited By vasari

And for the record, Mass Effect is a terrible example of a game with interactivity. There is virtually no player choice, and whatever choices you do have (Which are basically either good or evil) the outcome is always very formulaic and predictable. I love Mass Effect, but the "choices" are so watered down they're almost arbitrary.

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#31  Edited By just_nonplussed

Seems like you have your work cut out for you! Sounds like an interesting dissertation.
 
I'll try to give you some useful advice. :-) I've written quite a few essays before...
 
Try to think holistically about game design as narrative design. This means discussing games as a whole ('whole-istic'); as one medium. It's good to have specific examples to talk about in-depth, but always begin from a wider perspective. For example, then you will be able to easily compare say, GTA to breakout on the 2600, even if they're not in the same genre so to speak. It will allow you to connect all your examples in the essay much easier so they can feed off each other. But also, the idea is that games are games and they all tell stories regardless of how modern they are or whether they have dialogue or not. Go and research some Atari games and you'll see some early examples of storytelling in games. Download a ROM or something and actually play them; stuff like Pitfall, Missile Command, Adventure, and Kaboom (I wrote an essay on this that might help).
Also, story is fundamentally about structure right? So check out games by Nintendo from the SNES era. They have great structure, and while they don't generally tell grand, sweeping or 'original' dramas, they are perfect examples of harmony between play and narrative. Indeed, the gameplay and the game design is the narrative.
 
The big issue you could tackle is the difficulty lots of game designers have in creating meaningful internal logic in a game design, and the difficulty of integrating player choice, and pre-written storytelling script. There are no rights or wrongs, and many ways of doing it - but there are also many pitfalls.
 
Here's some stuff I wrote on Shadow of the Colossus's storytelling.
And more on Kaboom. I have some other stuff on my blog if you want to check it out. I also made a small game called 'invisible wall' (check my bio) to demonstrate how story can be told simply through simple interaction and visual symbols. 

Good luck, and remember the difference between the story the player creates and the story the designer tries to tell - and how these interact.

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#32  Edited By Twisted_Scot

Heavy Rain.

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just_nonplussed

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#33  Edited By just_nonplussed

Oh yeah, and I don't believe there's any such thing as a 'truly interactive story' in a game. There's just interaction at different levels, to varying degrees. It doesn't matter if one game has more adventure pathways than another; it depends more about how meaningful the interaction is.
 
Also, you might want to understand 'storytelling in games' as two main branches:
 
1. Games as a unique storytelling medium.
 
2. Games as a more interactive off-shoot of literature.
 
Most of the examples people have given fall into number 2, but in my opinion I think it is somewhat misguided for games to ape literature so much that they become literature. Games can learn a lot from other mediums, but if they just copy other mediums outright they can never grow and have their own identity; it's what you saw a lot with FMV in the 90s - games aped cinema so much that they became cinema. I don't think Bioware makevery compelling games...They just copy a tried and tested D&D format, and then throw in some cheesy fantasy storytelling (Mostly talking about Dragon Age et al).
 
I think games like Bioshock and Deus Ex are more inventive in how they structure story than anything Bioware put out. Bioshock structures story through the environment, and Deus Ex through player choice. Metroid: Other M (Ignore the naysayers), Metroid Fusion, and Portal are also great examples of control and player manipulation.

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Hizang

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#34  Edited By Hizang

Heavy Rain, Mass Effect 2, The Sims 3..

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#35  Edited By Animasta

@Grumbel said:

Another interesting game to mention might be Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, that game essentially creates a psychological profile of the player as it goes, both by directly asking question, as well as some more indirect things, such as observing what the player is looking at. And while the influence on the story that has, isn't all that huge, there are a few small things that do change. So while it might not be revolutionary, it's a mechanic that I haven't really seen that way in other games.

oh yeah, I agree with this dude. it was fantastic with the way you interacted with the world and shit

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#36  Edited By Grumbel

Another interesting one: Blade Runner, if I remember correctly that game adopts the story as you play, not just in that it branches of in different directions, but in that it changes the original premise. So in some playthroughs you would end up as replicant, while in others you wouldn't.

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Hot_in_rhinos

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#37  Edited By Hot_in_rhinos

Just go to GoG.com and click on their RPG section...you'll have a hard time not finding a game with a great story. Planescape: Torment  comes to mind though.