In the interests of time this evening, I'll present three games I feel anyone who appreciates video games should invest some time into.
No surprises here. When Role-Playing games were still in top-form in the late 90's Planescape: Torment came rolling off the heels of Fallout 2 and Baldur's Gate. The late Black Isle had taken many different approaches to their Role-Playing titles, testing a new technique with each franchise. The Fallout franchise was about having total freedom to make difficult decisions, and witnessing the results of those choices play out in the story; Baldur's Gate was a linear character-driven storytelling experience driven with some heavy action elements; Icewind Dale was a tactical action-driven game which went lighter on the narrative elements Baldur's Gate pushed forward. Planescape, which would likely have gone on to become a franchise if it had sold more successfully, focused almost entirely on narrative. Dialogue reigned over combat as the most effective means through which to proceed through the game, and every character in your party filled a meaningful role in the story. With a script of over 800,000 words, Planescape: Torment still sits near the top of the heap as an example of what RPGs have been and could be again.
When it comes to the First Person Role-Playing game hybrid most people refer to System Shock 2 as a ground breaker, but in my eyes, Deus Ex did more less. As Deus Ex had no prequel to set up the story from the start, the setting and characters had to explain themselves as they went along. This feat wouldn't have been especially noteworthy if this game had been light on narrative or a pure-bread Role-Playing experience, but as a hybrid, Deus Ex delivered exposition on the go, with first person shooting sequences broken up by quick character interactions, giving the player a difficult or ambiguous decision to make on a number of separate occasions. The story was long and intricate, with several interlocking plot lines and surprising reveals along the way. In many ways, 2k-Boston's "Bioshock" has refined the First-Person Role-Playing genre in its integration of action with storytelling, but Deus Ex still stands alone for its gameplay and moral ambiguity.
In 2005, Developer Quantic Dream unleashed Fahrenheit onto the world. Fahrenheit, shipped as Indigo Prophecy in the United States, was a third-person adventure game designed to play out as a movie in which the player served as both the director and the actors. The gameplay is split between quick time event action sequences and the interactive dialogue that presses the plot along. The film format allows the player the opportunity to see the game's mystery unfold from the perspectives of the protagonist as well as his persuers, and to somewhat alter the progression of their investigation through the interactive encounters. The storytelling is cinematic and its tale plays out as one the best of the B-movies this generation has to offer. Although it starts to fall apart towards its ending, Fahrenheit offers a unique storytelling experience that hasn't been reproduced or revised to date. Until Quantic Dream's next project, Heavy Rain, comes to fruition, Indigo Prophecy will remain the most compelling attempt at a cinematic expression through a video game on the market.
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