The best game with the dumbest story

[Sephiroth]

the original SMB plot

Koopa wants the Mushroom Kingdom, He's an evil sorcerer, he turns all the citizens in the mushroom kingdom into goombas, and kidnaps the princess, Mario, a Brooklyn plumber gets sucked down a drain and emerges in the Mushroom Kingdom Game: Start

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Hey, Galaxian is a classic!

Obviously ME2 doesn't have "the dumbest story" compared to some of these games. But its story (what little there is) is still pretty dumb.

Galaxian IS a classic.

However, arguing that ME2, a game with twelve secondary characters, each of which having a personal history and a distinct motivation, as well as a rather lengthy main story with several twists and turns and alternate endings, has a "dumb story" is hyperbole at the very least.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

the original SMB plot

Koopa wants the Mushroom Kingdom, He's an evil sorcerer, he turns all the citizens in the mushroom kingdom into goombas, and kidnaps the princess, Mario, a Brooklyn plumber gets sucked down a drain and emerges in the Mushroom Kingdom Game: Start

I'm partial to this interpretation of SMB's story.

 

[-Brett-]

I'd put Mass Effect 2 up there, as well. Such a disappointment following ME1's story.

I see someone's been hanging out on the Bioware forums.

 

[Lookingglassman]

Battlefield Bad Company 2's story line was weak.

 

[Mr Light]

I loved Mass Effect 2 but the story wasn't as good as 1. You basically wander around on all these standalone missions that have nothing to do with the opening or ending of the game the entire time. ME1 had a more central through-line. Also, the revelation in ME2 wasn't nearly as cool or shocking as the one in ME1. And the villains weren't as interesting either.

 

[Reverend]

To be fair, ME2 is the middle part of a trilogy so it doesn't have the same liberties the first one had (after all, they had no idea for sure if there'd be a sequel) so yes, it suffers a little from the fact it had to smack the big red reset button and spend most of the game setting up the situation for ME3 to run with. Still, I think the story worked well enough. It was fast paced lean and left you eager for more. Also, let's be honest, the only missions in ME1 that were directly linked to the central plot (i.e. stopping Saren) were Eden Prime, Virmire & Ilos. Feros, Noveria and that other one with Liara did next to nothing storywise except you get a cutscene near the end where you unlock a part of the vision you got right at the start. What did the creeper or the rachni queen *really* have to do with the central plot? Nothing is what (they may both have much more significance in ME3 but that's not the point.)

To my mind complaining that the twist wasn't as shocking is a rather odd thing to pick out. I've heard similar complaints of MNS's films post 'Sixth Sense' as a reason why they're not as good...which is ridiculous since there's a ton of other much more valid reasons why they've become increasingly awful.

As for the villains, I can only speak for myself but Saren felt pretty two dimensional to me and I loved that in ME2, half the villains were your allies!

So yeah, while it may suffer a little from "middle child syndrome" I would definitely take issue with the assertion that the story was "dumb."

 

[MANT!]

Duke Nukem 3D...

"No one steals our chicks..and lives!"...

Fun game...

but leaves me wanting a shower after I play it...

 

[ichab]

World of Warcraft

I know very few who actually read those walls of text.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

^^

You can add one more to your list. I haven't even bought a subscription to the game... I'm a sad person

 

[Lookingglassman]

Crackdown2 - The story is pretty much stupid as heck, but it sure is fun to play. I don't even care anymore about the repetitve missions. I just want to run around and blow stuff up and kill mutants.

 

[LitmusDragon]

Super Mario Bros is probably the king of this but Blaster Master could give it a run for it's money:

"The game features a character named Jason who follows his pet frog Fred down a hole in the earth. There he finds a tank and uses it to battle radioactive mutants."

 

[Skywalker]

I used to love Blaster Master.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Does it occur to anyone else that while Spy Hunter had you playing as a spy with a heavily-armed sports car, the goal of the game was to blow up as many other cars as possible? Doesn't seem very spy-like, does it?

 

[DigificWriter]

I've got to second Blaster Master (this game is incredibly fun, addicting, and challenging, even though the story is very 'thin on the ground' and extremely nonsensical). I've also got to mention A Boy and His Blob. I fell in love with the latter game the second I first saw it, and it remains one of my all-time favorite games for the old NES.