What game has the least complicated plot?

[Dhavaer]

And it has to be one with a plot. No votes for Pac-man or Tetris.

I'm saying Doom, but I'm open to other suggestions.

[Maryring]

Bahamut Lagoon. The plot basically boils down to, "do as the dragon voices in the princess's head says". It also has one of my top votes for worst plot.

[Shikton]

Super Mario. "The princess was kidnapped, rescue her!"

[Tengu]

Bahamut Lagoon. The plot basically boils down to, "do as the dragon voices in the princess's head says". It also has one of my top votes for worst plot.
While the main plot kinda sucks and is made mostly of deus ex machinas, all the character development on the way is cool! I think that game is better than FFT.

And for me, this game is Dungeon Master 2:
"A great evil overlord has awakened! You must stop him."
"Okay."
No plot twists happen on the way.

[Setra]

My first thought was Final Fantasy, but the whole Time Travel thing is a tad confusing.

I'll go with Dragon Quest, and will sum up the ENTIRE plot

"Brave Hero, descendant of Erdrick, the evil Dragonlord has kidnapped the Princess, please rescue her, and defeat the evil Dragonlord. You must also gain the equipment of your ancestor if you hope to defeat him"

[Om]

Half-Life. Think about it - the plot is pretty much Doom with aliens.

[Archonic Energy]

Super Mario. "The princess was kidnapped, rescue her!"

and they keep re-using that plot!

how about Tetris?

[warmachine]

Doom. How much simpler can you get than shoot everything?

[Vonriel]

Well, I mean, at least in Doom the plot was such that you were supposed to banish the demons or something. It's kinda confusing trying to figure out exactly what it is, though.

I'd say the Pokemon games, really. Two goals: Beat the Elite Four, catch every pokemon.

[Maryring]

While the main plot kinda sucks and is made mostly of deus ex machinas, all the character development on the way is cool! I think that game is better than FFT.
Well, yes there is some character development. I just wish it wasn't primarily reserved for the Princess. Everyone else, meh. It's barely enough to be considered development in my book. On the other hand, it's been quite some time since I played that game. Perhaps it is better the second time around.


I'd say the Pokemon games, really. Two goals: Beat the Elite Four, catch every pokemon.
Then you forget all the subplots on the way. There is always at least one evil gang that you have to disband during the course of the game too.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Tetris.

Blocks fall, I match them, they disappear. Not a novel by Hemingway.

[Arang]

Pong. Bip ... boop. Bip ... boop. Need I say more?

Really, though, the latest NFS games are ridiculous. "Look at the really mean guy with a really fast car! Why don't you get lots of street cred and beat him at racing?". Hilarity ensues.

[Setra]

Tetris.

Blocks fall, I match them, they disappear. Not a novel by Hemingway.
Yeah but have you ever thought about why the blocks are falling?

My theory is, a great Wizard, let us name him Biff, once cast a great and epic spell that made those blocks fall as such, and to save the world you must keep them from piling and destroying your loved ones. (ie. A Wizard did it)

[Tor the Fallen]

Kill Monty.
It's some arena shooter that I downloaded the demo for that spoofs Resident Evil, Kill Bill, and the Matrix.

When you click the "Story" option on the main menu, a siren sounds and the screen flashes "Kill Everything!!" a few times.

[Soniku]

To name a more modern one, Battlefield 2142. Ice age has come again. Kill the other guys for more land. :smallsmile:

[416365416c]

The first game I thought of when I looked at the thread title: Pacman
The first bit of text in the thread I read: No Pacman

But the game with the simplest, yet existing, plot that I can think of is Total Annihilation. It's an RTS and the plot is that there are two factions that have been at war for a long time. Totally annihilate the other faction. It doesn't even give complications like why you are doing it.

That is all the plot I got from either of the campaigns even though every mission has a narrated introduction like you'd expect in an RTS.

Honorable mention is We Love Katamari. The actual plot is that people liked the original Katamari game, so let's roll more stuff up for the fans.

[20thLevelGeek]

Bad Dudes

"The President has been kidnapped, are you a bad enough dude to rescue him?"

Any game that clearly spells out the plot line after you pump the first quarter into the machine, you gotta love ...

[Indon]

Adventure Island.

"Oh, man, my girlfriend got kidnapped." *saves her*

And none of those "Princess is in another castle" plot twists, either!

[elliott20]

Tetris.

Blocks fall, I match them, they disappear. Not a novel by Hemingway.
you clearly ignored the very essence that made the game the great philosophical piece it was meant to be.

Have you ever considered the sheer symbolism of falling blocks, all falling down upon the inevitable baseline of life itself, motivated by the very forces of gravity? Maybe it is a commentary on the great book of life, where we all play small blocks of standard cut out sizes, with some of us with straighter blocks more useful than others.

Maybe, it is a social commentary of how we must all fulfill our part in preserving the greater consciousness, where upon our thoughts and legacy passes on into the immaterial as we turn convert into score points, representing how far we've come, but then must be face with the stark irony that eventually all must come to an end.

Maybe, tetris is a commentary upon our inevitable fate as human beings, and the very conditions that we cannot escape, but also preaches the greatness that one single long block can do in the great four line eradicator.

Or maybe, like Hemmingway's novel, it's really just one gigantic symboless landscape where people who are playing the game are just sitting there mumbling to themselves about nothing in paritcular.

[elliott20]

Bad Dudes

"The President has been kidnapped, are you a bad enough dude to rescue him?"

Greatest. intro. EVER.

[Dhavaer]

It doesn't even give complications like why you are doing it.

It does, actually. The Core is transhumanist, the Arm likes being human. It's not noticeable in-game, but Core units are robots with human minds uploaded onto them, whereas Arm units are mechs. It's an ideological war.

[NEO|Phyte]

Any of the Unreal Tournaments. The single player amounts to "You're in the tournament, go win it. Then after you win the main events, you go mano e mano with whoever the current champion is in/on/around a spaceship thats going through some sort of warp thingy."
Mind you, UT2k3 may have changed it up, I've only played the first one and UT2k4

[416365416c]

It does, actually. The Core is transhumanist, the Arm likes being human. It's not noticeable in-game, but Core units are robots with human minds uploaded onto them, whereas Arm units are mechs. It's an ideological war.

I disagree. I got the strong impression that they were both entirely robotic. The commander might have been human, or had human parts, but everything else was a robot. It isn't even clear if there is a civilian population left to fight for.

This might agree with your statement of it not being noticeable in-game, but since the game is the thing in question... It's like how you can provide a story supplement for pacman that explains why he is in the maze to raise money to rescue his father, that the ghosts are hallucinations of his own inadequacy trying to hold him back, that the dots are a mystic power source that are trapping the princess in a castle...

But by now we are getting into the philosophical distinction of what defines a game's plot. And it's been so long since I've played Total Annihilation that you are probably right anyway.

Also, aren't Ideological wars the simplest? They are wrong and we are right, end of story :smalltongue:

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

Pong gets my vote.

Also: RYGAR: The Legendary Adventure. *cough* Yeah. Holy crap-crap! These people ate Titan-Flesh! Now they ARE Titans! And their attacking our land, which is Sparta or something. I didn't pay attention. They've killed/kidnapped everyone but you, and now you must save the princess who you apparently love!

Honestly, at least introduce the characters, for God's sake. You don't actually realize that 'Rygar' is the character's name--and not Ceasarian, son of Cleopatra-turned-Titan, as is blatantly dropped throughout the game--until the craptasticular end, only to learn, at this craptastular end, that !shock! his real name IS Ceasarian! Also you get some convoluted half-history about spiky shields ruling the world or something.

[Setra]

Just remembered one.

You might want to shield your eyes, for they might burn at the title's name.

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

Yes, I actually played/beat this, and Yes, I actually liked it.

[J_Muller]

Kill Monty.
It's some arena shooter that I downloaded the demo for that spoofs Resident Evil, Kill Bill, and the Matrix.

When you click the "Story" option on the main menu, a siren sounds and the screen flashes "Kill Everything!!" a few times.

I was just about to say that...


I'd also nominate Risk, if we can do board games. "Everyone wants to take over the world. Kill everyone else so you can take over the world."

Also, Medal of Honor. "We're at war with the Axis. Kill every Axis soldier you see. Any teammates you may get are utterly useless other than serving to draw the enemy's fire away from you."

[Jothki]

Does N count, since the ninja are on missions of spiritual fulfillment?

[Amotis]

Life!

You're born and then you die. Everything else is minigames.

[Ettlesby]

Forgive me for mentioning this game, but...

Mario is Missing.

Seriously.

Mario falls down a hole in the North Pole, then Luigi goes to Earth to get back stuff. I don't understand how they didn't notice ANTHROMORPHIC TURTLES stealing a building's CEILING.

[Maryring]

N is a fun game. However I found another game with not much of a plot.

Mystic Heroes. The plot in that game, while not being overly stupid, is also very simplistic. Evil people have stolen the dragon orb. Kill their undead minions to retrieve it before it becomes completely black.

Although the game DID have one plottwist.

[blackout]

Mortal Kombat.

"You need to win a martial arts tournament where everyone has wacko powers. Kill them all to win."

[Scudboy]

Progress Quest (http://www.progressquest.com/)

[Indon]

Progress Quest (http://www.progressquest.com/)

I'd say any game in which the plot needs to be segmented into "Acts" can't qualify.

...even if you don't actually happen to know what the plot of said acts are.

[the_tick_rules]

the legacy of kain series :smallbiggrin:

[turtleant120]

Progress Quest (http://www.progressquest.com/)
What exactly do you do in this game, watch?

[Scudboy]

What exactly do you do in this game, watch?

(Progress quest). So I gather - never played it myself (one of the many games I'm denied as a mac user). It cuts out all the tedious questing, finding quest-assigning npc's, saving and reloading games, hunting down walkthroughs on-line, getting back to the quest areas from whatever the death-respawn point is, and so forth, and cuts straight to the chase: magic items, xp, and higher stats.:roach:

[Holy_Knight]

Tetris.

Blocks fall, I match them, they disappear. Not a novel by Hemingway.


Yeah but have you ever thought about why the blocks are falling?

My theory is, a great Wizard, let us name him Biff, once cast a great and epic spell that made those blocks fall as such, and to save the world you must keep them from piling and destroying your loved ones. (ie. A Wizard did it)


you clearly ignored the very essence that made the game the great philosophical piece it was meant to be.

Have you ever considered the sheer symbolism of falling blocks, all falling down upon the inevitable baseline of life itself, motivated by the very forces of gravity? Maybe it is a commentary on the great book of life, where we all play small blocks of standard cut out sizes, with some of us with straighter blocks more useful than others.

Maybe, it is a social commentary of how we must all fulfill our part in preserving the greater consciousness, where upon our thoughts and legacy passes on into the immaterial as we turn convert into score points, representing how far we've come, but then must be face with the stark irony that eventually all must come to an end.

Maybe, tetris is a commentary upon our inevitable fate as human beings, and the very conditions that we cannot escape, but also preaches the greatness that one single long block can do in the great four line eradicator.

Or maybe, like Hemmingway's novel, it's really just one gigantic symboless landscape where people who are playing the game are just sitting there mumbling to themselves about nothing in paritcular.

Hey, you guys may joke about this, but there actually is at least one version of Tetris that was released which does in fact have a story. It was something like "The race of Tetrons must abandon their dying planet, and need you to organize them into the proper rows to board their spaceship." (No joke.) As ridiculous as that sounds, my friends and I all decided that clearly the stupidest thing about it was that it meant that somebody actually made the decision that there needed to be a plot for Tetris.

[Tengu]

the legacy of kain series :smallbiggrin:
Indeed, it can be abridged to three words only: time travelling vampires.

[Indon]

(Progress quest). So I gather - never played it myself (one of the many games I'm denied as a mac user). It cuts out all the tedious questing, finding quest-assigning npc's, saving and reloading games, hunting down walkthroughs on-line, getting back to the quest areas from whatever the death-respawn point is, and so forth, and cuts straight to the chase: magic items, xp, and higher stats.:roach:

I have a level 50-odd Runeloremaster, myself. I stopped playing eventually, though; it was taking up too much of my time (:smalltongue:).

[elliott20]

Indeed, it can be abridged to three words only: time travelling vampires.
throw in the word "lesbian" in there somewhere you got yourself a hit.

[Sornas]

I'm gonna go with Custer's Revenge on this one.

You really only have one goal. (Don't look it up if you are under 18 <.<)

[Zaggab]

Seven Kingdoms 2

Randomized campaigns. There's like 6 different events (with some variations), and like 12 levels. Everything is completely randomized, so they don't tie into eachother, and you end up doing the same thing several times.

Plus that it's set in a fictional world, where you have normans, vikings, chinese, japanese, mongol, romans, greeks, carthaginans etc. And monsters. No explanation of the world at all, or why you have real world cultures in that world. From different continents and different time periods.

[Were-Sandwich]

Asteroids. Although it is one of the most realistic simulators of space combat ever.

[Setra]

I'm gonna go with Custer's Revenge on this one.

You really only have one goal. (Don't look it up if you are under 18 <.<)
While I have no love for the game.. Gonna have to agree with you on Least Complicated Plot.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Civilization 4

Come on! "Humanity finally arrived at the dawn of civilization", they could have included other things!

[Maldraugedhen]

throw in the word "lesbian" in there somewhere you got yourself a hit.

Time lesbian traveling vampires?

The under-title, or whatever it's called: Quest of the Stopwatch.

Frogger.

[J_Muller]

You really only have one goal. (Don't look it up if you are under 18 <.<)

I hope you realize that's practically an invitation to do exactly that.:smallwink:

[Icewalker]

N: Finish episodes of five levels! Because...you're a ninja!

Knytt: get the pieces of the spaceship so the alien can take you back home (note: no speech or writing in the whole game)

[Da Beast]

Mario actually has a deep plot about Mario overthrowing the tyranical koopa king and starting a communist revolution.


N is a fun game. However I found another game with not much of a plot.

Mystic Heroes. The plot in that game, while not being overly stupid, is also very simplistic. Evil people have stolen the dragon orb. Kill their undead minions to retrieve it before it becomes completely black.

Although the game DID have one plottwist.

That game rocked. Sure, the voice acting, cut scenes, plot, and character models were all pretty bad but the game play was such a big improvement over Dynasty Warriors.

[Jacob_Gallagher]

Half-Life. Think about it - the plot is pretty much Doom with aliens.

But there's lots of stuff along the way- launching the satellite missile, going to Xen to stop the incursions, etc. I vote for Halo, it's just do what the voices in your head tell you (except on Resident Halo).

[thorgrim29]

Halo actually has an extremely complicated plot, they have a big book hidden somewhere called the Halo Story Bible, and they give it to the guys who write the books. It's supposed to be several hundred pages long. Halo has the best plot for a shooter I've ever seen, the only problem is that you have to pay attention to the cutscenes to understand it (FEAR is a close second).
as for my submission..... Dark Crusade: ok guys, we want that planet, kill everyone, even our allies. Aye Aye Sir!

[Rincewind]

Legacy of Kain... Kidding!
Deus Ex!! No...
Umm... What about "Diablo".. There's a demon in the church, can you get rid of it? :smallbiggrin:

[Setra]

Legacy of Kain... Kidding!
Deus Ex!! No...
Umm... What about "Diablo".. There's a demon in the church, can you get rid of it? :smallbiggrin:
Actually that's not the whole plot...


The story of Diablo is based on the premise of a war between Heaven and Hell. The town of Tristram is under attack by demons, and the player must save the town. As the player delves into the underworld, he discovers more about the demon Diablo, through large tomes that are found throughout the levels. Eventually, the player reaches the lair of Diablo and must kill him. Here is a more detailed summary of Diablo's history:

Diablo, an incredibly powerful demon, is the Lord of Terror and one of the Three Prime Evils of Hell, who had been imprisoned in a Soulstone and buried in caverns deep beneath the town of Tristram. Though his imprisonment was meant to be eternal, the power of the Soulstone weakened over centuries, eventually allowing Diablo to awaken from his forced slumber. He telepathically turns a nearby human, the Archbishop Lazarus, into his loyal puppet. In order for Diablo to actually leave the Soulstone, Diablo needs the stone to be shattered. He possesses Lazarus, and has him break the stone. Diablo then tries to gain control of King Leoric, the local ruler, but Diablo, in his weakened state, is unable to overpower Leoric. Since Diablo is too weak to possess the king, he abandons the idea. This leaves the monarch's mind numb and his soul corrupted. He then gets Lazarus to kidnap King Leoric's son, Prince Albrecht, so that Diablo can possess and warp him, thereby attaining material form and strength. At the moment of the boy's possession, his terror is so great that the boundaries between the realms are broken and parts of Hell seep into the mortal world and take root in the subterranean labyrinth beneath Tristram. Diablo may have a body now, but he is far from his full power, so he bides his time and summons countless hordes of demons and infests the whole underground complex, claiming the new region of Hell as his own personal lair.

Soon afterwards the maddened Leoric is slain by his own lieutenants. Demons appear in the countryside as the Lord of Terror regains his strength in the heart of the labyrinth and prepares for the time when he would once again emerge to seek his brothers - Baal and Mephisto - and free them as well. It seemed to be a matter of time until the Prime Evils gained dominion over the entire mortal realm.

This is where the player comes in. As he or she fights their way through sixteen levels to face Diablo, they encounter various monsters, quests, tomes, scrolls, weapons, and other miscellaneous items.

[Demented]

Frogger.
You're a frog that wants to cross the stream. Or the road. We don't need no stinkin' princess!
(I see it's been mentioned before.)

FEAR wasn't so spectacular, plot-wise. There are two, maybe three significant events. The rest is just story.
Half-Life is the opposite. It has tons of plot, but almost no story. "There are... things... in Xen... that want to eat you."
Halo had some quantity of both, though more story than plot.