Technically, that was Final Fantasy 6 ;)

*sifts through old memories* But....the cartridge said 3 (in Roman numerals no less)!!!!

anyone remember Rise of The Dragon. that is the game that pulled my away from my Genesis and Started me on PC gaming for good.

The cartridge LIES!
PS The Smashing Pumpkins rock.

He really wasn't going anywhere, you know :)
For those who had played the game: how about Frontier: First Encounters? Following the storyline was both optional and rather difficult (you had to be in proper places at proper times), but the story was told through several independent monthly newspapers. It was loads of fun comparing smart-gossipy R.I.G. to "raw info" Frontier News to propaganda-filled Imperial Herald :)

First, I was going to go on and on about Anachronox and how masterfully that game told a story, not to mention had humor on a level very few games could ever compare with. The character gallery and the universe was excellent for a story-driven gameplay.
And then I saw that mentioned on Page 2.
Then I thought, strange that no one's mentioned Mass Effect yet. And then I saw that on page three, but that won't shut me up completely about it. I'm still geeking out about the story in that game. It's... epic, for a lack of superlatives. Very well presented storyline, while allowing you just enough freedom of character to say "I'm the one who did that..."
And come on, very very few quotes can ever compare with "I'm the vanguard of your destruction!"
My Subwoofer went mental on my floor and I very nearly had to blush and change my underwear.

Good call with the early Bungie games. The Marathon series definetly has a great story, but Myth... well, let's just say it's one of my favourite games of all time.

Nevermind the addictive gameplay that makes me come back to it 11 years later, but the story is presented in such a way that it is hard not to get you really involved, even if at first glance it seems like nothing special (*yawn* another generic fantasy universe, wow. Undead? wow.).

Myth and Myth 2 (although I am much more fond of the first one's turn of events), feature what in my humble opinion is one of the best voiceovers I have ever heard in a game, being capable of drawing you into its fantastic universe, story and characters with very little besides hand drawings, wonderful music and narrated journal entries masterfully presented at the start of each of the missions.

It's true, some really nifty cutscenes are also present, and I have to admit I'm a sucker for Bungie's choice of style used for them, but they are not even remotely close of having the same power and depth as the pre-mission briefings.

Ultimately, it ends up telling a very engaging story, a characteristic that the strategy/tactics genre is not famous for.

The reason everybody hasn't listed The Longest Journey is not everybody has played The Longest Journey!

I think I'm just re-emphasizing what has already been mentioned here.
For story some of my favorites in no particular order are:
Wasteland
Out of This World
Fallout Series
The Witcher
NWN Series
Dungeon Siege 2 (horrible voice acting I know, but the story drove me to want to keep playing it until I beat it)
HG:L (Okay just joking. What story?)
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My alltime favorite game is Wasteland, and I know it's not as impressive as some of the other games mentioned in this thread, but it was the first of its kind for me. It really made me foster a love of computers that finds me today neglecting my 360.
-Cym

Still got the original double CD cover with the discs fully intact. I play it once in a while. I'm Norwegian, so I of course played it with the original Norwegian voice-casting. Normally, I hate Norwegian voice-acting in both games and movies, but in Den Lengste Reisen it just fit so enormously well...
I didn't quite like how they made the second more into an action game, but that's probably because I sucked so hard at the "sneaking" parts with April. Almost gave up on the game right there and then...

The Longest Journey? I'd say it's storytelling was nothing special. Don't get me wrong, though. The way story is told and the story itself are two different things. TJL had one of the best storylines EVER, BUT it was told to you like in any other adventure game - It was just REALLY well written.

Deviate, agree totally with what you say.Imagine a HL2 with no Gordon, or a Tomb Raider 2 with no Lara, and yet we got a Longest Journey 2 without April as the lead character again - huge mistake! Dreamfall was one of the biggest commercial mistakes in gaming history, given the love of April and 5 million sales of TLJ.
Fenixp - I beg to differ most strongly. And if you go to Metacritic and look at the media and user scores you'll find many many will. What other story has been compared with The Wizard of Oz? What other game has been described as the 'Gone With The Wind' and 'Grapes Of Wrath' of computer gaming? Sure, some games have been described as being just like movies, but they meant generic movies. Only TLJ has been compared with the absolute greats of novels and films. It stands apart.

I know it. And I agree. But what was so special about the way story was told in the game? Story itself was awesome, sure, as I stated before, perfectly written. But handed to you by dialogues and journal entries - not like that's something special. You see it in every single adventure game. But - I repeat myself - story of TJL was WAAAY better than one of your average adventure game.
Let's take a Fahrenheit as an example. It was the first game, where I've seen so movie-ish storytelling. After all, it wasn't much more but an interactive movie.
Another World - The game told a fantastic story without using a single word.
The Longest Journey? Nothing new in storytelling - only old ways, though used in a perfect way.
Edit: Maybe I should add I really love The Longest Journey and I'm not trying to tell anyone it's any less of an experience.

Fenixp - I think you are confusing storytelling with gameplay. Storytelling is the story, the characters, the interaction between the characters the quality of the writing, the quality of the conversational writing , etc. It does not mean 'How the story was told', ie interface, how you interacted with mouse or keyboard. That's gameplay.