Well, I don't know if it was an issue of translation or what, but I thought the dialogue in Resident Evil 4 was horrendous. It was so bad that it warped space-time, manipulating the fabric of my mind until it became good again. Journey to the Wild Divine had some choice moments, too.

I always grin when I'm playing a Sly Cooper game, but I think Tim Schafer has a real ear for dialogue too. The dialogue in Grim Fandango and Psychonauts is fantastic. ("I am the Milkman. My milk is delicious. It's fortified with what the world wants. What the world deserves.")

Up? I don't know if there's any way to go, specifically. It's like with books: There are plenty of writers who perfect their craft, tuning their dialogue until it sings. And then there's Dan Brown. Both groups make money.

1. Every game in which "..." is a dialogue option (hi Japan!)
2. Grim Fandango - funny, moving, and perfectly voice-acted.
3. Hopefully, towards well-written, well-spoken, mature dialogue rather than inane, meaningless, constant, unskippable babbling. Final Fantasy XII was a good step in this direction.

Fang, I would SO love it if a bad guy said that.

1. What is the worst writing you've seen in a game, excluding poor translation?
Shaman King: Power of Spirit. You've never heard of it. You don't want to hear of it. They didn't even get the names right. Ick Ick Ptui!

2. What is the best writing you've seen in a game, excluding in-game books (i.e. Bethesda products)
One of the best I've seen was "The Neverhood". FFXII was already mentioned, but I also enjoyed FFX. Crimson Skies also has it's moments. Mechwarrior 2 and 3. Wingcommander was good. Particularly Wingcommander 3.

3. Where do we go from here?
Hopefully far far away from Hollywood. The fear I have with people getting professional writers involved is that most of this type of writing is aimed at movies, or at novels. And we all know how well that turns out most of the time when it's applied to games, or games are applied to that. The skills are not the same, and there is no established body of knowledge about what it entails.

Good article Fletch, I've always idly wondered what goes on behind the "Presented By Clancy" stuff.

I've been pretty impressed by Sam and Max's Dialogue, and playing through Deus Ex again I'm extremely impressed with the atmosphere and in game fiction which helps further the story. The voice acting is pretty rough compared against most games these days.

Oh yeah, and Full Throttle wins for best dialogue in a Lucasarts game.

"You know what would look good on your nose?

What?

The Bar! *SLAM*

"

Pure gold, baby.

That was my thought; It's easily up there with Grim Fandango. Another one I thought I'd see would be The Bard's Tale, or at least the newer incarnation. Comedic genius, that.

Games that had horrible dialogue? I"m gonna go counter to momgamer and say Wing Commander 3, and through in IV as well. Not even Malcom McDowell could save the dialogue in that game. Wonderful story for both of em though.

Where to though? This is a harder question, since there really isn't a right answer. There's plenty of good that can be done with dialogue in games. Hire scriptwriters, leave the cliches at the door, and just make sure that it flows well.

Taking that further, if the dialogue doesn't affect the game in any meaningful way, why take the time to create entire dialogue trees to make the player believe there's some meaning to the choices? If, no matter what I say, the villain is still going to attack me or the priest will still send me on his quest, why offer anything more than a static description of the conversation and an 'Okay' button, or a cinematic of the encounter?

1) Worst writing......a tough call. I wouldn't say worst but I thought the Dialogue in NWN2 was pretty boring and generic, and a pretty good example of what fangblackbone and killertomato were saying.

2) Best: I'm going to pick a wierd choice here and go for Half-Life 2 as the best in recent memory just on the basis of Dr. Breen's speeches. I always looked forward to hearing him go on the occasional rant, it really, really added to the story in a way that was not to obtrusive or "rpg-y" for a first person shooter. It made Gordon and his conflict come to life and the way it was implemented was very cool.

3) Where can we go from here? By making writing and dialogue more interactive, more immersive, and more intertwined with the game experience. Less "Level/quest starts, engage in dialogue options. Proceed to end of dungeon. Engage in dialogue with end boss. Kill end boss. Return to town and engage in more dialogue which furthers the story" and more dialogue and writing that occurs as you're doing stuff, with less generic options.

Quite true. "Hail, Bosmer!" gets old pretty quick, too.

I think part of the appeal here is that you didn't have to listen to most stuff in that game. It was there if you wanted it, but you could easily walk away and start breaking his toys. Then again, the silent archetype of Gordan Freeman makes dialogue trees a little easier. Perhaps not forcing players to listen to speeches would be better. Let them goof off in the back fo the lecture hall, as it were.

I did some slightly more serious thinking and have come to the conclusion that this should be rephrased to "Where should Wordsmythe and Wanderer send résumés?"

Rogue Galaxy has pretty terrible writing. I'm struggling through the story right now. If it wasn't for the great gameplay and mini-games it would useless.

Planescape and Fallout/2 have great dialogue.

I can forgive bad dialogue in action oriented games, because it's not the point anyway.

But RPGs should be a step above.

I thought the dialogue for Jade Empire was incredibly bad. Just flat out awful.

Oblivion was crap for dialogue, too. I played both english and spanish versions, and the spanish version was even worse, if you can imagine something like that. Cutscenes were ok, but most dialogue was at best utilitarian.

I seem to remember KOTOR being ok, but it's been a long time. I do remember that KOTOR 2 was awful.

Console RPGs were written for idiots (But I did stop at Final Fantasy 8, so maybe they got better).

In conclusion, from here we clearly have to go North. I see a forest in the distance.

edit: Obviously the exception to this is Planescape+Fallout, but you already posted that.

Indeed. I think they nailed what they were going for.

Really? I just finished it, and thought it was mostly OK, for a videogame. The stuff with the Black Whirlwind and Henpecked Hou was pretty good, and the end credits dialogue was funny. Most of the dialogue with random NPCs did suck, though.

I liked the beginning part of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, playing as a Malkavian was awesome. It felt rushed towards the end though.

Mass Effect seems to have a relatively new idea

Wow, nice call.

I remember during the fan-boat level coming to a damn. You had to stop and go on foot to open it, drop a few sleepy guards with pop guns, and enter a hanger for those silly armored transports they drove around by climbing up a ladder and into a command center.

As you come through the door the monitor sparks to life and there's Breen, staring at you like Dr. T.J. Eckleberg as you take cover in the room. He prattles on, trying to reason with you as an interogator reasons with a man he's got trussed up in the corner over an iron maiden. You could stay to hear him, but he just pisses you off, and you rush into the hanger itself. Opening a door you find a torture chamber with a corpse, further on a rough bit with a small offce that makes you retreat for the case of granades and then back into that room... that room where Breen is still going on and on and on... You can take out the computer at this point to shut him up, but that just wastes ammo... It's amazing writing that's keyed to the level. The dialogue picks up where the tension leaves off and the level itself is talking to you, forcing you to emote through your avatar, forcing you to make emotional decisions that you don't realize your making. At that point you become Freeman, free man trapped in this game, stuck in this world, and the final push to the mounted gun, past those dumpsters, into the generator room where you ambush the unsuspecting guards... That feels really good.

Yeah, HL2 got it right.

Wow. I gotta play Half Life 2 again.