What genres do you think are the best for developing a story?

Graphical adventure, hands down. [smile] The pacing is slower, your mind is more open to exploration, you weed out the "I just wanna kill sumthin'!" crowd, and the story is as good a motivator as the puzzle solving in drawing you along.

Myst IV did that well. It's the only game I can think of where I sat and listened to someone reading a journal out loud just to find out the plot.

Hmm, I was going to suggest that it was a Final-Fantasy style game, however when I think about it a Final-Fantasy game IS a graphical adventure, but with a tagged on combat-bit to make it more exciting and provide a way of mediating conflicts.

What I think makes the Final-Fantasy / Chrono-Trigger games good at examining story is the way that they are so based around TALKING to other characters.
And the way you get party members that you can talk to, and interact with a little.

They have a well-developed social element. Well, at least in comparison to many other games. Which isn't to say that it is done really well, but I'd love to see more 'western' games take some hints from them.

I have a tendency to think any genre can work acceptably if the story draws the user in.

I’ve played more than one action game to see what the story is for instance.

Fwiw (=

As a throw-back to the golden days of Marathon, I look for story in FPS games. I think that a game can have an action-looking exterior and still convey some depth. Second Sight is an excellent recent example of this. Even Halo 2, if you pay attention, has a pretty cool story to it, especially if you paid attention during the first one. The books are optional; I haven't read any video-game books since Blaster Master. Which was awesome.