Game endings - From the podcast

So i figured i had a bit to say about game endings (as the guys were discussing it on the podcast) and about which ones i thought worked or didn't.... but i thought it would be more interesting for me to list which i thought were good/bad and see how other people interpreted the same events. For instance, Elysium (i think) noted that he thought the ending of Crackdown was bad or he was indifferent to it... however i liked the twist and thought it ended the current story but left the game world open to the telling of future stories.

So.... here we go - and don't feel like you have to only discuss the games i bring up, this is a completely open topic:

Crackdown - good ending with a tentative twist, though you could still roam around the city if you wanted to.

Half Life: Good ending, the story ended (okay boss wasn't great) and the 'continued adventures' of Gordon Freeman was left open.

Half Life 2: Bad ending, uninspiring boss fight and an ending which was hijacked by the start of Episode 1.... if HL2 had followed HLs formula then the end of HL2 would have ended with the abduction of Gordon and Alyx by the Vortigaunts.

Jedi Academy Didn't like the game that much but the darkside ending was awesome i felt. I suppose it paved the way a little for KotoR.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - awesome ending, one of my favourite of all time - i wasn't at all disappointed with the final fight

Ico Again, the ending with the music and the mood after all that time in the castle was awesome.

In comparison, thinking back some games mirrored each other's endings quite well and my feelings towards those endings is also mirrored:

Bioshock - FarCry
AvP2 - Halo

So what do you guys think? What are good endings and what are bad and do you agree with me on my feelings towards the above? (Going through my local game library [i lend games], like Rabbit, i found i haven't completed as many games as i think.... or at least that i still have in my house :)).

I liked the ending of The World Ends With You. That boss gets more owned than anything else, ever.

I thought the ending of Half-Life 2: Episolde 2 was pretty fantastic. Not only was the final "boss" fight epic as all get out, the surprise ending was sad and infuriating at the same time, making the prospect of Final Revenge in Ep. 3 even more urgent and exciting. It was a great use of emotional hooks.

Red Faction - This still holds the Worst Ending Ever title for me. You have an epic battle, a very tense one-off minigame to complete a critical objective and...credits roll. That's it. There's literally no conclusion whatsoever, even though there's this big "rebelling against the man" story framework setup throughout the game.

Baldur's Gate - One of my favourite games ever made but the ending was ridiculous and much like Red Faction, was a non-ending really. A very difficult boss fight and then a non-descriptive video plays that doesn't explain anything or provide any real conclusion. I actually don't remember the ending to the second one (despite liking it even more as a game) but I think it was equally weak.

Prince of Persia (New One) - This had the potential for a great ending and in a way, it was in that there was genuine remorse and sadness I felt for the predicament the Prince was left in, especially since I spent the time during the game to listen to all the banter between him and Elika. But you basically have only 2 choices to make and both ultimately leave you feeling let down and sap the sense of accomplishment.

Crackdown - The ending was weak and predictable but in truth, the whole "story" the game had there was just to create an objective. That game was more of a fun sandbox for me with some missions thrown in so the ending really didn't bother me at all.

BioShock - I sometimes get the feeling that Ken Levine didn't know how to conclude this story fully. Final boss that completely breaks the believability of the Rapture world as a whole and ending that while to the point, are also quick and don't provide much closure. Interestingly though, I never felt they were "sequel setup" endings either.

Syberia 2 - The ending to the first one wasn't great but it was palatable at least. The ending to this one just made no sense whatsoever and while it wasn't a "sequel setup" ending, it provided absolutely no conclusion to the story of the main character and in fact, left a lot of questions since she had left herself in a rather bad spot. A 3rd title was recently announced so I'm hoping that will tie this off.

The Longest Journey - This is still my favourite game of all time and has some of the best interactive storytelling I've ever seen. The ending doesn't really close things off but it isn't really supposed to either. The main character is a reluctant hero who ends up completing her goal but is left pretty much back where she started, only with less people around her. The story of the game is done and I believe it was intentionally setup so that you drew your own conclusions about what happened to her life going forward.

F.E.A.R. 2 - I thought the ending to this was total weak sauce and a 100% "buy the sequel" conclusion (which is funny since the game sold poorly and there probably won't be another) but then I talked with Stylez about it and found out that if you read between the lines a bit, what happens during the final battle is actually rather mature and disturbing but they showed it in such a way that it isn't apparent to everyone, at least it wasn't apparent to me. I imagine this was done on purpose both to create some mystery and also to avoid the game being slammed by the press.

Braid - This one's obviously hotly debated but I like the way Jonathan Blow tried to leave the ending open to interpretation. His interest isn't in selling a sequel, the ambiguity of the narrative was intentional from the beginning and I can respect that. I certainly don't want to see every game tell stories this way but I do like the wide array of directions you could go with the ending.

These are the only ones I can think of right now. It is unfortunate that in today's game market where titles that can be sequelized are a business necessity, I think good conclusions to stories are becoming less and less common. Many games today tell very interesting stories but in the end, make you feel similar to if you read a book and the last couple of pages were purposefully omitted.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones - I actually liked it. Everything comes full circle. There is no more room for backtracking. He, even if he wanted to, can't reverse anything anymore. And it answers the question of continuity that was brought about by the Warrior Within ending.

Terrible: Fallout3

Sort of a natural weakness of multiple endings but STALKER either had a horrible non-ending, or was brilliant and all of your questions about The Zone were answered. The obtuse paramaters required for the proper ending forced me to youtube it. But it was a nice wrap-up to a fantastic world. Or you got a bullsh*t one and got pissed off.

I loved the ending of Ico. Running on the beach and finding the fruit to feed to the girl — there was something incredibly satisfying about it.

Agreed on Max Payne 1 & 2, and Silent Hill 2.

I also really liked Tribes: Vengeance. It's too bad that game wasn't better received. I thought Ken and the gang did a phenomenal job with the single player campaign.

Also, for a mediocre-to-poor game, Pariah had a really compelling ending.

edit: I just saw Pariah is on hidannik's "terrible" list. I can see how a person would hate it. I found it really compelling.

Grenn wrote:

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones - I actually liked it. Everything comes full circle. There is no more room for backtracking. He, even if he wanted to, can't reverse anything anymore. And it answers the question of continuity that was brought about by the Warrior Within ending.

I actually didn't like TTT that much, i felt it was the weakest of all four of the modern games. When i got to the end i felt let down by the rail roading.... the dream sequence, i felt could have been able to go either way if you didn't pick up the signals like you were forced to.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Prince of Persia (New One) - This had the potential for a great ending and in a way, it was in that there was genuine remorse and sadness I felt for the predicament the Prince was left in, especially since I spent the time during the game to listen to all the banter between him and Elika. But you basically have only 2 choices to make and both ultimately leave you feeling let down and sap the sense of accomplishment.

I liked it... but i like sad stories and sad songs.The way his reasoning was further explained in the DLC i think would have changed some people's opinions of the ending.... but ultimately, like HL2:EP1's beginning, it should have been in the ending rather than being 'revisioned'. I don't know how they're going to account for the DLC in the sequel... i'm kinda hoping that they include the DLC as part of the next game so the people who didn't buy it get the whole experience of the story.

I would argue against Dreamfall being in the Great ending category. I guess it did leave me wanting more, so that's something. It wrapped up what was ostensibly the "main" storyline of the game, which is the ghost story, but about 80% of the game is spent on other storylines that are all left completely unresolved in the end.

spoiler wrote:

[color=white]You do not kill off April Ryan and then end the game before getting back to that plot point. Unacceptable![/color]

Which isn't to say I think the game is bad. I can't wait for Dreamfall Chapters to come in and finish what was started.

Great:
Phoenix Wright series
Oblivion (some sidequests)
Fallout 3 (some sidequests)
Final Fantasy X
God of War
Portal
Halo
Halo 3
Ico
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Mass Effect
Max Payne
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Myst
Myst 2: Riven
Myst 3: Exile
Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Shadow of the Colossus
Silent Hill 2

Good:
Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies
Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation
Duke Nukem 3D
Oblivion (some sidequests)
Fallout 3 (some sidequests)
Fear Effect
Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix
Jedi Knight
Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
Wing Commander 4: The Price of Freedom

Ok:
Aliens vs. Predator
Colony Wars
Doom3
Oblivion (some sidequests, main quest)
Fallout 3 (some sidequests)
Gears of War
Golden Sun
Half-Life & expansions
Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 & 2
Too Human
Metal Gear Acid
Voyager Elite Force
Starfleet Command III
Star Wars X-Wing
Dark Forces
Starlancer
Freelancer
Tomb Raider Gold
Wing Commander

Poor:
BioShock
Oblivion (some sidequests)
Fallout 3 (some sidequests, main quest)
Half-Life 2
Halo 2
Enter the Matrix
Rez HD
Schizm
Silent Hill
Silent Hill 3
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness

Terrible:
Cold Fear
Crackdown
Killzone
Pariah

Edit: Spoilers ahead.

I'll have to disagree on Crackdown; that struck me as the epitome of a twist-for-the-sake-of-a-twist ending, jammed in at the last minute (no foreshadowing of it earlier).

Also disagree on Half-Life. That was only okay. Freeman survived Black Mesa, but would have to work for that jerk G-Man, or die.

Strongly agree on Ico. Powerfully dramatic climax involving acts of mercy and bravery, followed by an act of sacrifice and love, and a post-credits epilogue which hints at a happy ending.

Agree on HL2 Ep2. That ending reminded me in certain respects of the end of The Empire Strikes Back.

Bioshock: Agree. Endings are hard. I like the proposed alternate at http://www.pentadact.com/index.php/2....

Hans

Dead Space had a good ending as far as I'm concerned. At least it had an actual ending instead of the standard cliffhanger for new IPs.

Game endings in general tend to be rather dissapointing. Especially action games, which try their hardest to perform character development only to have a 30 second wrap-up immediately after the last boss goes down. It probably has to do with development structures. I constantly see "we ran out of money and had to ship" as an explanation to why the ending feels tacked on, but never as a reason the beginning or middle section sucks. And, of course, who can blame them, because there's more than enough evidence out there that the vast majority of people who buy your game will never finish it.

I can't believe how people are saying Half-Life 2 had a bad ending. In my opinion, it's the type of perfect ending to an FPS like it. But I considered that whole final sequence in the citadel as part of the ending. Mind you, I have no idea how you could consider the ending to Dreamfall anything but purely awful, especially considering it look increasingly likely that a sequel will never, ever be made.

kuddles wrote:

Mind you, I have no idea how you could consider the ending to Dreamfall anything but purely awful, especially considering it look increasingly likely that a sequel will never, ever be made.

Ragnar Tornquist's blog does give me some hope that it is still alive, even though it is not in production yet.

To Dreamfall, the final scene is wonderfully made, intriguing. But the overall conclusion leaves a lot to be desired. Very sloppy Shakespeare wrap-up by just offing characters.

The best ending that hasn't been mentioned yet, I think, has to go to Planescape: Torment. Absolutely brilliant.

Some of my other favorites are:

The Longest Journey
Dreamfall
Mass Effect
Prince of Persia (2008) (controversial, I know...)
Tales of Symphonia
Portal
Half-Life 2, episode 2
Deus Ex
Fallout
Morrowind
Ico
Myst
Riven
Prince of Persia - Sands of Time

Some...not so great ones, in my opinion:
Oblivion
Fallout 3
Bioshock

and most all the others that have been mentioned; most endings are mediocre, in most ways.

Edit:I also really enjoyed both Kingdom Hearts endings, but particularly the second one.

Eternal Sonata had a terrible ending. All of the cutscenes were terrible, but the ending just wouldn't freaking end. I swear that last cutscene must have been an hour long - an entire hour of pointless contemplation alternating between Chopin dying in his bed and Polka falling off a cliff.

muttonchop wrote:

Eternal Sonata had a terrible ending. All of the cutscenes were terrible, but the ending just wouldn't freaking end. I swear that last cutscene must have been an hour long - an entire hour of pointless contemplation alternating between Chopin dying in his bed and Polka falling off a cliff.

Oh yeah, forgot about that one. Totally agree. Although it was nice to see her finally die...but then they had to bring her back again! Aaargh!

Minarchist wrote:

The best ending that hasn't been mentioned yet, I think, has to go to Planescape: Torment. Absolutely brilliant.

Oh, yeah, for sure. Torment is like the gold standard.

Minarchist wrote:

The best ending that hasn't been mentioned yet, I think, has to go to Planescape: Torment. Absolutely brilliant.

Hmm, you know what? All other answers are hereby wrong. This is correct.

As I said over in the Conference Call thread, I thought HL2's ending was brilliant. The final sequence is great - a 'boss' fight would have felt completely out of place, so I loved the way they just made the final fight an amped-up version of what you've been doing all along.

KingGorilla wrote:

To Dreamfall, the final scene is wonderfully made, intriguing. But the overall conclusion leaves a lot to be desired. Very sloppy Shakespeare wrap-up by just offing characters.

I was not nearly as big a fan of the Dreamfall ending or storytelling in general. Just to be clear, while both titles have The Longest Journey in the title, it's the original The Longest Journey that preceded Dreamfall which I think is incredible. Dreamfall was not bad but doesn't hold up to the original.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
KingGorilla wrote:

To Dreamfall, the final scene is wonderfully made, intriguing. But the overall conclusion leaves a lot to be desired. Very sloppy Shakespeare wrap-up by just offing characters.

I was not nearly as big a fan of the Dreamfall ending or storytelling in general. Just to be clear, while both titles have The Longest Journey in the title, it's the original The Longest Journey that preceded Dreamfall which I think is incredible. Dreamfall was not bad but doesn't hold up to the original.

TLJ is one of my top five all-time games, as a perfect mix of cyberpunk and fantasy with some of the best English-language voice acting out there. That being said, I really enjoyed Dreamfall too because I simply wasn't expecting anything like TLJ. It had been nearly eight years between the two games, and as far as I could tell from interviews Ragnar Törnquist was just in a different place by then. It lost a lot of the hard edge TLJ had (like Zack, for instance), but gained a lot of pseudo-Japanese weirdness. I dunno, it was fun for me. I mean, the combat sucked, but that's not really part of this discussion. Diff'rent strokes, I guess.

I absolutely loved the ending to Final Fantasy 6. Not becuase it was unexpected or anything, but just because it felt like the appropriate reward for my investment into the game. 30 mins of great 16-bit tunes and a bit of what happened to everyone in the party and around the world after the fact. Did I mention I really liked the music?

Bioshock: Agree. Endings are hard. I like the proposed alternate at http://www.pentadact.com/index.php/2....

Fantastic.

I was kind of fascinated by Fatal Frame II's incredibly depressing ending... then the discovery that you could get a happy ending if you play the game again at an unlocked higher difficulty level.

Not that multiple endings is (or should be) all that rare in an interactive medium. To me, the best "endings" are the ones that genuinely vary depending on your actions throughout the game. As games are increasingly designed for franchise potential, though, it's hard not to have a "canon" ending.

I'm surprised how many people have said Ico, but not Shadow of the Colossus. The entire interactive epilogue predated Bioshock in its fatalism.

I really liked the ending of Golden Axe... that music is fantastic! Plus getting to see all the characters, their names and the guy hitting the 'baseball credits' was really cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd9a6...

I'm surprised how many people have said Ico, but not Shadow of the Colossus. The entire interactive epilogue predated Bioshock in its fatalism.

It's on my pile, i'm waiting for a PS2 to be able to play it.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

I absolutely loved the ending to Final Fantasy 6. Not becuase it was unexpected or anything, but just because it felt like the appropriate reward for my investment into the game. 30 mins of great 16-bit tunes and a bit of what happened to everyone in the party and around the world after the fact. Did I mention I really liked the music?

Exactly!!! I'm going with FFVI as my all time favorite.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

I absolutely loved the ending to Final Fantasy 6. Not becuase it was unexpected or anything, but just because it felt like the appropriate reward for my investment into the game. 30 mins of great 16-bit tunes and a bit of what happened to everyone in the party and around the world after the fact. Did I mention I really liked the music?

Seconded. This is by far my favorite game ending. I watched it so many times. It really did warp up the whole story and allowed all the story lines of so many characters to be concluded.