I'd rather take a predictable and forgetable ending that fits well with the story (if a character has to die, so be it) than something that completely ruins the mood. The issue is that is in the best interest of the people making a game for it to have a vague, sudden or/and open conclusion so they can push a sequel with minimal retconning.
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Why don't gamers demand better endings? Most games never finish their games.
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It depends on the game. For something like an Elder Scrolls game, the main plotline is only part of the fun and isn't necessarily the main appeal to all players.
(Infamously, Daggerfall shipped with a bug that made it impossible to ever complete the main questline, fullstop - not sometimes, but always, for everyone. It was still widely acclaimed as GotY - and it probably did deserve it. Its main questline just wasn't important.)
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I know better than to argue on the internet. My side deleted. Peace.
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Endings I liked:
Mafia – a great conclusion to the story.
Epistory – at the beggining of the game I didn't expect it to go this way.
Pony Island – I might be a little biased cos I loved the game, I've had such a great time and many laughs.
Brothers – I've played it with a nephew so it was quite a shock cos I've seen it more like a children game :P
Endings I didn't like:
Undertale – it does trolling soo bad... Hey, devs, play Pony Island and see how it should be done.
Call of Juarez (first one) – I really enjoyed the game but the ending was horrible, plot twist after plot twist after plot twist after plot twis, like a soap opera.
The Stanley Parable – ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's all for now.
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Playing Epistory ATM... Game seems fun enough, and you definitely intrigued me now :D Got to go and finish it now
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The 19 endings in The Stanley Parable are more of a game feature rather than real endings in my opinion. I find it hard to compare with other games. "the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never ... loading"
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Endings don't mean a thing unless the story before it was good in some way
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Indeed, but stories can be good with unsatisfying endings, and a good ending doesn't fix an unsatisfying rest of story.
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You are right. Remember these prepacked ice cream cones that at the bottom they had a very small part of tasty chocolate, while the rest of the cone was just cream - in some cases mediocre, compared with the great taste at the very end.
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Sounds like Drumstick brand (off-brand generally ruins the cone and filling along with the cream). Their cones and filling are the best you generally can find for frozen (though still deeply subpar compared to ice cream shops), but their ice cream quality has always been bottom tier.
I've bought those just to scoop them out and add them to decent ice cream, before, actually. (Though my unwillingness to waste food of any sort did mean I had to preeat the Drumstick cream :/ ) I guess in gaming terms, that means I was into the game solely for the modding potential? :'P #Bethesda
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In other news, Nestle is banning all illegal ice cream modding that some people of questionable morality were attempting, from now on they are going to sell their fillings as DLCC (aDitionaL iCe Cream). Bethesda is going to provide legal counseling and it has been stated that they are planning to develop a title based on microtransactions: The IceCream Scrolls: Drumstick.
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The IceCream Scrolls: Drumstick.
Sounds... tasty? :P
from now on they are going to sell their fillings as DLCC (aDitionaL iCe Cream)
Man, if Drumstick sold their cones without cream in them, I'd buy them on the reg.
Bethesda is going to provide legal counseling
Meaning, after they strongarm control over the Drumstick brand, they'll rerelease it but with completely different, less appealing ingredients, and bump up the price tag?
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they'll rerelease it but with completely different, less appealing ingredients, and bump up the price tag?
They will probably bump up the DLCC price tag.
Man, if Drumstick sold their cones without cream in them, I'd buy them on the reg.
Your transaction failed because you are trying to buy 'DLCC (aDitionaL iCe Cream)' which requires ownership of 'Drumstick'. Please correct the error and try again. :'P
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Your transaction failed because you are trying to buy 'DLCC (aDitionaL iCe Cream)' which requires ownership of 'Drumstick'. Please correct the error and try again. :'P
This is why I can't have nice things. :|
No, but seriously, on that note- Steam's trend of "You must own the game to purchase the soundtrack" is idiotic. GOG including soundtracks for free with their base games doesn't help how that comes across any, either.
Things've gotten really frustrating, however, since Steam cancelled inventory gift storage- now, you can't even buy DLCs while they're on cheap discount, unless you have the base game first [which may not always be at a decent discount yet].
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That's a good point that never crossed my mind before.
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I am quite a movie buff.. So storyline is quit important to me, even in games.
Closed-end endings, where everything ends well and pretty satisfying are good, but the emotional ones usually take the show for me..
If I get to think and analyze the ending and how it happened, I rate movies and games better.
Of course if something happens just for the sake of it, thats just lazy script writing and I dont like those kind of endings.
Ones that come to mind (positively) are Mass Effect series. Even with the original ending it seemed very authentic. I know people requested better ending (which they got), I never did finish it with alternate ending. I liked the original even if it was considered "unconventional" and unacceptable for a lot of gamers.
Also really liked the story in Whatchdogs. First game, cant comment on second part as I havent played it yet.
One I was disappointed in was Firewatch. It was good and I liked it, but it felt that they just built up intrigue and just cut off any decent ending. Invested time in story itself, and just scribbled ending up because deadline was coming up.
The Turing Test has stuck with me, too. Gameplay being meh, the story and ending was really great.
Also, even if its redundant even to mention it - Telltale games usually go extra mile with story.. But that would be expected from "interactive story" game :D
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It's a common argument in game review circles indeed. However, I didn't play Firewatch to experience what life is like, Escapism was a driving force of that game (hence the pretty visuals) and also the marketing suggested something more (lot of mysteries in all trailers and gameplay vids with cliffhanger endings before the game was released).
It seemed like the story was very much building towards something, but the ending was much less interesting than all the other ending I thought up while playing it. I can get a sense of real life when I go outside or interact with basically anyone ever,
So I believe the argument that this was there to make the story life-like is flawed. They could still make the story life-like while also making it interesting. I was expecting something like what Oxenfree did so amazingly. Firewatch was a let down, even if someone thinks he or she can explain why it is one,
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It really depends on the game. Terraria doesn't even have an ending and it's still fantastic. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, the ending of Mass Effect 3 ruined the entire series for a lot of people. It just depends on how invested you are in the story vs. the gameplay. If the story is the big draw, the ending needs to be great. If you're there for the gameplay, the ending doesn't really matter.
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Wew lad, I predict blacklists in your future for that.
(Still their fault for not watching the movie after this much time)
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I recently played The Whispered World and I liked the ending so much, as well as the whole story.
Same goes for Bioshock Infinite.
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Though disappointing endings are... disappointing if I had to choose 80-90% of the game be brilliant and an underwhelming, even crappy ending I'd always want the majority to be good. I understand that it can leave a bitter taste in your mouth and be like wait, what just happened? That's it, it's over?
But I read a big poll about people who read books whether they'd prefer a meh book with an amazing ending or a great book with meh ending...and majority chose the amazing ending which surprised me. I actually get kind of annoyed when something I don't really like has a wonderful ending. Either I feel like I gotta play/read the next one (if there's a sequel) and often times it's the same exact thing. haha Orrr I wonder why they couldn't have made the rest as fantastic.
Ones that come to mind that I found disappointing is Dishonored (really loved the game and was disappointed how perfectly it wrapped up, even tho I know it's kinda my fault for doing the good ending), Layers of Fear, This Is the Police.
Ones I loved that have heard mixed thoughts are INSIDE, ABZÛ and The Beginner's Guide. I don't mind endings that are more open to interpretation.
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i miss the good old days when game endings were so dramatic and informative <333 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTao08upXok
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I'm referring to the shitstorm it made due to it's popularity. I've seen worse too.
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It's only an example that came into my mind, where a large group of gamers cared about the ending of a game.
I care about endings too and believe that most gamers are. I kindly apologize if my post didn't meet the expected quality of input.
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Heh, and here I am thinking Mass Effect turned into overblown dating sim that is only missing proper "skip fights" button :D
And it didn't really help when Andromeda's two of the biggest updates to the game were "you will need to do quest to learn someone is transsexual" and "we added more romance".
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I think it's pretty relevant from the angle of progression. The game had three endings that you would be able to achieve regardless of the many choices made up to that point. The game itself had some pretty solid impact and character building, but the way the endings were presented, it felt very token, and as a result, anticlimactic. Mood whiplash, deus ex machina, etc.
Sometimes an ending can be put into an entirely different light by the way events prior to it are framed. If an ending is a leap of faith, then the key turning points in the recent story are the run-up. The jump itself is the big event, but the run-up can be just as critical. Sorta like the long version of the whole "make them laugh before you make them cry" idea.
Games that offer a degree of choice and freedom have a particularly hard job unless they're good at 'course correction' to steer the player along a number of routes, because due to the limits of technology, content generation and budget/workforces, they also have to show a ton of foresight too.
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The worst one for me still is Life is Strange.
Beautiful game and all but the ending(s) ruined it for me.
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Spoilers I guess?
My problem with the endings is that ending one (aka save Chloe) is the one that would make the most sense in terms of story since you spend the whole game with her, make decisions to like, be a friend to Chloe, but there's just nothing to it. You end up driving through the town or whatever. Wow, what an ending. My problem with ending two (save the town) is that you spend all that time with Chloe and if she died (again), the whole game would haven been pointless and your decisions before the final decision completely irrelevant. Yes, it's morally the right choice to make but come on.
Yeah, the game was a journey and stuff but in the end it comes down to one of two decisions and by choosing to save the city, you do sacrifice Chloe and remove her memories of the time Max and her had together, aka making the game pointless in terms of story.
You might see it differently but personally I just couldn't come to terms with either of those endings.
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You are indeed right, I am afraid. Chloe was an irresponsible, egocentric individual, that blamed all her mistakes on others and never even bothered to raise any concerns while she basically used Max's powers for seemingly silly things.
For my there was no question, she had to die, instantly, and Max needed to let go of the things that were holding her back and realizing the deterministic nature of time, she really shouldn't have messed with in the first place.
I am not sure Max's arch is about growing up to be a more responsible person, though.
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Well part of growing up is kind of related to responsibility and how one judges their actions. Max realized that messing with time was not a good idea.
Hm...Chloe was just generally too reckless and hot headed, even with her friend dying, some of the things she did were so irresponsible that I actually wanted her to die a lot sooner, as she was clearly a negative influence. I didn't understand Max's attachment to her either, their relationship seemed to be very one sided. Perhaps letting go of her was Max's journey, sure, but I never felt like the two were connected through something other than nostalgia and a shared childhood. ...but we never saw this shared childhood, so the connection for me at least was not there.
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Yeah, I get that. Obviously you should be saving the town and all but then again, it's only a video game (and I wasn't really fond of the townsfolk anyway). Apart from that I can't really argue about this anymore because it's been so long since I played the game and my memory is pretty terrible, I guess ^^'
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There was no correct ending since either ending meant your choices didn't matter. Basically a clone of Mass Effect 3's ending. The game wasn't bad but they really should have done the ending better. Episode 5 was the worse one in general but it was because they ran out of funding. She wouldn't have lost her memories but Jefferson wouldn't have needed to be reported. Nathan was arrested either way.
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It wasn't linear in that way since you could still choose your own ending. There literally isn't a "correct" ending because the developers themselves said so. But the choices not mattering at all is why I said it was like Mass Effect 3's ending.
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But that's the thing. Your experiences and choices didn't matter at all once it came to clicking a "save X" option.
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My problem with LiS ending was that there was no sacrifice for me. I didn't really care about Chloe, I was there for the mysteries. And then the final episode stopped caring about mysteries and was all about saving Chloe.
Maybe if game from the very start wouldn't tease with all those meta-mysteries I wouldn't be so disappointed.
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Neither. While yeah, I was one of those people who liked Chloe, I didn't like "her" ending in itself because you're literally just driving away and that's it. Chloe dying was a more descriptive ending, in terms of things actually happening.
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That actually depends... if it is a story driven game then yes, I want a proper ending.
However lots of games only reward you with a congratulations phrase or your score. That doesn't make them any less enjoyable. One example I had recently was Eador, Masters of the Broken World (almost 100h played) but the same can be said about amazing games such as Crusader Kings II or Civilization, not to mention almost all the classics before the late 90s.
Some endings I really liked recently:
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I don't actually care about endings, because the progression of a story is the main thing, not the conclusion. In real lilfe we don't have endings, something alaways happens after the sequence of events. It's always epilogue after epilogue after epilogue. Best endings are those that crafted by the player, like in Fallout 2. The only exception I have about endings is: suicide, I hate this, it's ugly. Two times I've met this shit, Distraint and Dark Train. I think both games made by unhealthy people.
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I cry when I see Super Mario 64 ending. Every time.
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the most memorable game I can think of right now is Spec Ops The Line, they really nailed it story wise. I finished it 3 or 4 times and
was considering playing it again due to new setup I got, to take a few screenshots, but once you finished it on hardest difficulty
I dont think that makes any sense, even finished all the achievements,
I'm not into singleplayer anymore most because lack of time/interest and whenever I get some free time I play with buddys :v
so yeah bring me the pack, pubg, rl & csgo, maybe carx for a few tandem sessions or grid autosport and thats pretty much it.
I've been told to grab gta v, but with my connection it will take maybe 2 or 3 weeks which kills my interest on the game.
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For me Spec Ops did the fucked up part way before the end.
SPOILER
The white phosphorus attack on the civilians was one of the emotionally hardest events I have ever experienced while playing a game. That scene is so strong, that I feel like Spec Ops should be a game many people should at least try at some point, because it has the potential to change how we look at the genre as a whole.
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I enjoyed every minute I spented on this game, but I wasnt expecting it to be that good
usually fps tends to be pretty simple, reach objectives and skip cutscenes, but that didnt happen there.
The way they made it into the desert, sand on dubai as background, the guns they got into the game, the madness on playing on hard difficulty and on the dialogues not just in your head, but with the soldiers in your squad as well.
And yes I agree with you, the white phosphorus caught me totally off guard too, but I kept playing to make things right
and damn, you guys know the rest.
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IMO this is the weakest part of the game. Oh, it is powerful, but the big problem while it's a big moment for Walker, for player it's only "do I push the button, or do I turn the game off".
Wouldn't make it as bad if the game wouldn't start to break 4th wall and start talking to you, telling you are a monster for doing what game told you to. Or maybe that was some meta-comment how soldiers are monsters when they follow orders?
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Thing is, after you press the button game just spends all the time saying "Dear Player, by pressing the button instead of throwing the game away you are a monster" or "hey, did we mention only monsters use the buttons when game orders them that?" or "all this people dead, because you are a bastard who presses buttons instead of using quit".
That's why IMO this scene is the weakest point of the game - because few moments later game tries so hard to present it as a choice player could make, while there wasn't really any choice - you either play the game or waste money by not playing the game.
And then, it doesn't use other choices players can make, always returning to this one moment that was as much of a choice as CoD with the "press F for respects". .
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so not giving an option was in the spirit of that
Then why they spend the rest of the game saying "SZABE HAD OPTIONS!!! SZABE DIDN"T HAD TO KILL THEM!!!"? And again, it was not Walker, but szabe who is a massive failure.
There were few choices in the game, but devs decided that the only important moment that players should care about was achieved in a same way as opening the door - by pressing a single key.
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You are in a sense right indeed. and you are kinda tapping into the meta aspect of the game. Is it reasonable to just stop the game and not go any further, or try going further to try to justify all the killing you have done so far? Ludonarrative dissonance is the thing in question here.
I don't believe the game said anything about options, it was simply criticizing your actions. The actions you would normally do in a video game like this.
try to get to it from a different perspective... did you know that was going to happen when you did that phosporus mission?
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Even if I knew it will happen (can't say that I did), I still believe the meta-game they put after the scene makes it a weak point of a game. .
There are moments where it's Players' choice what do to and they will have to think in their head if they done right (like, there was a moment where you could either save some civilians or some spy, and here dead bodies are on your head, you decide who lives and who dies), but game focuses too much on saying "szabe and psyko are bad guys because they watched cutscenes we forced on them".
Scene itself is powerful, but only for Walker's story, for player it is just another cutscene to watch.
Or would you say it's your fault Batman parents are dead just because you read the comic book?
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You didn't kill batman's parents, but you did kill the civilians.
You couldn't make a different choice, not because you didn't wanted to, but because you didn't know you had an other choice!
If you know the ending of that scene, all the impact of it is lost, because you killed those people in the heat of the moment.
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You didn't kill batman's parents, but you did kill the civilians.
Why?
You buy comic book. You open next page, just like the book told you too (otherwise you can't read it). BAM, parents are dead.
You buy game. You press the button just like the game told you too (otherwise, you can't play it). BAM, civilians are dead.
In both of those situations you can only decide if you want to happen now, after you grab some sandwich or maybe you will throw the book/game to trash.
If game would just show the scene and be done, it would be much better.
But because they broke the 4th wall and beat you to death with it, it just made it weaker because whole game is about choices, but the only moment game really cares about offers zero choice.
The moment itself is great. But the way how game treats it later, it just makes it weak.
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But the point is that the game made it feel like you were killing enemy soldiers. You thought you were doing the 'right' action, but the cinematic revealed you ended up doing something else. This is not the same as turning a a page of a book, because when you do that, you are expecting and getting a new page. Otherwise, your argument can apply to anything ever. You can always stop doing something...by closing your eyes...
Actually I don't think this was a fourth wall breaking moment. What aspect of it was 4th wall breaking point? At the end, the mirror was a clear scene like that. This wasn't the case here.
The game was primarily judging the actions of the character, calling that a fourth wall breaking moment is like calling every judgement or feedback a fourth wall breaking moment....
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What aspect of it was 4th wall breaking point?
I'm not talking about scene itself. I'm talking about what happens next, like this screen or that.
If you want to guilt trap me, don't do this by saying "hey, remember how we made a cutscene you were forced to watch and had zero say if you want to watch it or not? you are bad for watching it".
The fact you can kill US soldiers in the ending scene is better experience because this is player's choice if he wants to be a murdered and if "killing for entertainment is harmless".
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F.3.A.R. was not made by original development team and its storyline ignores ending of F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn where Fettel regains physical bodie of one of his clones (Replicas) with slow-mo ability like Point Man (F.E.A.R. protagonist). Other story mistakes and level design are too long for writing here. Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate are much better spin-offs than F.3.A.R.
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I rarely finish games, and it rarely has to do with failures of the storyline: my time is unpredictable, so way too often life comes roaring in and puts an end to my progress. It's hard to pick these things up after too long has passed. Hard for me, anyway.
I'm not a fan of abrupt "OK, thassit thanks" endings, but sometimes they're good enough to mark the file closed.
Endings I really enjoyed: the Portal endings are wonderful, rewarding and fun. I saw two of the Planescape: Torment endings, though now I don't recall which ones or how many there are, and they rocked. The ending to The Sea Will Claim Everything was sad and lovely; the first two Thief games also wrapped nicely, though they weren't full dramas or anything. Syberia 2 came to a sweet finish (the first one was just a kind of "now play the second one!" thing).
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For my money, two of the worst endings would have to be Pineview Drive - I REALLY enjoyed that game until the ending, I thought it was really well put together, even though the actual "story" of the game was kinda meh - and Red Dead Redemption. I DESPISED playing as Jack! As sad as John's death was, it was the perfect ending for him IMO, I just wish I could erase the rest of the ending from my memory because I gave zero fucks about Jack.
At the other end of the scale, I LOVED the ending to The Last Of Us (I loved the whole game actually), I thought Jazzpunk had a suitably bizarre ending, I THINK I liked Always Sometimes Monsters and Little Inferno was really good too...
Oh, and it's been a LONG time since I played it but I loved all the different endings for BGII, especially some of the ending stories for your party companions. I've not seen any other games do that sort of thing, which is a shame...
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So I was playing Halo 2 when it came out. Was fun, but you could tell they really had no idea where to take the story. All right, I can deal with that, it's a common problem in many IPs that don't expect a sequel, or get rushed into churning one out.
So here I am, playing Halo 2, and I get to the end, and for whatever reasons that monkey dude keeps kicking my ass, like wiping the walls with me. It's 2 AM on a work night and I'm not going to quit until I beat this hairy POS. So I die and die and die and you know in Halo how the game keeps going on in the background after you die? Well I die and the action keeps going and what happens? THE GODDAMN NPCs KILL THIS HAIRY SOB WHILE I'M LAYING THERE DEAD. You wanna talk about a bad game ending? That's the worst one I've ever experienced and I swear to you I was so pissed off that I've never played a Halo game since. You can't even intentionally write an ending that shitty, that's just some of the worst luck ever.
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oh man, Secrets of Raetikin just pissed me off. Not the first 'shit, did i just do that?!' ending, but the one after that. It took an ending that was disconcerting and uncomfortable (in a good way) and turned it into something dumb and immature and rushed. I've read books with a similar it was all only a dream ending that was more fullfilling, but the ending of SoR just felt like a giant middle finger from the devs for playing their game.
k, deep breath.
on the good side, i was impressed with Bastion. Good game to begin with, but there's a decision at the end, and you have to finish the last level with the consequences of that action. In my case, i went with the good guy saves the 'enemy' character, but that meant going through the last level without a free hand for any weapons or defense.
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An hedgehog? Really!? °O°
I was sure your avatar was a duck -_-
You know, with the ear being the duck's eye and the hedgehog's eye being the duck's nose (or whatever is that hole on their beak)
..well, guess that's what I get for not checking picture's properly =P
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