Game Endings That Suck

By Staff

Which game endings have irked us over the years?

Why do so many games have such terrible endings? Staff members unite to take on the endings that they love to hate.

Reuben Ellett: Crackdown (Xbox 360)

The ending to Crackdown was incredibly cliché and slack. You spent all that time blowing up gangsters and civilians alike in order to conceive a future of greater good. And it turns out that you were just a tool, a weapon used by a corrupt government branch to construct a no-nonsense regiment. Wow. So it turns out I'm the bad guy this whole time? Way to set up anticipation for a sequel. The only thing Crackdown did not have was a storyline, which is probably a good thing, seeing as Crackdown was a game made for fun and was not built to tie you into a story. But how then can you justify having an ending with a twist? Where are you twisting from? It is just plain silly to add an ending to a story that had no beginning. The Agency gave you your job, your gun, and your car, then kicked you out of the door into the big wide world. There was no intro (except gang introductions), and therefore it should have had no ending.

Sam Prescott: Super Smash Bros (N64)

There are a handful of reasons why it doesn’t really matter that the ending to Super Smash Bros on the N64 is so spectacularly unspectacular. Foremost, everyone knows the real beauty of the game lies in the multiplayer action, drunken button bashing and sledging of friends on a cold winter’s eve. In addition, the final boss (which is my real gripe) does tie in to the fairly paltry story exhibited in the opening movie. And, of course, Super Smash Bros is an excellent game all-round…

…But that boss. A hand? A giant hand? A hand without texture or substance, a big, white, five fingered bore. Surely, in a game packed with all our favourite Nintendo brands (yes, Nintendo characters are more than characters, they’re trademarks) there could have been something, anything, better than “Master Hand”.

May I bring your attention now to exhibit A: Metal Mario. This feisty and fastidious little chap comes at you third to last, right before the entertaining, if a little annoying, Fighting Polygon Team. He is, let it be known, hard-f’n-core. He stomps. He clomps. He often commits suicide off the edge of the arena, but he does it with such style! Why not a giant version of Metal Mario? Why not, for that matter, Metal-all-the-other-characters? There would be so much more satisfaction in something like this than beating up on what you can only imagine is Michael Jackson’s right hand.

Emily Buxton: Fahrenheit (PC, Xbox)

Featuring one of the most cinematic and haunting opening sequences I’ve ever seen, there really was no way to go but down for Fahrenheit. Rumours of an incredibly rushed schedule surrounded the game upon its release, as review after review expressed disappointment over the confusing mess the game disintegrated into.

The story started out exactly as a decent game should – with you murdering a guy in the bathroom of a diner and having absolutely no memory of committing the deed. Pursued by the authorities, the first two-thirds of the game stands up as a solid thriller. Uncovering the mystery and keeping the anxiety level of each character down is more than enough to contend with. Sadly the 'mystery' you end up unravelling is so far-fetched and fantastical it clashes with the sombre crime/drama style present in the beginning of the story.

The result is a game that feels like two mismatched puzzle pieces. They can be forced together but ultimately you end up with a ruined masterpiece.

Dene Benham: Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

Resistance: Fall of man was there at the start. It arrived with the PlayStation 3. Motorstorm was a bit tricky, Virtua Fighter was half the game with just one controller, and Oblivion was nowhere to be seen. But Resistance was supposed to be a shooter, a straight shooter, and that’s what we got. We got cities in ruin and period weapons. Aliens and alien hardware. A stubble-chinned hero with a strange light in his eyes, and the world as we know it at stake. It looked good, it played fast and smooth, and the end was… to be honest, I can’t really remember the end. Something about blowing up the central core and taking the fight to the aliens?

Because, it wasn’t really the end now was it? End movies aren’t really endings anymore; they’re just another cut scene. Cut scenes linking the story mode to the multi-player and on-line experience. The story mode isn’t there to be an enthralling, rewarding, complete experience. The story mode’s there to level you up, to tool you up, and to prepare you for everything else the game has to offer.

Resistance: Fall of Man is all about the beginning, not only the beginning of Resistance, but the beginning of the PlayStation 3. No way is there going to be anything in it that says ‘this is the end, now stop playing’. Come on people, the last thing a gamer used to see in a game was a loud, flashing ‘GAME OVER’. These days the loud, flashing message is ‘KEEP PLAYING’.

Daniel Needham: Halo 2 (Xbox)

One of the so-called greatest games of the modern era has the dubious distinction of a very fishy ending. Now, granted, no one likes to be kept on edge for so long, but the final sequences of Halo 2 have been pretty much bashed from pillar to post over forums world-wide, with many die-hard fans crying foul.

But this one's so obvious, especially for someone like me who isn't really a fan of the Halo series to begin with. After the fantastic Warthog escape finale of the first game, it's a crime that for the sequel we have to make do with a monkey with a hammer and one of the most teasing and anti-climatic cut-scenes ever made, where we are treated to Cortana and Gravemind conversing, and get to hear that line from Master Chief: "Sir, finishing this fight."

Well, come September 25 you'll be able to finish the fight, but until then Halo 2, unless you're playing the Halo 3 beta, is what you have to be content with.

Angus Deacon: Knights of the Old Republic II (PC, Xbox)

Normally a write-up such as this would need “spoiler alerts” plastered everywhere. But the truth is in Knights of the Old Republic II, I honestly have no idea what actually happened at the end of the game. I even went back and played it again from the Dark Side for the sake of this article and I still don’t really feel a sense of accomplishment. What makes this game worthy of this section is the fact that the game is so well done, with clever storylines and good gameplay, that the anti-climax really hits you in the nether-regions with a light-saber.

I have heard people try and justify it by comparing it to an actual Star Wars movie, the Empire Strikes Back. They say that it sets you up for the next sequel. But these people are doped up on Yoda-juice. At least the Empire Strikes Back had huge emotional pull at the end of that movie and made you wish for more. At the end of KOTOR II I just sat there staring at the credits thinking, "uhhh… what just happened? Has my Xbox crashed?" It’s still a great game…but maybe you should stop playing before the last chapter and go kick a ball around outside - it will make more sense.

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