Poll Question 039 - How important is the end of a game?

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half Life 1, 2 and 3

About

I have different viewing habits to most people. I record whole complete seasons’ of shows and watch them all at once. In some cases, the Sopranos, the whole series. This year I have finished about 5 shows, from beginning to end. The ending were very important to me because I based almost my whole memory of the show on the last episode.
So, this week’s poll questions is:

How important is the end of a game?

Allow me to explain

I watched the whole of Star Trek: Enterprise earlier this year and quite enjoyed it. As much as any of the other modern Star Trek shows. However, the last ever episode really disappointed me and now I can’t get that feeling out of my head. Don’t even start me on the last ever Sopranos episode.

The point is that sometimes the ending can ruin the show for you. Is it the same with games?

In my opinion the ending of Half-Life was quite bad and the ending in Half-Life 2, a little disappointing. However, the action ending in Episode 1 was good and, for me anyway, overshadowed the rest of the mediocre game.

I plan to explore this idea a little more in next week’s poll but for today it is just about endings.

What was you favourite and worst ending, and why?

About this entry

Published:: 14th July 2007 at 4:53 pm

Category:: Poll Questions

Responses:: 8 Comments (add)

Luke L 14th July 2007 at 17:23 1

I loved the ending to Escape from Butcher Bay, it felt like you’d finally worked your way out and could escape. And then there’s games like Halo 2 that could off almost mid-sentence and left me wondering if the creators just got bored and cut it there. So yeah, overall the ending is one of, if not the, most important aspect of a story.
planetphillip 14th July 2007 at 17:33 2

planetphillip Said:

if not the, most important aspect of a story.

I never said the story I said the game. In episode 1, there is no real story ending, just a pause but the game ending was good.

I suppose it really depends on the game itself.
Jimbo 14th July 2007 at 18:00 3

Favorite Ending? Probably Fallout 1. It bugged me for 2 weeks afterwards, and since a game had never done that before, I thought it deserves high honors. My most recent game/mod though would be Poke646:Vendetta . Though a little stereotypical to some, I thought it was really well timed and placed.

Worst Ending? Nocturne. As much as I loved that game, you go back into your secret base in the end and find everyone shred to pieces. Then you find big bloody letters smeared on the wall that say “I FOUND YOU, STRANGER!” and it ends. Sequel? Nope! Instead they made those stupid Blair Witch games which were prequels. Then the company went out of business.

Worst NES ending? Ghostbusters. Look up “Angry Video Game Nerd” and find that first video. Just watch the last 4th of it if you want to get to the point.

I thought ST: Enterprises ending was a bit disappointing too. I didn’t watch it too much, but I did see the final episode and was kind of left in the dark. I think they found they couldn’t top TOS or TNG, so they just gave up quick.
Jumbles 14th July 2007 at 18:03 4

The ending is perhaps the most important part of all.

I could be playing an excellent game but if I got to the end and it just said “Game Over” I’d think ‘Oh!’, be really disappointed and probably uninstall the game and see how much I could get for it as a trade in.

If there’s no payoff, is there any point in playing the game?
MMAN 14th July 2007 at 18:49 5

I wasn’t sure whether to go for important or very important but went for the latter. As I’m getting sick of games that have endings that wrap up absolutely nothing under the pretext of being “mysterious” (no, it’s not, it’s just not telling you stuff), and, alternatively, endings where the gameplay (and story in some cases) completely drops off and the climax just feels thrown together.

An awful ending definitely doesn’t ruin a game for me (under the assumption the rest of the game is very good), it can leave a bad taste that doesn’t need to be there though.
firba1 15th July 2007 at 01:32 6

I think that the ending may or may not be the most important part of the game. For some it can be very important, but for others, not at all. I think that the ending of Half-Life, personally, was somewhat disappointing, but really cool. Also, I think that people didn’t like Halo 2’s ending because you didn’t play as the Master Chief at the end. But, I think that we will always remember that ending, especially the last line, “Finish the Fight.”

However, I think that some games I have played, it’s not quite as important. For example, the HL2 mod Causality Effect didn’t have a real ending. It all depended on what you did near the end. So the whole mod was memorable for it’s great gameplay, but not necessarily it’s ending.

I would say though, in general, the ending seems important, but you can’t really sum up the experience of a game in it’s ending.
architect 15th July 2007 at 05:00 7

If there’s no payoff, is there any point in playing the game?

Jumbles

i say the experience of the story is the point in playing anygame, still the ending is fairly important. a feeling of satisfaction after the experience.
zeroth404 16th July 2007 at 16:53 8

There must be a grand finale.

Imagine watching the fireworks on the American Independence Day, and not having a grand finale what a bummer that would be!

Earlier games weren’t capable of much in terms of ending sequences, like Doom or Quake, but these days I expect nothing less than an engrossing ending like those in Fear, Deus-Ex 1, and Half-Life 1.