Because All Bad Endings Deserve Their Own Thread: Rage

I've been playing Rage because that's what gamefly sent me. It's fun and all, but it's not a game with a lot of ideas. All the satisfaction comes from two things.

A: It's fun to kill things with the weapons in this game
B: The enemies are relatively fun to kill

Lame mission structure and lack of variety aside I had fun blasting things in this game. One can never oversell the ID Shotgun. Anyway most of the missions are super straight forward and sh1t. So at the end you're finally ready to TAKE it to the bad guys(typical fps stuff). Okey dokey, suddenly there is a new twist to an older enemy. Okay I can dig it, the bad guys got some new fodder for me to mess with. Oh man I bet they got some crazy ones later. HA!, sike.

The ending of the game gameplay wise has me in this like elevator room or whatever, I hit a button to start some computer crap, I gotta run around now and shoot some dudes while keeping myself alive long enough. This actually dragged longer than expected, but whatever. So far it's been a fun enough mission, and I'm sure they at least took like the big ass krackens and turned them into something nasty. Or those big douches with the cannon thing.

*ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED FOR BEATING THE GAME*

...wait...that's it?

cue cutscene, and that's it. That's the finale ID came up with for their game.

Some of you are going to say that doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as Mass Effect 3's ending. That's true, but at least Mass Effect 3 attempted to have an ending or a general idea of escalation. This was just abrupt. This was like a basic routine gameplay scenario being turned into some finale part like I'm suppose to feel some level of intensity, and it's just not there. I mean Bungie's come up with better endings than this.

End Rant.

It's hard to think of games that actually have good endings. More often than not, a game will try one of three things, all of which equate to a sh*tty ending:

A stupid boss battle or setpiece (Bioshock/Uncharted 2/Gears of War 3)
No ending (Halo 2 and from the sounds of it, Rage)
Something that people don't expect, but ends up being totally f*cking retarded/rushed/nonsensical (Mass Effect 3)

None of these games are even necessarily bad, it just seems that game developers don't know how/when to end something. I think a lot of it stems from A) Wanting to leave things open for sequels and B) The notion that the finale has to be big and/or difficult, which ends up just being frustrating or unsatisfying. Obviously there are exceptions, but as a general rule I would say video games have bad endings

It's hard to think of games that actually have good endings. More often than not, a game will try one of three things, all of which equate to a sh*tty ending:

A stupid boss battle or setpiece (Bioshock/Uncharted 2/Gears of War 3)
No ending (Halo 2 and from the sounds of it, Rage)
Something that people don't expect, but ends up being totally f*cking retarded/rushed/nonsensical (Mass Effect 3)

None of these games are even necessarily bad, it just seems that game developers don't know how/when to end something. I think a lot of it stems from A) Wanting to leave things open for sequels and B) The notion that the finale has to be big and/or difficult, which ends up just being frustrating or unsatisfying. Obviously there are exceptions, but as a general rule I would say video games have bad endings

skinny_man_69

Well said. Sequelization makes ending difficult, and not just in video games, but in movies and books as well.

[QUOTE="skinny_man_69"]

It's hard to think of games that actually have good endings. More often than not, a game will try one of three things, all of which equate to a sh*tty ending:

A stupid boss battle or setpiece (Bioshock/Uncharted 2/Gears of War 3)
No ending (Halo 2 and from the sounds of it, Rage)
Something that people don't expect, but ends up being totally f*cking retarded/rushed/nonsensical (Mass Effect 3)

None of these games are even necessarily bad, it just seems that game developers don't know how/when to end something. I think a lot of it stems from A) Wanting to leave things open for sequels and B) The notion that the finale has to be big and/or difficult, which ends up just being frustrating or unsatisfying. Obviously there are exceptions, but as a general rule I would say video games have bad endings

jimkabrhel

Well said. Sequelization makes ending difficult, and not just in video games, but in movies and books as well.

There's also Trilogy Syndrome, where a game will have a conclusion, then the next game will have a cliffhanger because they don't order sequels anymore, they order trilogies.

Shadow of the collosus, Flower, and Journey all have great endings.

(I played them all today)

You can also add Metal Gear Solid 3, which ended with a half hour long cutscene.SpinoRaptor24

Speaking of MGS...the epilogue of MGS4. :|Foolz3h

You can also add Metal Gear Solid 3, which ended with a half hour long cutscene.SpinoRaptor24

This the ending to a game that you thought was about giant robots.

Metal Gear Solid 3s endings actually had a lot of good points. Killing The Boss was a legitimately strong moment in the game, and the eve betrayel and what Boss really was were great. MGS 3 for all of Kojima's typical bad writing, regurgitated dialogue, and the buckets of crazy you tolerate with a MGS game. Is like the one time Kojima went out to tell a story within a videogame, and actually did a pretty good job all things considered.

2's ending is pure idiocy, and 4s ending would have been at least tolerable, until Big Boss shows up and spews his mountain of bullsh1t.

But while we're on the Metal Gear games the final gameplay segments in the Metal Gear games are great. The Fight with Solidus and The Boss are fantastic, and not really like anything else in the rest of the game. They feel like big moments in the game in terms of how they are presented, they play well, they stick out as something different, and from a pure gameplay perspective the send the game out on a high note(the Ocelot thing doesn't count in 3). In MGS 4 you have a pretty good microwave scene, and a rather clever boss fight in Ocelot that again sticks out as something fun and different from the rest of the stuff on the game. Admittedly it's almost entirely fun as fan service, but it gets the job done. MGS1s chase sequence probably doesn't hold up, but that games from 98.

My beef with Rage has nothing do with its story. Because besides the usual "lol videogame stories" the narrative sucks in this game. I never once cared for anything that happens in the game. It's so underdeveloped in so many ways. What sucks ass is that the final piece of gameplay in this game is so incredibly routine at that point in the game, and it's against an enemy type that is by far the game's weakest.What's worse is that the game doesn't have that many gameplay ideas as it is.

Say what you want about MGS, but it usually has a mixture of gameplay scenarios throughout the games.

At least Arkham City and Infamous 2 were like "Man fvck trilogies we end our game here!"

InFamous 2s evil ending was mad stupid. jg4xchamp

Only the part where [spoiler] The beast chickens out. [/spoiler]

This the ending to a game that you thought was about giant robots.

Ninja-Hippo

Wrong. He is actually explaining about passing the torch to the next generation, and how to find meaning in it.

Proof you guys don't watch cutscenes.

At least Arkham City and Infamous 2 were like "Man fvck trilogies we end our game here!"

CJL13

AC has atleast 3 missions that allude to a sequel :P

InFamous 2s evil ending was mad stupid. jg4xchamp

Infamous 2's good and evil choices in general were stupid.

At least Arkham City and Infamous 2 were like "Man fvck trilogies we end our game here!"

CJL13

I don't think anything made me rage more than Fallout 3's initial ending. It drastically altered my overall opinion on the game.

I'm trying to think of a game this gen that carried a legitimately strong ending. The only one I can really think of is RDR.

Castlevania Lords of Shadow had a dope ending.

It's exactly what I dislike about Halo Reach(campaign wise). It fet like Bungie was circle jerking themselves for something they did way back when(in halo 1) instead of coming up with a new scenario. jg4xchamp

Reach's ending was legitimately good, though. 

[QUOTE="jg4xchamp"]It's exactly what I dislike about Halo Reach(campaign wise). It fet like Bungie was circle jerking themselves for something they did way back when(in halo 1) instead of coming up with a new scenario. DarkLink77

Reach's ending was legitimately good, though.

[QUOTE="DarkLink77"]

[QUOTE="jg4xchamp"]It's exactly what I dislike about Halo Reach(campaign wise). It fet like Bungie was circle jerking themselves for something they did way back when(in halo 1) instead of coming up with a new scenario. jg4xchamp

Reach's ending was legitimately good, though.

Too true. Reach was basically Halo's greatest hits, but it didn't have a bad mission, and I enjoyed Pillar of Autumn and the "storm the beach, get in Longsword, get on cruiser, kill sh!t" mission, among others.

I just wish we'd had a Scarab fight. :( 

[QUOTE="jg4xchamp"]It's exactly what I dislike about Halo Reach(campaign wise). It fet like Bungie was circle jerking themselves for something they did way back when(in halo 1) instead of coming up with a new scenario. DarkLink77

Reach's ending was legitimately good, though.

EDIT: story-wise i mean, the final gameplay sequence was great.

[QUOTE="DarkLink77"]

[QUOTE="jg4xchamp"]It's exactly what I dislike about Halo Reach(campaign wise). It fet like Bungie was circle jerking themselves for something they did way back when(in halo 1) instead of coming up with a new scenario. Ninja-Hippo

Reach's ending was legitimately good, though.

EDIT: story-wise i mean, the final gameplay sequence was great.

[QUOTE="Ninja-Hippo"]

[QUOTE="DarkLink77"]

Reach's ending was legitimately good, though.

DarkLink77

EDIT: story-wise i mean, the final gameplay sequence was great.

The book was basically excellent at conveying the unstoppable covenant onslaught and it felt way more like a massive battle for the planet. Then it adds in the hope that the chief can save the planet now that he has this new fangled shield system and cortana, but he still fails, and the planet is doomed. In the game the covenant just turn up out of nowhere, you do a fairly effective job of kicking their ass but apparently you're losing the battle, everyone dies more or less randomly and then at the end cortana is apparently some sort of super weapon.

And on the pettier side, the game also messes with the time line and adds things that shouldn't be there; spartan IIIs, George should not exist, they shouldn't have shields, cortana was already with the chief at this point etc.