GamerNode: Columns - Bringing it Home, Part Two

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Some titles have really unfulfilling ending sequences, interactive or otherwise. The boss itself is another thing entirely, as it's not usually the conclusion to the narrative, but I'll be delving into that next week regardless (I'm fun like that). For example, Gears of War 2 had a fantastic ending, but a horrendously bad boss fight. Sometimes, the means is justified by the end, and however backward it seems, it makes sense: you can have a really poor title, but if the ending wraps everything up nicely, it all seems worth it, though sadly if the game's that bad most people won't bother making it to the end.

 

The Final Fantasy series has always had some of the best, most conclusive endings, from the fate of the world versus a large, angry comet in FFVII, to the wonderfully romantic princess and the pauper ending of FFIX. Their long, complex stories with hundreds of different characters, across a variety of locales, universes and timelines require some pretty conclusive endings, but for the most part you could summarise it as "good guys win". So I'm going to use an example where the good guys really, really don't win.

Too Human, as a video game, is fairly bad. The loot system is unnecessarily complex, and the story, for the most part, is basically a retold version of Norse mythology. However, the ending is comprised of heroes dying, the bad guy getting away, and finding an even more powerful weapon just before the credits hit. It's trying to set up a sequel, and with its poor reviews I'd be surprised if there is one. But it's that feeling of unease, after playing a thousand and one games where the bad guys lose, every time, to suddenly wondering if the bad guys have just been completely stomped.

I think there are a few games that could do with these controversial approaches to game endings. Personally, I'd have taken the Mass Effect 2 trailer that states Shepherd as KIA, and put it at the end of the first game. Imagine the tension. You've just finished a game that can take anywhere from eight to over a hundred hours to complete, and you've been told that as of two months later, your hero might be dead, and Geth might have taken over the Normandy. That's a cliff-hanger, and I felt that the actual "bad guys lose, there's some evil dudes but it's all good, they can wait" ending Bioware went with felt a little too stereotypical.

Games are fickle things to get a great deal of satisfaction out of. With the incursion of achievements, we're less interested in the ending, and more interested in the 100G pop-up that'll come after the credits roll. But as games progress more and more into the realm of art, and narratives become increasingly diverse and complex, it'll be interesting to see whether the current trend of good and evil choices results in more varied results once the final dragon is dead.

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