Game endings - not what the used to be

[MrHat001]

Is anyone finding that many of the newer games seem to be having very short endings (either as a end level or the final video)?

I've recently completed both Far Cry & Splinter Cell 2 and both games seemed to have very short endings that didn't really fit in with the plot that they've used during the game.

I don't want to spoil the endings but both seemed very short and no real explanations of the games events were given.
I'd expect this from simple FPS games where there's little or no plot but when it's a game that has made an effort to have a real storyline it seems a shame to quickly finish everything off in a couple of minutes.

Is anyone else finding this with the newer generation of games?

[GAmbrose]

Games have never had good endings as far as I can remember, in the age of the Mega Drive and SNES you were lucky to get 1 page worth of storyline wrapping it up (usually it was "Well Done - The End")

Far Cry didn't even have much of a storyline anyway, so I wasn't surprised at the crappy ending to that.

But I really can't remember more than 5-10 games since I have been playing games (1987) with satisfying end sequences.

Gary A

[LordoftheDance]

My favourite game ending ever was Final Fantasy 7 - it was truly inspired.

I agree about the recent trend of poor game endings, though.

[Sluggy]

Originally posted by GAmbrose
Games have never had good endings as far as I can remember, in the age of the Mega Drive and SNES you were lucky to get 1 page worth of storyline wrapping it up (usually it was "Well Done - The End")

True enough. I remember reading a quote from a publisher which went along the lines of "would you rather have 3 weeks spent on an ending which only small percentage of the players will see or 3 weeks polishing the gameplay?"

[TheoGB]

I think time is the factor. I often find that a book will have a less-satisfying ending than a film, but thinking about it, this tends to be that a film will only take me 90-200 mins in one concentrated block, whereas a book might take me a week of dipping in and out. This means you have more time to build up the event, so the ending can't really match up.

With games I think it's even harder: You've actually been the person interacting with the thing for so long, yet the ending is usually the bit where you have (by the nature of a story) least control, and then the cut scene, etc. is just a section outside the game.

While some endings have been satisfying, I couldn't tell you why I found the ending of Half-Life or Indy and the Fate of Atlantis so satisfying, but the ending of System Shock 2, or Ultima Underworld a bit 'flat', despite finding all four games equally good.:confused:

[Sluggy]

I liked the way Deus Ex offered you three endings.

[cjanderson]

can;t think which games i have got to the end. Usually either graphic adventures (Fate of atlantis, Nancy Drew, Longest journey) or survial horror ones like resident evil.

Endings all seemed good and fitting.

Agree with the comments on why spend ages getting a good ending for people who probably won;t see it. the fact that you have ended the game should be enough, the story should be over at that point, extra video to see plot points resolved is supuflous really

[Bolch]

My main problem is it's very rare nowadays that I come across a game that I actually want to finish :(

[MrHat001]

I'm supprised that so many people feel that people won't make it to the end of a game to see the ending.

I can only think of a couple of games where I haven't played to the end, and that's usually because the game itself has been bad.

Also I'm not expecting a huge 30minute video at the end but something that wraps things up nicely. These shouldn't take that long to make either, especially when numerous games just use their own engine to make cut-scenes.

I just feel a bit cheated when I've played a game for over a week for it just finish with 'The End'. Especially when troughout the game a complicated plot or character development has been used.

[Zath]

Recently finished Beyond Good and Evil (pretty good from what i remember with a nice little twist to it) and KOTOR (seemed very fitting with the style of the movie ending from the first film - at least the way that i finished as a jedi, looking forward to seeing a different ending the next time i play).

I prefer to get some kind of ending in the form of FMV sequence or something, just as a final reward and tie it all up together, altho that does depend on the type of game it is.

[neverland]

Originally posted by Zath
KOTOR (seemed very fitting with the style of the movie ending from the first film

Personally, I thought the KOTOR ending was slightly disappointing only because it had dialogue all over it. Whereas all the films have a couple of minutes of images with music and no dialogue at the end.

Yes, I know, :dork:

It just seemed a shame that throughout the game they created the Star Wars atmosphere far better than Lucas seems to have managed of late, but then at the end, made such a schoolboy error.

:dork: :dork:

[James45]

Originally posted by Zath
Recently finished Beyond Good and Evil (pretty good from what i remember with a nice little twist to it)

That game was so cinematic it was practically an interactive movie!! The end (the very end) screams for a sequel.

[Zath]

Originally posted by James45
That game was so cinematic it was practically an interactive movie!! The end (the very end) screams for a sequel.

Yeah that's what i thought, some great little set pieces in it all the way through.

I read somewhere here on the forums that a sequel has already been ruled out tho :(

[Paul Lynock]

I don't care for game endings either (unless of course it's an RPG or something like MGS for instance). I much prefer getting extra stuff unlocked when you finish a game. The only reason I slogged through RTCW on the Xbox was to get Wolfenstein 3D :lol:

I'm playing through PD Orta at the moment and I've just found out you can unlock the originaql Panzer Dragoon game :norty:

[gZa]

Best game ending by far is in Tekken 2 when you finish it with Armor King. This one almost had me in tears! :eek: :nuts:

[Sluggy]

I thought the ending of Prince of Persia Sands of Time was good. Far Cry was very poor.

Haven't finished BG&E yet I really should go back to it.

[Channard]

Originally posted by neverland
Personally, I thought the KOTOR ending was slightly disappointing only because it had dialogue all over it. Whereas all the films have a couple of minutes of images with music and no dialogue at the end.


The good ending maybe... the bad ending was short but more satisfying than the good ending - seeing the cocky Jedi crushed and the Star Forge churning out more and more ships, ready to conquer the galaxy for you.

[Samuel Downey]

Hmmm, people are obviously not thinking about the endings of Shenmue which truely utterly EVERY time scream SEQUAL SEQUAL SEQUAL and pretty much make you want to buy it when it comes out. Here's hoping for a Shenmue 3!

[nsb]

FF8 has the best and most satisfying ending to any game I've ever played.

[Francis]

Originally posted by Garry Cowell
Best game ending by far is in Tekken 2 when you finish it with Armor King. This one almost had me in tears! :eek: :nuts:
Tekken endings were class for a beat em up :thumbs:
(Can't remember Armour King's ending now though, something to do with teaching kids in Brazil, or was that King :thinking: )

[007]

I don't think there's any excuse for not having a good ending. It shouldn't delay the finishing of the actual game(play) because it's just a movie, whether CGI, in-game or something else, unless the person doing it also happens to be the programmer!

Also it's the icing on the cake, a reward if you like for completing it and I feel let down if it's crap, especially if the game itself has been good.

And yeah Prince of Persia's ending was great! :thumbs:

[brainwaster]

The best endings i`ve seen are the Monkey Island games, and FF7 was good too. I remember the C64 days when endings consisted of

"Well Done, Now do it again without losing any lives"

[[HB]RugRat]

Anyone else complete Shadow of the Beast on the Amiga?

Worst. Ending. Ever.

Considering the technical marvel that was the game itself, I was somewhat surprised to be greeted by a badly drawn static screen with a message along the lines of "errrr. Well done then" :razz:

[jmdomain]

Best endings were the Monkey Island games were they just went on and on and ended up telling you to stop wasting your time watching game endings and do something constructive!

The ending to the Simon The Sorceror game was good as well. Now that was a a classic game! Liked that one better than the Monkey Island ones. It had much better tunes. The 2nd one was a disappointment. Haven't played the 3rd one yet.

Star Trek:A Final Unity was okay too. And The Dig too.:thumbs:

Oooooh! Graphic Adventures! I'll look at the screen for half an hour trying to find a pixel. :D

[evilsly]

Warcraft 3 had a superb ending/credits sequence.

as did Simpsons Hit and Run

[GAmbrose]

I agree about Prince of Persia: SOT aswell.

Was really happy with that one.

Gary A

[Jimbo]

Wonder Boy 3 - Dragons Trap (master System)

Best. Ending. Ever.

*working from a very jaded memory*

He basically makes his way back through the entire castle with all sorts of crazy fireworks going off and happy happy plink plonk music

It'll probably look crap now but I remember being truly chuffed when I was about 16

Can't believe I just pout a spoiler for a master system game :lol: :dork:

[Dave 3:16]

Originally posted by LordoftheDance
My favourite game ending ever was Final Fantasy 7 - it was truly inspired.

I agree about the recent trend of poor game endings, though.

You're not wrong there, it made my mate cry :lol:

dammit...going to have to but it from gamestation on my way home now...what a game \o/

[ryonhilluk]

I like the Zelda:OoT ending best, it took me that long to get to it!

The Monkey Island ones are very funny as well.

[llololloy]

Originally posted by Jimbo
Wonder Boy 3 - Dragons Trap (master System)

Best. Ending. Ever.

He basically makes his way back through the entire castle with all sorts of crazy fireworks going off and happy happy plink plonk music

Can't believe I just pout a spoiler for a master system game :lol: :dork:

Was just thinking the same thing. :D It's like 15 years old or something.

[Reef]

The ending for ICO made me so happy I almost cried (with joy)

[Mr Nice]

Originally posted by Channard
The good ending maybe... the bad ending was short but more satisfying than the good ending - seeing the cocky Jedi crushed and the Star Forge churning out more and more ships, ready to conquer the galaxy for you. Heh, well it's inherent in the game structure that the dark side ending wouldn't reflect well on the Jedi for trusting you ;). Hidden in the audio files though is an unused darkside female ending. (Spoiler for the existing darkside female ending with romance).You know how Carth pops up at the end in a last ditch attempt to turn you back? Well theres audio for you choosing to be redeemed (presumably at the bit where you choose whether you or Bastilla finish him off), and you and Carth die together as you let the Star Forge be destroyed, could have got in one last sabre duel too against Bastilla too (the audio remnents of this ending don't tie up what happens to Bastilla IIRC).

[Unclegrump]

Originally posted by 007
I don't think there's any excuse for not having a good ending. It shouldn't delay the finishing of the actual game(play) because it's just a movie, whether CGI, in-game or something else, unless the person doing it also happens to be the programmer!


it may not add any time onto the project (although remember that artists have pretty full schedules as well!), but it does add quite a bit to the cost. Not that I am saying that we shouldn't do a decent ending for a game, but we do have to weigh up the costs of having a artist produce a couple of minutes of high end CG against how many people will actually see it!

[Purpledump]

Judging from all the post about recent good Game endings, I feel they haven't changed much since "what they used to be".

ICO: Totally agree with the above post. Maybe "interactive" endings are the way to go?

More recent ones:

Onimusha 2 had quite a moving scene after the credits. No One Lives Forever 2 made good use of the game engine for the cut scenes and ending.

Zelda: Link's Awakening had an amazing ending for a GameBoy game (good music, good use of graphics - very cinematic)

[MrHat001]

Originally posted by Unclegrump
it may not add any time onto the project (although remember that artists have pretty full schedules as well!), but it does add quite a bit to the cost. Not that I am saying that we shouldn't do a decent ending for a game, but we do have to weigh up the costs of having a artist produce a couple of minutes of high end CG against how many people will actually see it!
But given the tendancies for games to use their own engine to make cut-scenes this shouldn't really be a problem.

Also I'd love to know what percentage of players game developers expect to see the ending. :confused:

I mean fair enough for a game with hundreds of hours of game play (FinalFantasy, Zelda) but for games that can be completed in a few days or a week (FarCry, Max Payne2) surely most people manage to make it to the end of the game.

If this isn't the case then do developers not worry so much about the last few levels of a game?

[Neo_X]

One of best endings by far was in Grim Fandango - made me cry :cry:

[Savagexii]

Another vote for the final fantasy series, VII in particular. It's nice to spend days or even weeks on a game and get a good story out of it upto and including the end. I think games like Far Cry etc would benefit only a small amount from better stories/endings, but even so far cry's was astonishingly bad, they may aswell have flashed up some text before the credits telling what happened, it would have been just as interesting.

[Unclegrump]

Originally posted by MrHat001
But given the tendancies for games to use their own engine to make cut-scenes this shouldn't really be a problem.

Also I'd love to know what percentage of players game developers expect to see the ending. :confused:

I mean fair enough for a game with hundreds of hours of game play (FinalFantasy, Zelda) but for games that can be completed in a few days or a week (FarCry, Max Payne2) surely most people manage to make it to the end of the game.

If this isn't the case then do developers not worry so much about the last few levels of a game?

I see where you are coming from, but all the data that we get seems to point to the fact that not that many people complete a game to finality. Also not that many people actually watch the cutscenes but just skip through them!

At the end of the day though, the decision is normally taken by the publishers as to where they want to spend their $'s - more $ on a nice intro or demo mode to get people to purchase after seeing it demo-ing in Game, or those same $ on a nice finale to the game, wrapping everything up and providing a reward. I'll give you a guess which decision they normally take!! :(

But I agree that we should have something - using the game engine makes complete sense (and means we dont need to setup massive render farms for games), but there is still a fair amount of work to be done in completing a good quality cut scene using the game engine (unless you have a nice proprietary editor which helps out).

[nsb]

Square Enix always give good endings lately. :notworthy

[Idle Child]

Having just finished MGS2: Substance, and a couple of weeks earlier completing MGS Twin Snakes, i found their endings quite good. I was hooked on their stories, which goes to prove that effort on game devs parts is rewarded by the gamer. I could watch those games cutscenes like movies. OK, they're a little pretentious - sometimes overlong, but I appriciate the philosophical nature of them and it gives me the impression that the game designers are actually trying to convey abstract concepts through the game medium.

[DarthVader]

Originally posted by MrHat001
Is anyone finding that many of the newer games seem to be having very short endings (either as a end level or the final video)?

I've recently completed both Far Cry & Splinter Cell 2 and both games seemed to have very short endings that didn't really fit in with the plot that they've used during the game.

I don't want to spoil the endings but both seemed very short and no real explanations of the games events were given.
I'd expect this from simple FPS games where there's little or no plot but when it's a game that has made an effort to have a real storyline it seems a shame to quickly finish everything off in a couple of minutes.

Is anyone else finding this with the newer generation of games?

Mabye you should have a go at Painkiller. It's storyline seems alright. :thumbs:

[Savagexii]

Originally posted by Idle Child
Having just finished MGS2: Substance, and a couple of weeks earlier completing MGS Twin Snakes, i found their endings quite good. I was hooked on their stories, which goes to prove that effort on game devs parts is rewarded by the gamer. I could watch those games cutscenes like movies. OK, they're a little pretentious - sometimes overlong, but I appriciate the philosophical nature of them and it gives me the impression that the game designers are actually trying to convey abstract concepts through the game medium.

I too enjoyed MGS1 + 2's storylines/endings, some of my mates say they can't stand all the "boring" talking bits, but when i come across them i sit back and enjoy it as i would a movie, and the quality of these cutscenes have a big influence on my desire to play through the next metal gear isntallment.

[mysterytramp]

The plot of MGS was good, but MGS2 didn't make a lick of sense:

primordial ooze, absorbing the consciousness of great leaders, under the Whitehouse?!?! What? Also, what were they thinking when they created Fatman. An incredibly fat bomb expert who goes about on rollerblades while drinking a glass of red wine through a straw?!

[Goblin]

Evil Dead Fistfull of Boomstick has one of the best endings ever, if you can be bothered to reach it! :D

[Paul Lynock]

Originally posted by mysterytramp
The plot of MGS was good, but MGS2 didn't make a lick of sense:

primordial ooze, absorbing the consciousness of great leaders, under the Whitehouse?!?! What? Also, what were they thinking when they created Fatman. An incredibly fat bomb expert who goes about on rollerblades while drinking a glass of red wine through a straw?!

:lol: I haven't played MGS2, but I don't think I'll bother with it after reading this. The first part sounds like a rip off of Ghostbusters II! :nuts:

[Joe Pasquale]

Well, I must say I can't remember too many 'good endings'

The last game I played where it looked like some effort had gone in was 'Warcraft III'. All sorts of weird stuff using the game engine, not just some ropey video knocked together in a day.

[nsb]

A concert :clap:

[Idle Child]

Savagexii, yeah i watch it all too. And not just Metal Gear cutscenes, but for other games aswell. I always take the time out to watch the cutscenes because i like watching stories unfold. I can't undersatnd why people skip them. For me cutscenes combine 2 of my greatest loves - movies and gaming. :thumbs: therefore HAVE to be watched in their entirity.

Originally posted by mysterytramp
The plot of MGS was good, but MGS2 didn't make a lick of sense:

primordial ooze, absorbing the consciousness of great leaders, under the Whitehouse?!?! What? Also, what were they thinking when they created Fatman. An incredibly fat bomb expert who goes about on rollerblades while drinking a glass of red wine through a straw?!

Eh? Must have missed the first sentence in there while playing! To be honest, i won't even pretend i understood it all, or can remember each intricate plot twist (have to play it again a few more times for it all to sink in), but what i did catch was the philosopical stuff towards the end - and there's always a strong pulse to it, almost like it's consciously appealing to every nerdy gamer on the planet. :) For instance in MGS2:

Colonel comes in with "Raiden, haven't you played the game long enough?!" Spooky, as i thought he had a point!

[Savagexii]

Originally posted by Idle Child
Savagexii, yeah i watch it all too. And not just Metal Gear cutscenes, but for other games aswell. I always take the time out to watch the cutscenes because i like watching stories unfold. I can't undersatnd why people skip them. For me cutscenes combine 2 of my greatest loves - movies and gaming. :thumbs: therefore HAVE to be watched in their entirity.

Likewise :) The game could be absolutely rubbish yet i would still have to sit through any cutscenes thrown my way.

[RESSEH]

and FF7 was good too.

What happened at the end of FF7? Never got to the end :(

[mr_woo]

I loved the ending of FF8 (and also enjoy the game more than FF7) and found it very satisfying after finishing the game, I think it's ending lasted something like 10 - 15mins :lol:

[lettuce]

I remember always enjoying the end on Double Dragon 2 on the NES when completing it on Supreme Warrior setting, Batman on the NES also had a good ending for the day!