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Video Games - Why don't they end properly anymore?
I don't care that you want to make a third game, Ragnar. Fuck you for that ending.
I couldn't agree more. Fun series with a great story, but that ending was seriously crap.
Also, as others have said, Mass Effect not only set up a sequel, the ending was amazing. Very satisfying.
Dreamfall took forever to say nothing.
I'll agree with Dharma Bum's statement. The ending wasn't bad, just unexpected and a little depressing. Plus given the size of the company, there may not be a resolution.
I'm sure we also don't need to rehash the ending troubles with KoTOR 2. That ending is more aggravating since you'd think that being a (generally) well-received Star Wars product that they couldn't wait to release another one and rake in more cash.
Seriously, this is one of my biggest pet peeves, harkening back to the the first soul reaver. I understand about wanting to start a franchise and what not, but it really bothers me when I heard developers commenting how their game is going to be a trilogy or series, because A) you know that there's a chance it won't have a proper ending, and B)There is always the chance that the game won't pan out and you never get a satisfying conclusion. Advent Rising I'm looking at you.
Wait, what? I'm not sure what you're getting at with this, but Soul Reaver was never intended to have a sequel. The developers ran out of time and had to make due with that they had. Would you prefer they hadn't?
BioShock's bad ending pissed me off, because it sort of comes out of nowhere.
It would have been more acceptable had there been some build-up to it-- giving you the option to really become a controlling force in Rapture, rather than just one guy with a lot of guns and plasmids.
To say nothing of the fact that you'll still get that ending even if you reform your ways after the big reveal in Ryan's Office and Olympia Heights.
Don't say stuff like "Why isn't ___ good anymore?" because it makes you sound like a whiny old back-in-my-day-things-were-different coot. I can name dozens of games from back in the day that had bad endings or no end beyond a 'Thanks for playing!'.
CoD4's ending was win.
Uncharted's ending was good.
Heavenly Sword had a good ending.
there's a good number of games with good endings and a good number of games with bad endings. Usually when you hear "trilogy!!" when they announce games, you can expect shitty endings up until the last entry. It's like it gives them an excuse to not work on a good ending for episodes 1 and 2 of whatever series.
games have had both good and bad endings since they started involving stories of any kind. Back in the day, SNES RPG's had amazing stories and endings, but we (well, some of us) were kids back then and loved that stuff.
Chrono Trigger though? that game, story and ending are aces even today.
Altair accomplished what he set out to accomplish, the Templars learned the locations of the artifacts, you get some information on the next game and that's about it. What, did you expect the game to double in length as it moved away from the main characters story?
I always saw it that Desmond's part in the story was simply to provide context for Altair's anyway.
Altair's story finished perfectly: he completed all nine bosses, collected all his gear back, and killed the ultimate enemy, saving the region from tyrrany. Furthermore, you find that the item-in-question was very important because it gave the locations for all kinds of other artifacts, showing ultimately why the Templar needed Desmond. It is assumed that Altair and/or Malik take control of Masyaf and try to rebuild the region's governmental structure.
Anyone notice how some things (mattresses and the copy machines in Highrise) are totally impenetrable? A steel wall, yeah that makes sense, but bullets should obliterate copy machines.
I don't know about you, but I always buy a bullet proof printer. Its a lot more expensive, but I think the advantages are apparent.
CoD4's ending was win.
Uncharted's ending was good.
Heavenly Sword had a good ending.
there's a good number of games with good endings and a good number of games with bad endings. Usually when you hear "trilogy!!" when they announce games, you can expect shitty endings up until the last entry. It's like it gives them an excuse to not work on a good ending for episodes 1 and 2 of whatever series.
games have had both good and bad endings since they started involving stories of any kind. Back in the day, SNES RPG's had amazing stories and endings, but we (well, some of us) were kids back then and loved that stuff.
Chrono Trigger though? that game, story and ending are aces even today.
You avatar reminds me that killer7 had a really rad ending (well, endings), given that they really ran with the Lynch-esque mindfuck plan right to the end.
The best part is when a game has an open ending but never gets a sequel made.
Damn you Ubi-soft, I want my sequel to XIII!
Hot damn, I didn't think anybody other than my younger brother actually played that game.
Which could be the problem I suppose.
I played it, and up untill now though I was the only one. Yeah, that game needed a sequel, even if I can't remember the twist at the end. Game I most regret trading in, that and freedom fighters. Which also needs a sequel.
Well Crysis didn't really end at all. It just kind of... rolled the credits MIDWAY O.o
So true. But at least the vast majority of it was awesome. (Im one of those few sick freaks who liked the alien missions. Except for that VTOL flying bit. Screw that thing.)
Ico had an excellent ending. It takes place after the credits, makes no accomodations for a sequel, is playable and sublimely fitting. I couldn't ask for anything more.
Cliff hanger endings don't usually irritate me. I think it might be because usually because I'd heard previously that they were coming.
On the OTHER hand though, I've pretty much resolved not to play games with epic plots but which either don't or will not get a resolution to the cliff-hanger ending. I gave up on Soul Reaver 2, pretty much the moment I found out that it would end in yet another cliff hanger, at which point I thought I couldn't be bothered to push through mediocre combat just to have to be irritated at the end by not reaching a satisfying conclusion, irrespective of how good the story was. I think it was just the case that I knew the series would span on forever, and they would never really willingly bestow it with a resolution.
Similarly, I was a bit ticked when I got to the end of Undying and found that there wouldn't be a sequel. Freespace 2 as well. But I can't say I was dissatisfied with the games themselves, or even necessarily how they had ended. Just the fact that there wouldn't be a sequel to ultimately tie things up.
Halo 2? Fine, I knew that they were going to conclude it in the 3rd part. Half-Life 2? Got the Episodes that are built as a trilogy, and they want to close the story arc before moving on to Half-Life 3 (4?). I guess as long as I've got an impression that things will be tied up at SOME point, I can deal with it quite happily
As for Gears of War, I though that was OK, since it never really had much of a story to begin with. I think the fact that I played the PC version where they didn't just jump straight to the train may have helped (instead they had missions in-between where control was keeping the squad updated on what was happening with the train), but I doubt it (really it's not much of a narrative jump, but I can see how it would be a bit unexplained to suddenly have to jump onto a train without any real explanation).
Bad endings aren't exactly a new thing, as people have pointed out. It's only with the advent of a vast amount of games with a heavy focus on stories and more advanced storytelling techniques that bad endings become more aggravating.
Game development is still a largely unpredictable and demanding business, so there tends to be more of a focus on content than conclusion, and, as we have seen, this means that a story heavy game (such as Bioshock, for example) tends to have a better presentation near the beginning and middle rather than at the end. It's a worrying trend that needs to be dealt with if gaming is to move beyond mediocre storytelling. Of course, there are lots of story-heavy games that do have proper endings and a good sense of pacing, such as the majority of Valve's catalogue - but they pretty much have free reign over their own development process. I'm sure most developers don't actually want their games to end in a manner similar to Clive Barker's Jericho.
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Well Crysis didn't really end at all. It just kind of... rolled the credits MIDWAY O.o
So true. But at least the vast majority of it was awesome. (Im one of those few sick freaks who liked the alien missions. Except for that VTOL flying bit. Screw that thing.)
I'm one of those fewer sick freaks who liked the VTOL mission. But not the ending boss fight. That was kinda lame. Then again, most FPS boss fights are utterly lame.
As for the ending itself, yeah, pretty much "we'll discuss this in the SEQUEL, OLOL!". But like I said previously, I don't mind since the gameplay was up to par and I know they're going to at least try and carry on the story in the next game.
Even then, I still prefer it when the first part of an alleged trilogy still finished up well on its own, and leaves the "open ended" stuff for the sequel.
Can someone explain to me how the plot of XIII was so similar to The Bourne Identity.
Am I missing some huge thing here like they are both based off the same source material. I mean the plots were not just similar, but apart from names they were exactly the same.
With its plot inspired by Robert Ludlum's book Bourne Identity, XIII was initially serialised in 1984 in Spirou, and was later published by Dargaud. In 2004 the storyline of the first five volumes was adapted into a video game, also titled XIII, that was released on several platforms. A XIII film starring Val Kilmer and Stephen Dorff is currently in production with a planned release in 2008.
Contents
Basically, the Bourne movies were based on the book "Bourne Identity." The game XIII was based on a comic book of the same name, which happened to be inspired by the book "Bourne Identity."
Well Crysis didn't really end at all. It just kind of... rolled the credits MIDWAY O.o
So true. But at least the vast majority of it was awesome. (Im one of those few sick freaks who liked the alien missions. Except for that VTOL flying bit. Screw that thing.)
I'm one of those fewer sick freaks who liked the VTOL mission. But not the ending boss fight. That was kinda lame. Then again, most FPS boss fights are utterly lame.
As for the ending itself, yeah, pretty much "we'll discuss this in the SEQUEL, OLOL!". But like I said previously, I don't mind since the gameplay was up to par and I know they're going to at least try and carry on the story in the next game.
Even then, I still prefer it when the first part of an alleged trilogy still finished up well on its own, and leaves the "open ended" stuff for the sequel.
The biggest problem with how Crysis ended is that they've just written themselves into a corner for Crysis 2. There's nothing left for you to fight except for aliens, and fighting aliens was by far the weakest part of the game. "Hey you're trying to be stealthy here let me TELEPORT ENEMIES INTO YOU whoops they saw you!" It's all they can do, though, because there aren't any Koreans left to kill.
The biggest problem with how Crysis ended is that they've just written themselves into a corner for Crysis 2. There's nothing left for you to fight except for aliens, and fighting aliens was by far the weakest part of the game. "Hey you're trying to be stealthy here let me TELEPORT ENEMIES INTO YOU whoops they saw you!" It's all they can do, though, because there aren't any Koreans left to kill.
Unless if you get to kill some space-Koreans.
I dunno, I can't see it as being too difficult for them to write in the NK army for the sequel. Maybe they capture some important artifacts that you need on another island or two. Or heck, maybe it'll be some other human foe, maybe China will get involved, or maybe you'll end up going against orders and have to fight the guys who used to be your allies.
It wouldn't be too difficult for them to write in new stuff. Although admittedly the way the game left off, I'm not sure whether they'd be able to start the game off any other way than fighting the aliens again, since at the time you were headed back to the sphere.
Here's hoping they stick with the current engine for a while anyway, and don't try too hard to upgrade it.
Well Crysis didn't really end at all. It just kind of... rolled the credits MIDWAY O.o
So true. But at least the vast majority of it was awesome. (Im one of those few sick freaks who liked the alien missions. Except for that VTOL flying bit. Screw that thing.)
I'm one of those fewer sick freaks who liked the VTOL mission. But not the ending boss fight. That was kinda lame. Then again, most FPS boss fights are utterly lame.
As for the ending itself, yeah, pretty much "we'll discuss this in the SEQUEL, OLOL!". But like I said previously, I don't mind since the gameplay was up to par and I know they're going to at least try and carry on the story in the next game.
Even then, I still prefer it when the first part of an alleged trilogy still finished up well on its own, and leaves the "open ended" stuff for the sequel.
The biggest problem with how Crysis ended is that they've just written themselves into a corner for Crysis 2. There's nothing left for you to fight except for aliens, and fighting aliens was by far the weakest part of the game. "Hey you're trying to be stealthy here let me TELEPORT ENEMIES INTO YOU whoops they saw you!" It's all they can do, though, because there aren't any Koreans left to kill.
Unless if you get to kill some space-Koreans.
Bah, they'll change it up. I want a chance to kill non-yellow people. Maybe some black people, as I think COD4 has played out the whole "Shooting brown people" thing and Far Cry already covered white people.
Well Crysis didn't really end at all. It just kind of... rolled the credits MIDWAY O.o
So true. But at least the vast majority of it was awesome. (Im one of those few sick freaks who liked the alien missions. Except for that VTOL flying bit. Screw that thing.)
I'm one of those fewer sick freaks who liked the VTOL mission. But not the ending boss fight. That was kinda lame. Then again, most FPS boss fights are utterly lame.
As for the ending itself, yeah, pretty much "we'll discuss this in the SEQUEL, OLOL!". But like I said previously, I don't mind since the gameplay was up to par and I know they're going to at least try and carry on the story in the next game.
Even then, I still prefer it when the first part of an alleged trilogy still finished up well on its own, and leaves the "open ended" stuff for the sequel.
The biggest problem with how Crysis ended is that they've just written themselves into a corner for Crysis 2. There's nothing left for you to fight except for aliens, and fighting aliens was by far the weakest part of the game. "Hey you're trying to be stealthy here let me TELEPORT ENEMIES INTO YOU whoops they saw you!" It's all they can do, though, because there aren't any Koreans left to kill.
Unless if you get to kill some space-Koreans.
Bah, they'll change it up. I want a chance to kill non-yellow people. Maybe some black people, as I think COD4 has played out the whole "Shooting brown people" thing and Far Cry already covered white people.
Plus with Mass effect letting you sex blue people the only people left untouched are space koreans.
The_Scarab on
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
Well Crysis didn't really end at all. It just kind of... rolled the credits MIDWAY O.o
So true. But at least the vast majority of it was awesome. (Im one of those few sick freaks who liked the alien missions. Except for that VTOL flying bit. Screw that thing.)
I'm one of those fewer sick freaks who liked the VTOL mission. But not the ending boss fight. That was kinda lame. Then again, most FPS boss fights are utterly lame.
As for the ending itself, yeah, pretty much "we'll discuss this in the SEQUEL, OLOL!". But like I said previously, I don't mind since the gameplay was up to par and I know they're going to at least try and carry on the story in the next game.
Even then, I still prefer it when the first part of an alleged trilogy still finished up well on its own, and leaves the "open ended" stuff for the sequel.
The biggest problem with how Crysis ended is that they've just written themselves into a corner for Crysis 2. There's nothing left for you to fight except for aliens, and fighting aliens was by far the weakest part of the game. "Hey you're trying to be stealthy here let me TELEPORT ENEMIES INTO YOU whoops they saw you!" It's all they can do, though, because there aren't any Koreans left to kill.
Unless if you get to kill some space-Koreans.
Bah, they'll change it up. I want a chance to kill non-yellow people. Maybe some black people, as I think COD4 has played out the whole "Shooting brown people" thing and Far Cry already covered white people.
I disagree. Rapture is an extremely important character, no doubt, but Jack is definitely the main one.
Beyond the fact that he's the guy you play as, he has a pretty direct relationship with pretty much every other character, and is either the driving force behind or the final product of most of the plot elements. He's the ultimate creation of Plasmid experimentation. In some ways both Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine are his father, and Tenenbaum is his mother. He's a Splicer, a Big Daddy, a Little Sister, and just a normal guy all rolled into one character. He's the ultimate creation of Rapture, and is the only reason that the power struggle over it ever goes beyond a stalemate. We don't need to see how Rapture ends because we know full well: Tenenbaum, the last sane person left, either escapes or dies, leaving the crazy Splicers to murder each other over ADAM until eventually nothing's left but an empty city, which itself will ultimately collapse without maintenance.
The problem with the ending isn't that it focuses on Jack, but rather that it focuses on the aspect of Jack that it did. The ending is dependent on whether Jack is "good" or "evil," which doesn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the game. Jack's been thrown into an unfamiliar world surrounded by people trying to kill him, so following the instructions of the only friendly voice around and killing the little sisters is hardly an act of evil, but rather one of desperation. As Atlas tells you at the beginning of the game, the concept of right and wrong flew out the window the second you stepped into the bathysphere.
Instead, the ending should have focused on whether Jack was a man or a slave. That's a theme that's present throughout the entirety of the game, but at the end is completely forgotten about. As you walk through the halls of Rapture, the intercom occasionally asks you the question, are you a man or a slave? The scene with Andrew Ryan brings the theme into the spotlight as he forces you to kill him. Every one of the bosses is a slave: Steinmen and Cohen to their respective "arts," Peach to his fear of Fontaine, Ryan to his ideology even when he can clearly see it failing, and Fontaine to his con, which he refused to drop until he hit the payoff that was constantly getting further away. Even after you've eliminated the effects of the mind-controlling plasmids in your body, Fontaine mocks you with the fact that you're still mindlessly obeying someone, rather than choosing for yourself what you want to do. Even the gameplay mechanics bring the theme of being a man vs. being a slave to the forefront: quest arrows and mission prompts are constantly telling you what do and where to go, and the form of an FPS heavily implied for you to combat enemies primarily through guns and the wrench. The people that mindlessly soldiered through Rapture, allowing the quest arrow to lead them around with a leash and gunning through every fight, the "slaves" if you will, complained that the game was short, too easy, and boring. On the other hand, the "men," the people that shut the quest arrow off, wandered around collecting tonics, audio logs, and just enjoying the atmosphere, and fought using whatever unique combination of hacking, shooting, wrenching, and plasmids that they fancied, thought that the game was the best thing ever. To point to a specific example, the way the game is constructed encourages you to fill Cohen full of lead the second that you see him, but, if instead you decide that you would rather wait and see what happens, you're rewarded by gaining access to his apartment later on in the game.
So, the game is constantly challenging both Jack and the player with the same question: are you a man, or are you a slave? Do you choose, or do you obey? The reason that the ending is so heavily flawed is that it absolutely fails to address this question, instead addressing the question "are you a good person or a bad person?," which thematically is entirely irrelevant to BioShock. I understand why they did it; killing or saving the Little Sisters is the only moral choice that the game leaves up to the player, so it's the only real indicator of whether Jack is good or evil. Since no other part of the game goes into your character's morality however, it doesn't feel fulfilling when the game uses that as the premise for the ending, because ultimately we, the audience and Jack, never get to know if we're a man or if we're a slave.
Well Crysis didn't really end at all. It just kind of... rolled the credits MIDWAY O.o
So true. But at least the vast majority of it was awesome. (Im one of those few sick freaks who liked the alien missions. Except for that VTOL flying bit. Screw that thing.)
I'm one of those fewer sick freaks who liked the VTOL mission. But not the ending boss fight. That was kinda lame. Then again, most FPS boss fights are utterly lame.
As for the ending itself, yeah, pretty much "we'll discuss this in the SEQUEL, OLOL!". But like I said previously, I don't mind since the gameplay was up to par and I know they're going to at least try and carry on the story in the next game.
Even then, I still prefer it when the first part of an alleged trilogy still finished up well on its own, and leaves the "open ended" stuff for the sequel.
The biggest problem with how Crysis ended is that they've just written themselves into a corner for Crysis 2. There's nothing left for you to fight except for aliens, and fighting aliens was by far the weakest part of the game. "Hey you're trying to be stealthy here let me TELEPORT ENEMIES INTO YOU whoops they saw you!" It's all they can do, though, because there aren't any Koreans left to kill.
Unless if you get to kill some space-Koreans.
Bah, they'll change it up. I want a chance to kill non-yellow people. Maybe some black people, as I think COD4 has played out the whole "Shooting brown people" thing and Far Cry already covered white people.
Far Cry 2 is in Africa though, as is RE5
Hmm, good call.
shryke on
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited February 2008
You know what? Just make an FPS about killing women. All the characters are women and you're a woman and everyone is just fucking shooting at each other and wearing high heels for no good reason.
I've always thought that "planned trilogies" are the indication of a very, very cocky developer. They're so sure their game is going to be hot shit so they plan to make an "epic" story out of three games. I have no problem with putting a hook into the end of a game, like the Dark Samus hand at the end of Metroid Prime. That's a stand alone game that clearly only became the first in a trilogy after the fact. But delivering an incomplete ending after the first game is just bullshit arrogance. I don't like when games completely fail, but it's kind of sweet justice when games like Advent Rising bomb. When Too Human tanks too, I hope Dennis Dyack kicks himself for thinking too big.
Yeah, I too think of it as kind of cocky when developers leave very cliffhanger endings on their games in expectation of some kind of 'epic' trilogy or franchise.
We get stuck with great games and no way to end up seeing what happens.
I mean, I'm all for trilogies and stuff when the games appear to deserve it. But only when the publisher has essentially committed to it. But that's pretty rare outside of first parties. It's also rare outside of games that publishers have hyped to holy hell and back.
I disagree. Rapture is an extremely important character, no doubt, but Jack is definitely the main one.
Beyond the fact that he's the guy you play as, he has a pretty direct relationship with pretty much every other character, and is either the driving force behind or the final product of most of the plot elements. He's the ultimate creation of Plasmid experimentation. In some ways both Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine are his father, and Tenenbaum is his mother. He's a Splicer, a Big Daddy, a Little Sister, and just a normal guy all rolled into one character. He's the ultimate creation of Rapture, and is the only reason that the power struggle over it ever goes beyond a stalemate. We don't need to see how Rapture ends because we know full well: Tenenbaum, the last sane person left, either escapes or dies, leaving the crazy Splicers to murder each other over ADAM until eventually nothing's left but an empty city, which itself will ultimately collapse without maintenance.
The problem with the ending isn't that it focuses on Jack, but rather that it focuses on the aspect of Jack that it did. The ending is dependent on whether Jack is "good" or "evil," which doesn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the game. Jack's been thrown into an unfamiliar world surrounded by people trying to kill him, so following the instructions of the only friendly voice around and killing the little sisters is hardly an act of evil, but rather one of desperation. As Atlas tells you at the beginning of the game, the concept of right and wrong flew out the window the second you stepped into the bathysphere.
Instead, the ending should have focused on whether Jack was a man or a slave. That's a theme that's present throughout the entirety of the game, but at the end is completely forgotten about. As you walk through the halls of Rapture, the intercom occasionally asks you the question, are you a man or a slave? The scene with Andrew Ryan brings the theme into the spotlight as he forces you to kill him. Every one of the bosses is a slave: Steinmen and Cohen to their respective "arts," Peach to his fear of Fontaine, Ryan to his ideology even when he can clearly see it failing, and Fontaine to his con, which he refused to drop until he hit the payoff that was constantly getting further away. Even after you've eliminated the effects of the mind-controlling plasmids in your body, Fontaine mocks you with the fact that you're still mindlessly obeying someone, rather than choosing for yourself what you want to do. Even the gameplay mechanics bring the theme of being a man vs. being a slave to the forefront: quest arrows and mission prompts are constantly telling you what do and where to go, and the form of an FPS heavily implied for you to combat enemies primarily through guns and the wrench. The people that mindlessly soldiered through Rapture, allowing the quest arrow to lead them around with a leash and gunning through every fight, the "slaves" if you will, complained that the game was short, too easy, and boring. On the other hand, the "men," the people that shut the quest arrow off, wandered around collecting tonics, audio logs, and just enjoying the atmosphere, and fought using whatever unique combination of hacking, shooting, wrenching, and plasmids that they fancied, thought that the game was the best thing ever. To point to a specific example, the way the game is constructed encourages you to fill Cohen full of lead the second that you see him, but, if instead you decide that you would rather wait and see what happens, you're rewarded by gaining access to his apartment later on in the game.
So, the game is constantly challenging both Jack and the player with the same question: are you a man, or are you a slave? Do you choose, or do you obey? The reason that the ending is so heavily flawed is that it absolutely fails to address this question, instead addressing the question "are you a good person or a bad person?," which thematically is entirely irrelevant to BioShock. I understand why they did it; killing or saving the Little Sisters is the only moral choice that the game leaves up to the player, so it's the only real indicator of whether Jack is good or evil. Since no other part of the game goes into your character's morality however, it doesn't feel fulfilling when the game uses that as the premise for the ending, because ultimately we, the audience and Jack, never get to know if we're a man or if we're a slave.
...Wow, that ended up being REALLY wordy.
That sort of harkens back to Yahtzee's complaint about the game. The moral compass basically points either to Jesus or Hitler, while there's a room enough for a much wider gradient of positions.
What I would have killed to have seen is:
If you harvested the Little Sisters before you get to Olympia Heights, but Rescue them after you see what they are really like, you get a different ending. In it, you seek redemption with the Little Sisters by seeking to protect them, voluntarily turning yourself into a Big Daddy. It's a much more ambiguous conclusion to a more layered moral choice, where the fate of Rapture is left open ended, and Jack's cruelty is contrasted with his last ditch effort for forgiveness, even at the expense of his own freedom and humanity.
It boggles my mind why they didn't have that for an option.
I disagree. Rapture is an extremely important character, no doubt, but Jack is definitely the main one.
Beyond the fact that he's the guy you play as, he has a pretty direct relationship with pretty much every other character, and is either the driving force behind or the final product of most of the plot elements. He's the ultimate creation of Plasmid experimentation. In some ways both Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine are his father, and Tenenbaum is his mother. He's a Splicer, a Big Daddy, a Little Sister, and just a normal guy all rolled into one character. He's the ultimate creation of Rapture, and is the only reason that the power struggle over it ever goes beyond a stalemate. We don't need to see how Rapture ends because we know full well: Tenenbaum, the last sane person left, either escapes or dies, leaving the crazy Splicers to murder each other over ADAM until eventually nothing's left but an empty city, which itself will ultimately collapse without maintenance.
The problem with the ending isn't that it focuses on Jack, but rather that it focuses on the aspect of Jack that it did. The ending is dependent on whether Jack is "good" or "evil," which doesn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the game. Jack's been thrown into an unfamiliar world surrounded by people trying to kill him, so following the instructions of the only friendly voice around and killing the little sisters is hardly an act of evil, but rather one of desperation. As Atlas tells you at the beginning of the game, the concept of right and wrong flew out the window the second you stepped into the bathysphere.
Instead, the ending should have focused on whether Jack was a man or a slave. That's a theme that's present throughout the entirety of the game, but at the end is completely forgotten about. As you walk through the halls of Rapture, the intercom occasionally asks you the question, are you a man or a slave? The scene with Andrew Ryan brings the theme into the spotlight as he forces you to kill him. Every one of the bosses is a slave: Steinmen and Cohen to their respective "arts," Peach to his fear of Fontaine, Ryan to his ideology even when he can clearly see it failing, and Fontaine to his con, which he refused to drop until he hit the payoff that was constantly getting further away. Even after you've eliminated the effects of the mind-controlling plasmids in your body, Fontaine mocks you with the fact that you're still mindlessly obeying someone, rather than choosing for yourself what you want to do. Even the gameplay mechanics bring the theme of being a man vs. being a slave to the forefront: quest arrows and mission prompts are constantly telling you what do and where to go, and the form of an FPS heavily implied for you to combat enemies primarily through guns and the wrench. The people that mindlessly soldiered through Rapture, allowing the quest arrow to lead them around with a leash and gunning through every fight, the "slaves" if you will, complained that the game was short, too easy, and boring. On the other hand, the "men," the people that shut the quest arrow off, wandered around collecting tonics, audio logs, and just enjoying the atmosphere, and fought using whatever unique combination of hacking, shooting, wrenching, and plasmids that they fancied, thought that the game was the best thing ever. To point to a specific example, the way the game is constructed encourages you to fill Cohen full of lead the second that you see him, but, if instead you decide that you would rather wait and see what happens, you're rewarded by gaining access to his apartment later on in the game.
So, the game is constantly challenging both Jack and the player with the same question: are you a man, or are you a slave? Do you choose, or do you obey? The reason that the ending is so heavily flawed is that it absolutely fails to address this question, instead addressing the question "are you a good person or a bad person?," which thematically is entirely irrelevant to BioShock. I understand why they did it; killing or saving the Little Sisters is the only moral choice that the game leaves up to the player, so it's the only real indicator of whether Jack is good or evil. Since no other part of the game goes into your character's morality however, it doesn't feel fulfilling when the game uses that as the premise for the ending, because ultimately we, the audience and Jack, never get to know if we're a man or if we're a slave.
...Wow, that ended up being REALLY wordy.
That sort of harkens back to Yahtzee's complaint about the game. The moral compass basically points either to Jesus or Hitler, while there's a room enough for a much wider gradient of positions.
What I would have killed to have seen is:
If you harvested the Little Sisters before you get to Olympia Heights, but Rescue them after you see what they are really like, you get a different ending. In it, you seek redemption with the Little Sisters by seeking to protect them, voluntarily turning yourself into a Big Daddy. It's a much more ambiguous conclusion to a more layered moral choice, where the fate of Rapture is left open ended, and Jack's cruelty is contrasted with his last ditch effort for forgiveness, even at the expense of his own freedom and humanity.
It boggles my mind why they didn't have that for an option.
I agree 100%.
Nothing would encapsule the concept that you're a man, not a slave, better than if you actively tried to redeem yourself after you found out the truth about Atlas.
You know what? Just make an FPS about killing women. All the characters are women and you're a woman and everyone is just fucking shooting at each other and wearing high heels for no good reason.
I will buy this.
Women are severely underrepresented in the genre of excessive violence. Women's equal rights to give and receive headshots should be respected. Especially when wearing high heels.
Aydr on
0
KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
You know what? Just make an FPS about killing women. All the characters are women and you're a woman and everyone is just fucking shooting at each other and wearing high heels for no good reason.
I will buy this.
Women are severely underrepresented in the genre of excessive violence. Women's equal rights to give and receive headshots should be respected. Especially when wearing high heels.
It could be set in a world where all the men killed each other from playing too many violent videogames.
You know what? Just make an FPS about killing women. All the characters are women and you're a woman and everyone is just fucking shooting at each other and wearing high heels for no good reason.
I will buy this.
Women are severely underrepresented in the genre of excessive violence. Women's equal rights to give and receive headshots should be respected. Especially when wearing high heels.
It could be set in a world where all the men killed each other from playing too many violent videogames.
And then the women got started when a woman walked up to the last men on earth were playing before killing each other and went "Hey, this looks like fun?"
Aydr on
0
KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
You know what? Just make an FPS about killing women. All the characters are women and you're a woman and everyone is just fucking shooting at each other and wearing high heels for no good reason.
I will buy this.
Women are severely underrepresented in the genre of excessive violence. Women's equal rights to give and receive headshots should be respected. Especially when wearing high heels.
It could be set in a world where all the men killed each other from playing too many violent videogames.
And then the women got started when a woman walked up to the last men on earth were playing before killing each other and went "Hey, this looks like fun?"
That is MUCH better than my idea of fighting over the last frozen vials of sperm.
Kagera on
My neck, my back, my FUPA and my crack.
0
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
You know what? Just make an FPS about killing women. All the characters are women and you're a woman and everyone is just fucking shooting at each other and wearing high heels for no good reason.
I will buy this.
Women are severely underrepresented in the genre of excessive violence. Women's equal rights to give and receive headshots should be respected. Especially when wearing high heels.
Yeah, I too think of it as kind of cocky when developers leave very cliffhanger endings on their games in expectation of some kind of 'epic' trilogy or franchise.
We get stuck with great games and no way to end up seeing what happens.
I mean, I'm all for trilogies and stuff when the games appear to deserve it. But only when the publisher has essentially committed to it. But that's pretty rare outside of first parties. It's also rare outside of games that publishers have hyped to holy hell and back.
It's funny because if you look at Star Wars as a successful trilogy, you realise Lucas actually did a pretty smart thing since the entire movie is self-contained. If he'd never made any sequels to it, the first one still stands as a complete story.
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I'm sure we also don't need to rehash the ending troubles with KoTOR 2. That ending is more aggravating since you'd think that being a (generally) well-received Star Wars product that they couldn't wait to release another one and rake in more cash.
Do not engage the Watermelons.
Wait, what? I'm not sure what you're getting at with this, but Soul Reaver was never intended to have a sequel. The developers ran out of time and had to make due with that they had. Would you prefer they hadn't?
To say nothing of the fact that you'll still get that ending even if you reform your ways after the big reveal in Ryan's Office and Olympia Heights.
Nothing wrong with the good ending, though.
Damn you Ubi-soft, I want my sequel to XIII!
The ending would have been fantastic and also satisfying if there WAS actually a sequel.
Also, God Of War II. I don't even consider that an ending. The game doesn't have an ending, it just stops at one point because it's unfinished.
Which could be the problem I suppose.
Uncharted's ending was good.
Heavenly Sword had a good ending.
there's a good number of games with good endings and a good number of games with bad endings. Usually when you hear "trilogy!!" when they announce games, you can expect shitty endings up until the last entry. It's like it gives them an excuse to not work on a good ending for episodes 1 and 2 of whatever series.
games have had both good and bad endings since they started involving stories of any kind. Back in the day, SNES RPG's had amazing stories and endings, but we (well, some of us) were kids back then and loved that stuff.
Chrono Trigger though? that game, story and ending are aces even today.
I always saw it that Desmond's part in the story was simply to provide context for Altair's anyway.
XBL: LiquidSnake2061
I played it, and up untill now though I was the only one. Yeah, that game needed a sequel, even if I can't remember the twist at the end. Game I most regret trading in, that and freedom fighters. Which also needs a sequel.
So true. But at least the vast majority of it was awesome. (Im one of those few sick freaks who liked the alien missions. Except for that VTOL flying bit. Screw that thing.)
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
On the OTHER hand though, I've pretty much resolved not to play games with epic plots but which either don't or will not get a resolution to the cliff-hanger ending. I gave up on Soul Reaver 2, pretty much the moment I found out that it would end in yet another cliff hanger, at which point I thought I couldn't be bothered to push through mediocre combat just to have to be irritated at the end by not reaching a satisfying conclusion, irrespective of how good the story was. I think it was just the case that I knew the series would span on forever, and they would never really willingly bestow it with a resolution.
Similarly, I was a bit ticked when I got to the end of Undying and found that there wouldn't be a sequel. Freespace 2 as well. But I can't say I was dissatisfied with the games themselves, or even necessarily how they had ended. Just the fact that there wouldn't be a sequel to ultimately tie things up.
Halo 2? Fine, I knew that they were going to conclude it in the 3rd part. Half-Life 2? Got the Episodes that are built as a trilogy, and they want to close the story arc before moving on to Half-Life 3 (4?). I guess as long as I've got an impression that things will be tied up at SOME point, I can deal with it quite happily
As for Gears of War, I though that was OK, since it never really had much of a story to begin with. I think the fact that I played the PC version where they didn't just jump straight to the train may have helped (instead they had missions in-between where control was keeping the squad updated on what was happening with the train), but I doubt it (really it's not much of a narrative jump, but I can see how it would be a bit unexplained to suddenly have to jump onto a train without any real explanation).
Game development is still a largely unpredictable and demanding business, so there tends to be more of a focus on content than conclusion, and, as we have seen, this means that a story heavy game (such as Bioshock, for example) tends to have a better presentation near the beginning and middle rather than at the end. It's a worrying trend that needs to be dealt with if gaming is to move beyond mediocre storytelling. Of course, there are lots of story-heavy games that do have proper endings and a good sense of pacing, such as the majority of Valve's catalogue - but they pretty much have free reign over their own development process. I'm sure most developers don't actually want their games to end in a manner similar to Clive Barker's Jericho.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
I'm one of those fewer sick freaks who liked the VTOL mission. But not the ending boss fight. That was kinda lame. Then again, most FPS boss fights are utterly lame.
As for the ending itself, yeah, pretty much "we'll discuss this in the SEQUEL, OLOL!". But like I said previously, I don't mind since the gameplay was up to par and I know they're going to at least try and carry on the story in the next game.
Even then, I still prefer it when the first part of an alleged trilogy still finished up well on its own, and leaves the "open ended" stuff for the sequel.
Am I missing some huge thing here like they are both based off the same source material. I mean the plots were not just similar, but apart from names they were exactly the same.
Basically, the Bourne movies were based on the book "Bourne Identity." The game XIII was based on a comic book of the same name, which happened to be inspired by the book "Bourne Identity."
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
The biggest problem with how Crysis ended is that they've just written themselves into a corner for Crysis 2. There's nothing left for you to fight except for aliens, and fighting aliens was by far the weakest part of the game. "Hey you're trying to be stealthy here let me TELEPORT ENEMIES INTO YOU whoops they saw you!" It's all they can do, though, because there aren't any Koreans left to kill.
Unless if you get to kill some space-Koreans.
I dunno, I can't see it as being too difficult for them to write in the NK army for the sequel. Maybe they capture some important artifacts that you need on another island or two. Or heck, maybe it'll be some other human foe, maybe China will get involved, or maybe you'll end up going against orders and have to fight the guys who used to be your allies.
It wouldn't be too difficult for them to write in new stuff. Although admittedly the way the game left off, I'm not sure whether they'd be able to start the game off any other way than fighting the aliens again, since at the time you were headed back to the sphere.
Here's hoping they stick with the current engine for a while anyway, and don't try too hard to upgrade it.
Bah, they'll change it up. I want a chance to kill non-yellow people. Maybe some black people, as I think COD4 has played out the whole "Shooting brown people" thing and Far Cry already covered white people.
Plus with Mass effect letting you sex blue people the only people left untouched are space koreans.
Far Cry 2 is in Africa though, as is RE5
I disagree. Rapture is an extremely important character, no doubt, but Jack is definitely the main one.
The problem with the ending isn't that it focuses on Jack, but rather that it focuses on the aspect of Jack that it did. The ending is dependent on whether Jack is "good" or "evil," which doesn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the game. Jack's been thrown into an unfamiliar world surrounded by people trying to kill him, so following the instructions of the only friendly voice around and killing the little sisters is hardly an act of evil, but rather one of desperation. As Atlas tells you at the beginning of the game, the concept of right and wrong flew out the window the second you stepped into the bathysphere.
Instead, the ending should have focused on whether Jack was a man or a slave. That's a theme that's present throughout the entirety of the game, but at the end is completely forgotten about. As you walk through the halls of Rapture, the intercom occasionally asks you the question, are you a man or a slave? The scene with Andrew Ryan brings the theme into the spotlight as he forces you to kill him. Every one of the bosses is a slave: Steinmen and Cohen to their respective "arts," Peach to his fear of Fontaine, Ryan to his ideology even when he can clearly see it failing, and Fontaine to his con, which he refused to drop until he hit the payoff that was constantly getting further away. Even after you've eliminated the effects of the mind-controlling plasmids in your body, Fontaine mocks you with the fact that you're still mindlessly obeying someone, rather than choosing for yourself what you want to do. Even the gameplay mechanics bring the theme of being a man vs. being a slave to the forefront: quest arrows and mission prompts are constantly telling you what do and where to go, and the form of an FPS heavily implied for you to combat enemies primarily through guns and the wrench. The people that mindlessly soldiered through Rapture, allowing the quest arrow to lead them around with a leash and gunning through every fight, the "slaves" if you will, complained that the game was short, too easy, and boring. On the other hand, the "men," the people that shut the quest arrow off, wandered around collecting tonics, audio logs, and just enjoying the atmosphere, and fought using whatever unique combination of hacking, shooting, wrenching, and plasmids that they fancied, thought that the game was the best thing ever. To point to a specific example, the way the game is constructed encourages you to fill Cohen full of lead the second that you see him, but, if instead you decide that you would rather wait and see what happens, you're rewarded by gaining access to his apartment later on in the game.
So, the game is constantly challenging both Jack and the player with the same question: are you a man, or are you a slave? Do you choose, or do you obey? The reason that the ending is so heavily flawed is that it absolutely fails to address this question, instead addressing the question "are you a good person or a bad person?," which thematically is entirely irrelevant to BioShock. I understand why they did it; killing or saving the Little Sisters is the only moral choice that the game leaves up to the player, so it's the only real indicator of whether Jack is good or evil. Since no other part of the game goes into your character's morality however, it doesn't feel fulfilling when the game uses that as the premise for the ending, because ultimately we, the audience and Jack, never get to know if we're a man or if we're a slave.
...Wow, that ended up being REALLY wordy.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Hmm, good call.
We get stuck with great games and no way to end up seeing what happens.
I mean, I'm all for trilogies and stuff when the games appear to deserve it. But only when the publisher has essentially committed to it. But that's pretty rare outside of first parties. It's also rare outside of games that publishers have hyped to holy hell and back.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
What I would have killed to have seen is:
It boggles my mind why they didn't have that for an option.
I agree 100%.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I will buy this.
Women are severely underrepresented in the genre of excessive violence. Women's equal rights to give and receive headshots should be respected. Especially when wearing high heels.
It could be set in a world where all the men killed each other from playing too many violent videogames.
And then the women got started when a woman walked up to the last men on earth were playing before killing each other and went "Hey, this looks like fun?"
That is MUCH better than my idea of fighting over the last frozen vials of sperm.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
It's funny because if you look at Star Wars as a successful trilogy, you realise Lucas actually did a pretty smart thing since the entire movie is self-contained. If he'd never made any sequels to it, the first one still stands as a complete story.