What games have the endings come out of nowhere? And I mean nowhere.
What games have left you staring at the screen wondering what comes next and then nothing does?

This is not about bad game endings (although most that would fit in here are) but ones like the end of CoD4 that come in the middle of a battle. Or like Assassin's Creed where you walk into a room look at a wall and then *poof* it's over.

in bf2 I was playing story mode, and before I could finish the entire thing, it went to an unskippable cut scene saying I got my but wooped on endor

Half-Life 2 Episode 2. I know the area was a denouement-kind of moment, but Whap-blang! and

halo 2. a damn cockslap cliffhanger ending.
Way of the Samurai 2. minute gameplay differences have great affects on the ending that you never realize until it's already happened. (this is REALLY infuriating when trying to get all the endings)
Mercenaries. the ending was "meh" but at least it was a fun ride.
every fighting game EVER. the endings always suck and are more often than not, jokes (see Soul Caliubur 3, or Bloody Roar 3)

KOTOR 2 deserves some kind of lifetime achievement award for this category.

Crysis. Especially if you had read about the game before release and before the story change, when Crytek said that level was only the middle part.

Got to agree with Anarchemitis on the HL2 Ep2 kick-in-the-gonads.

For me, Bioshock was pants. Not so much abrupt, just no closure and very "What, that's all I get?"

Saints Row, I found the ending really disappointing and aggravating.

Quake. The first one. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was more than a paragraph of text. Quake 2's "look at our nicely rendered hand" ending blew as well.

I agree about Bioshock. 15-20 hours of incredibly atmospheric, tightly plotted, occasionally frustrating FPS joy capped off with an epic final conflict annnd... a 30 second cheese-tastic cutscene. Wow.

-Nick

Kayevcee:
20 hours of FPS joy capped off with an epic final conflict annnd... a 30 second cheese-tastic cutscene.

I didn't get that cutscene until my third time around.

Those Little Sisters are just so damn annoying, and they give you a wrench! What do they expect me to do...

PS3fanboy:
What games have the endings come out of nowhere? And I mean nowhere.
What games have left you staring at the screen wondering what comes next and then nothing does?

This is not about bad game endings (although most that would fit in here are) but ones like the end of CoD4 that come in the middle of a battle. Or like Assassin's Creed where you walk into a room look at a wall and then *poof* it's over.

System Shock 2. I did not expect that, and frankly, I'm still not sure how that was supposed to work.

I don't see how COD 4 applies. I mean, you were going to catch the Big Russian Bad on his home turf, and you didn't kill him in any of the previous levels, not to mention you knew you were getting damn close to the end. Plus you had an entire level of fleeing like mad from his remaining combined forces. The idea that things would go pear shaped wasn't exactly out of the realm of possibility there. Sure, it was surprising, but not unforeseeable. Something that came out of nowhere would be if the bad guy suddenly turned into a one winged angel and then it turned out that both Soap and Sgt. Jackson grew up in the same orphanage.

The only ending in COD4 that I don't think many people foresaw was Jackson and the Marines dieing in the nuke blast. That part of the game always gives me a sad face. It just shocked alot of people that the main character would just die like that in the middle of the game.

Does the ending of the Capcom conference count?

L.B. Jeffries:
KOTOR 2 deserves some kind of lifetime achievement award for this category.

I can't really see how KOTOR 2's ending was a surprise. It was the logical conclusion to how the story had been told so far- lot of build up, no pay off, lots of words, no actual story.

Mario. I always expected that last castle to have another Mushroom man in it, and then there's Peach! And she kisses you. What was up with that?

This might seem like an obvious choice, but Halo 2. What? I ain't finishing anything now after that piece of crap.

Indigo_Dingo:
The Darkness. Severe what the hell, there.

Hah! Beat me to it!

Agree 100% there mate. I dunno why, but I REALLY enjoyed The Darkness, and the ending... well, it just sucked ass. (a better phrase escapes me)

Also, what was with that false "choice" right before the end? If you kill Paulie, you get the sappy, crappy, gay ending, if you don't, he kills YOU and you restart from the last checkpoint. There is no REAL choice, though I wish there was, due to the way the game presents the desire to kill Paulie as a choice. (kill him = get your vengeance, but lose your soul forever, or spare him = and retain it. Beating the Darkness.)

The way CoD4's ending hits you is a bit abrupt, but I thought it was good. It's more the setup that's the problem -- I don't think you ever really get a feel for who he is or exactly how much power his followers have in Russia. I think the game would've been better if you saw him actually doing something more than just holding a suitcase in Prypiat.

-- Alex

The ending to the original Fable: Spare your sister's life and yo get nothing. Kill her and you get nothing but an over powered sword that is usless seeing how you beat the game and have nothing else to do.

Indigo_Dingo:
The Darkness. Severe what the hell, there.

I was just pissed that you couldn't not kill Paulie.

The Halo 2 ending was a little abrupt. I nearly yelled at the screen when it ended because I had just beaten it on heroic for the first time and I was really pumped to "finish the fight" with the chief on board of the covenant ship, when after his all too dramatic line it just cuts off and ends.

Kroker:
Saints Row, I found the ending really disappointing and aggravating.

That too, I hated it how you couldn't carry on messing around once you finished the story and you had to load your last save or start again. Really annoying.

Space Gun : You have to fight the last level onboard your own spaceship and if you hit the controls too often....

Oh...

Beast Blasters : You fight your way through thousands of aliens to defeat the ship full of them.

And then you find out it was just a Scout...Here comes the Mothership.

FAKK2: As above.

I don't think you can count games that are meant to be part of a episodic experience, like Half-Life 2: Episode 2, which was OBVIOUSLY setting up Episode 3... or Halo 2... maybe you can count Halo 3's BEGINNING since it's not on par with the end of Halo 2 and they were supposed to explain that in a comic book or something and never did... or Assassin's Creed, which was always planned as a trilogy... that's like saying "Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads!" should've never been spoken...

The worst ending for a game I can think of Dead Rising, and it gets a X5 cause it had like 5 different endings... nothing about the game ends in a positive way... even the BEST ending still ends with a negative ending... I mean, not much you could expect from a zombie-invasion plot really, they usually always end badly...

Yargaflarga:
The ending to the original Fable: Spare your sister's life and yo get nothing. Kill her and you get nothing but an over powered sword that is usless seeing how you beat the game and have nothing else to do.

I hate stuff like that. You complete the game and they give you something brilliant that really would have been useful during the story mode.

KoTOR II, I thought I actually understood that ending once, but then I played it again and thought 'hang on....this is bullshit'.

Morrowind....Dagoth Ur is some kind of man wearing a mask in underpants? Huh?

Bioshock, I don't know about you, but that last battle was just crapola for mine. 'Dodge, fire, use med-kit'. Repeat eight times and you've beaten the game.

L.B. Jeffries:
KOTOR 2 deserves some kind of lifetime achievement award for this category.

KOTOR2 doesn't have an ending. When Team Gizka are finished it might. Until then, there is no ending.

Johnn Johnston:

Yargaflarga:
The ending to the original Fable: Spare your sister's life and yo get nothing. Kill her and you get nothing but an over powered sword that is usless seeing how you beat the game and have nothing else to do.

I hate stuff like that. You complete the game and they give you something brilliant that really would have been useful during the story mode.

Its even worse in Fable: The lost chapters where you can kill your sister and get an OP sword or not killer her and get an even more OP sword. It destroyed the whole good or evil point of the game.

The Mask was cool though.

Even though I knew it was the final level, the last cutscene of Command and Conquer 3 (Nod Campaign) just ended way too abruptly. Kane looks offscreen and invites you to his inner circle, and then walks off the set. Considering the Nod ending is supposed to be the "true" ending to C&C3, it was really poorly done.

Yargaflarga:
The ending to the original Fable: Spare your sister's life and yo get nothing. Kill her and you get nothing but an over powered sword that is usless seeing how you beat the game and have nothing else to do.

if u watch the credits u unlock free play mode and u have everything that u finished the game with including the sword of aeons if u killed ur sister

Madaxeman101:

Yargaflarga:
The ending to the original Fable: Spare your sister's life and yo get nothing. Kill her and you get nothing but an over powered sword that is usless seeing how you beat the game and have nothing else to do.

if u watch the credits u unlock free play mode and u have everything that u finished the game with including the sword of aeons if u killed ur sister

That's the point though. There's nothing new to do in Free Play mode, by the time you've finished the game you've been everywhere and done everything.

Stammer:
Even though I knew it was the final level, the last cutscene of Command and Conquer 3 (Nod Campaign) just ended way too abruptly. Kane looks offscreen and invites you to his inner circle, and then walks off the set. Considering the Nod ending is supposed to be the "true" ending to C&C3, it was really poorly done.

I'll add the ending to the expansion, Kane's Wrath:

L4Y Duke:

Stammer:
Even though I knew it was the final level, the last cutscene of Command and Conquer 3 (Nod Campaign) just ended way too abruptly. Kane looks offscreen and invites you to his inner circle, and then walks off the set. Considering the Nod ending is supposed to be the "true" ending to C&C3, it was really poorly done.

I'll add the ending to the expansion, Kane's Wrath:

WARNING: Bad Ending Ahead! Read At Your Own Risk

I still don't get what happened.

Thanks. Now I don't have to beat the game. No, seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. Thank you. I don't like the Campaign missions in these games at all. I buy them for skirmishes. Can't wait for RA3 though.

GloatingSwine:

Madaxeman101:

Yargaflarga:
The ending to the original Fable: Spare your sister's life and yo get nothing. Kill her and you get nothing but an over powered sword that is usless seeing how you beat the game and have nothing else to do.

if u watch the credits u unlock free play mode and u have everything that u finished the game with including the sword of aeons if u killed ur sister

That's the point though. There's nothing new to do in Free Play mode, by the time you've finished the game you've been everywhere and done everything.

True, but getting a massively OP sword before you finished the game would be worse, wouldn't it make the last levels a wee bit too easy?
The best implementation of this sort of thing is where you get to start from the beginning again, but keep all your stuff, or start with a massively OP weapon.
Mutilating Nemisis (Resident Evil 3) with a chaingun... mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Scolar Visari:
The only ending in COD4 that I don't think many people foresaw was Jackson and the Marines dieing in the nuke blast. That part of the game always gives me a sad face. It just shocked alot of people that the main character would just die like that in the middle of the game.

True, everyone was expecting at least Jackson to survive, so it was a shock when Jackson ends up dieing from a combination of radiation poisoning and his injuries(Hard to tell which one was more responsible, really).

Though it was always a possibilty, considerign the whole "Bad guys have nukes" had been part of the game since the Freighter mission.