Another vote for Oblivion. They showcase the big guy to ya, but all ya do is run past him and watch your twat escort transform in a dragon and steal your kill. Damn that was a slap in the face.

Lucane:

Headwouend:

Baneat:
Tetris

Don't fuck with the space shuttle, bro.

Baaaaw Fallout 3.. I mean I have a perfectly fine plot device following me around that simply refuses to do his job, willingly sacrificing a life...
Should have left you rot, fawk you, jerk.

Wasn't Fawks one of the Female test subjects?

Gah, you're right. :<

Make that "fawk you, bitch" then

bassie302:
Another vote for Oblivion. They showcase the big guy to ya, but all ya do is run past him and watch your twat escort transform in a dragon and steal your kill. Damn that was a slap in the face.

I know! I was psyching myself to play this billion foot high demon thing, and then I walked into a room. I was angry for about a week after that!

The original Jak and Daxter game. The first time me and my friend saw it, I yelled "Jack! Why did you skip it?!" After it ended.

I hated the ending to Fable 2 (the whole main story actually but I won't go into that) it was so incredibaly anti-climatic and predictable.

The God Hand ending is anticlimactic in terms of difficulty, but very satisfying in terms of scale. I also thought DMC3 and Viewtiful Joe did a great job with providing satisfying end bosses.

In terms of final bosses that weren't worth it, I'd say Second Sight gets a vote. That last level was an absolute masterpiece right up until the end, but the very last bit of gameplay was underwhelming in the extreme.

Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect and Fallout 3 were all a bit disappointing.

Crackdown's end was really corny, but I wasn't expecting it at all.

Michael_McCloud:
Fable 2 is the most disappointing ending for me by far.

Just in case someone doesn't want to know.

Now for my list of more epic endings.

Shadow of the Colossus: Somewhat predictable, but still awesome. Not to mention that the last Colossus was epic.

Okami: Now that was an ending worth watching. Made me tear up, that one did.

Earthbound: Remarkably deep and incredibly disturbing ending for a kid's game.

I second Earthbound.

It wasn't the ending that was disturbing, but the final boss and what you have to do just before the final boss was really... yeah. Then the ending was really calm and sweet and happy and a bit funny, very satisfying actually...

I was pissed with Halo 3's ending, I was expecting a massive, epic gunfight and all I got was another damn Warthog drive from hell... real original Bungie...

hmmm... I'd have to say fallout 3. Even though I got the ending spoiled for me so many times it still left me a bit confused. So I just reloaded my character before the "point of no return" and explored the wastes some more. Now I can't wait for that DLC expansion.

Jericho....really enjoyed the game, but wtf is with the ending.

psi ops left with a cliff hanger ending and promised a sequel and there hasnt been one yet
i loved that game

Bioshock's and Ghost Master's were a tad shit

But the ending on No More Heros was awesome on so many levels

I'm not going to say Fallout 3 just yet because, well, with expansion content it's not going to be the canon ending. But other than that, I can't think of a game that I have finished recently that really gave me a shitty ending. I don't need a 20 minute long FMV to feel rewarded for beating the thing, but I don't want to go back to the days of one screen NES congrats either.

As far as endings I've liked; well I just finished Psychonauts. What an awesomely written story from the start straight to the end. It felt like being a kid again.

Jandau:

squid5580:
Wow what is up with the Dead Space hate. Although it may not have been some incredibly deep life altering ending if you have ever watched a sci fi or horror flick the ending was suitable to those standards. Although I am a big fan of the cheesey B movies so it is my own opinion. I didn't have any expectations of an intelligent "keep me up at night pondering it" ending so it didn't disappoint.

For me it's not so much the ending itself, it's the entire final part of the game. Starting midway through Chapter 11, the game loses all atmosphere. Chapter 12 is pathetic. You move a plot item around (forcing the use of the annoyning physics gun) while the game spawns waves of enemies at you in large well-lit areas.

The game turns into Quake 4, basically.

And the final boss was too simple and easy, especially compared to the Zero-G boss fight.

The ending itself was cliche to the extreme, and also makes little sense since you killed the Hive Mind...

I'll also add my vote to Fallout 3. After getting captured by the Enclave, the game is essentially an interactive cutscene to the end. Especially when the last potentially challenging part of the game is cleared for you by a gigantic robot. And then comes the lamest boss in any recent game. And then the lamest ending in recent history.

Seriously, it would be better if after killing Autumn you just got "A winner is YOU!" message and the credits rolled...

I can't argue about the physics gun. That thing was all around crap and I hated using it. I liked the final boss fight. It actually killed me because of the whole pick you up part. I sucked at those. The Zero G boss couldn't touch me on normal (impossible may be a different story). Although my end boss fight expectation bar has been set very very low lately after Fable 2, Fallout 3 and Alone in the Dark.

Great Ending = Mass effect
Horrible ending = Half Life 2: episode 2.

Syntax Error:

So what are the games with Anticlimactic endings have you played?

Bonus question: What are the games with the best end sequences you've played?

Most games from the 16Bit era. e.g.
Sonic the Hedgehog - Sonic's got a microphone. Eurgh.
Super Mario World- Oh look it's all the characters. Whatever.

Beat 'em ups - The story is resolved. Was there a point to the characters having a story. Not really.

The Gears series is not exactly something I could say has a good story, but the ending was still lamer then I thought it could be. They pulled a Bungie! I swear that the only reason the original bomb was lost was because EPIC wanted a reason to show off a mutated brumak, and to make it an interactive cutscean made it worse. The brumak mutation was completely unnessessary. At least in Halo 3 I was begging to kill 343 Guilty Spark.

MarsProbe:

Lukeje:
Half Life. What the hell was that whole Xen sequence about?!

Oh, we're not digging this old horse up again are we? Well, it may due to my being one of the few people who enjoyed the Xen sections (even going as far as to saying they were one of my favourite parts of the game, alongside Surface Tension and Questionable Ethics) and also having not actually heard a decent explanation of why they supposedly weren't any good.

As for what the Xen levels were actually about. Well, I assume that as the aliens came from Xen so the best way to wipe them out was to go to their home dimension and kill their leader. I'm guessing that was the deal with that. Or would you have rather had another 4 levels of running around science labs before blasting some totally random boss alien, like in the lame ending to Opposing Force?

Hey, if you enjoyed a shooting game suddenly turning into a First-Person platformer then more power to you. Unfortunately, I did not.

You ask whether I would prefer an ending like Opposing Force. Well, why did there have to be an end boss at all? Surely just closing all the portals would have saved Earth?

But in the end this all comes down to opinions, and it seems unlikely that either of us are going to change ours.

Lukeje:

You ask whether I would prefer an ending like Opposing Force. Well, why did there have to be an end boss at all? Surely just closing all the portals would have saved Earth?

But in the end this all comes down to opinions, and it seems unlikely that either of us are going to change ours.

I didn't really think much of the OF ending as it just seemed to be mirroring the ending to Half-Life, without the Xen sections of course, in pitting you against a random large alien for no apparent reason. While you could of course argue that the same argument could be levelled at Half-Life. as there never really was a full explanation given as to why you were wacking some large baby faced alien. What self respecting race of aliens places their entire hopes one the life of one specific entity anyway? That would be somewhat akin everyone in your country siezing up if your countries leader happened to kick the bucket. Kind of extreme.

But yet, in the end, it's about opinions. It's lucky the conversation isn't about Portal, then we could be here all day :P

Star Wars Battlefront 2's ending was just, dumb. It was on Hoth in the Empire Strikes Back, and it ended with the 501st being victorious. Something interesting would be seeing the 501st after the empire falls.

Fable 2's ending was one big slap in the face

Another bad ending was that of CarnEvil. After all the horror and drama the main guy starts it all up again? What?? It wouldn't be so bad if they let you keep playing... Ugh... final bosses in arcade games are the worst, because you -know- after you put in that extra 4 bucks there isn't any game left...

MarsProbe:

Lukeje:

You ask whether I would prefer an ending like Opposing Force. Well, why did there have to be an end boss at all? Surely just closing all the portals would have saved Earth?

But in the end this all comes down to opinions, and it seems unlikely that either of us are going to change ours.

I didn't really think much of the OF ending as it just seemed to be mirroring the ending to Half-Life, without the Xen sections of course, in pitting you against a random large alien for no apparent reason. While you could of course argue that the same argument could be levelled at Half-Life. as there never really was a full explanation given as to why you were wacking some large baby faced alien. What self respecting race of aliens places their entire hopes one the life of one specific entity anyway? That would be somewhat akin everyone in your country siezing up if your countries leader happened to kick the bucket. Kind of extreme.

But yet, in the end, it's about opinions. It's lucky the conversation isn't about Portal, then we could be here all day :P

I think the implication was that the Xen was under Combine control, and the Xen alien was a Combine leader, at least on Xen. You wacked the war leader and therefore stalled the Combine offensive that was coming through from Xen. But the Combine hadn't placed their entire hopes on the life of one specific entity - they were ultimately successful in their invasion anyway.

Dubiousduke:
Great Ending = Mass effect
Horrible ending = Half Life 2: episode 2.

I wouldn't say that Episode 2's ending was horrible.

Heartbreaking, yes, but not horrible. Probably better than most, really.

pigeon_of_doom:
I thought Bioshocks ending (I've only seen the good one) was terrible. Rushed attempt to emotionally engage the player, I would have far preferred an extended gameplay sequence where you visit survivors, or anything to that vague FMV.

FFVIIs ending also felt rushed to me. I wanted a drawn out closure packed with sentimental value. They obviously learned to improve upon that (Final Fantasy 8,9 and 10s endings, 9s particularly was excellent I felt.) but I was very unsatisfied by the end of 7.

The evil ending kicked ass...

Michael_McCloud:
Fable 2 is the most disappointing ending for me by far.

Just in case someone doesn't want to know.

How is that anti climatic? Steven Fry was the pirate, so everytime you hear him speak you must savour every sylable.

KSI Hellboy:
Halo 2

/thread

stubbmann:

Dubiousduke:
Great Ending = Mass effect
Horrible ending = Half Life 2: episode 2.

I wouldn't say that Episode 2's ending was horrible.

Heartbreaking, yes, but not horrible. Probably better than most, really.

It felt more like a swift kick to the sack to me.

"Feeling good about launching that rocket with a gnome in it? *advisor* How about now?"

however, my vote is still for halo 2

Fallout 3. Oh god how that sucks.

bad rider:

How is that anti climatic? Steven Fry was the pirate, so everytime you hear him speak you must savour every sylable.

And I was, until Mr. Cocky Pirate Man decides he'd rather have a conversation more centered on him. I thought Reaver was cool in a hateable way at first, but that little stunt really got me pissed off at him.

Michael_McCloud:

bad rider:

How is that anti climatic? Steven Fry was the pirate, so everytime you hear him speak you must savour every sylable.

And I was, until Mr. Cocky Pirate Man decides he'd rather have a conversation more centered on him. I thought Reaver was cool in a hateable way at first, but that little stunt really got me pissed off at him.

What do you mean, he saved you some of your unlimited ammo.You should thank him.

bad rider:

Michael_McCloud:

bad rider:

How is that anti climatic? Steven Fry was the pirate, so everytime you hear him speak you must savour every sylable.

And I was, until Mr. Cocky Pirate Man decides he'd rather have a conversation more centered on him. I thought Reaver was cool in a hateable way at first, but that little stunt really got me pissed off at him.

What do you mean, he saved you some of your unlimited ammo.You should thank him.

You know, I think I will.

I'll pay him that bullet back... To his face.

Michael_McCloud:

bad rider:

Michael_McCloud:

bad rider:

How is that anti climatic? Steven Fry was the pirate, so everytime you hear him speak you must savour every sylable.

And I was, until Mr. Cocky Pirate Man decides he'd rather have a conversation more centered on him. I thought Reaver was cool in a hateable way at first, but that little stunt really got me pissed off at him.

What do you mean, he saved you some of your unlimited ammo.You should thank him.

You know, I think I will.

I'll pay him that bullet back... To his face.

Thats the christmas spirit!

Jade Empire had a great ending

good storytelling all round

sazzrah:

Don't forget Ico too, that had a great ending. A happy ending! Which is surprising for a Japanese game to be perfectly honest. lol

Sorry to ruin your day but the Ico lead creator actually said that the Ico/Yorda reunion on the beach is meant to be a fever dream as Ico lays dieing in that boat amidst the waves.
Honestly...it's still an amazing ending...just sad :(

Keeping with sad endings - Half-Life 2: Episode 2 was one of the flat out most "WHAT." endings I've seen. If you had any love for that game series, that ending hit you hard.

Also...was I the only person that liked the Bioshock good ending? I thought it was the only reasonable explanation for why this superhuman assassin would bother saving all these little girls...because they offered him the one thing he had never had in his life: a family. It made perfect sense to me...but I just wish it had been a bit longer.

And I totally agree with the Fable 2 and Fallout 3 ending hate. Though I thought Fable 2 was underwhelming overall, so Fallout 3's crap finale was a bigger kick to the balls to me. Especially comparing it to Fallout 1 and 2's endings.