Game developers in the good 'ol days had it
easy.
They didn't have to bother with an ending, they
would just make sure the game's difficulty kept on increasing and increasing as
the player repeated the same stages over and over again until finally and
inevitably even those with the reflexes of a ninja would be staring at the
"Game Over" screen. Introducing stories into games was just asking
for trouble.
Just ask Bungie, the developers of
multi-million selling blockbuster Halo, who were widely condemned for the
abrupt non-ending of Halo 2.
Thankfully, the conclusion of Master
Chief's sci-fi trilogy was a lot more satisfying than the second game. But as
much as Halo 2 was derided, was it really the gaming world's worst ending ever?
Today Gamesmaster is keen to hear your
nominations for the worst game endings ever, and I've included a few
nominations below to get you started...
Saints Row - Rather than letting you
continue to run riot in the sandbox world, you blow up and are returned to the
title screen.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - Summed up by
three letters: WTF?
Half Life 2 - Unsatisfying and not up to
the quality of the game, any conclusion should be more than a simple plug for
the next instalment.
1942 (NES) - A plain screen with
"Congratulation" (sic) on it.
Knights of the Old Republic II - There
wasn't really an ending at all, the developers obviously ran out of time.
Myst - Atrus buggers off to deal with his
naughty sons while leaving you in a room alone twiddling your thumbs. Cheers.
XIII - "To be continued", yet
there will never be a sequel. Whoops.
Fable - Totally anti-climatic, and you're
given a kick-arse sword that is now absolutely useless because you've finished
the game.
Ico - I appreciate that the developers
wanted to leave it up to personal interpretation, but the conclusion just
wasn't satisfying. Or perhaps I just didn’t want the game to end…