'Epic' gaming finales (or lack thereof)

[random_bars]

Brutal Legend... An excellently paced first third, followed by a slightly rushed second third, followed by the planned third story arc being condensed into one battle.

You see, EA, that's why you don't rush games out. Well done and all on picking up Double Fine after Activision ditched them, but you could at least have let them finish the game you spent so much on marketing... Oh well, at least the multiplayer is very complete and robust.

 

[Valkyrie101]

GTA IV doesn't get many mentions in these types of thread, but I think it boasts a fairly epic ending.

Spoiler

Arrive at the bad guy's stronghold, fight through dozens of his goons, then hop in a speedboat and chase his helicopter, before jumping into another friendly chopper. Then pursue him across Liberty City, dodging rockets, before you both crash on the statue island. One more brief firefight, before you corner him and take him down. Cue awesome cutscene.

 

[kidwithxboxlive]

Sniper Ghost warrior.
Nuff' Said.
Maybe not.
Build up with epic missions.
-Last mission- Crawl, shoot pistol, knife, crawl some more, get out sniper, Bang, Done... Gutted

 

[Casual Shinji]

Genuine: God of War 3. Fighting Zeus at first in the temple, then outside in the thunder and rain, then INSIDE Gaia, was fantastic in terms of the sense of scale. The entire sequence FELT 'big' in every sense of the word.

Really?

I was just about to name GoW3 as an example of an epic game with a less than epic finale. The whole fight was the same as the end battle in GoW2, and that fight was basically Zeus toying with Kratos. In GoW3 you're taking on Zeus on his home turf and this is all he can conjure up?

Now, I did recently find out that the finale battle was a lot more epic, but that Santa Monica Studios couldn't complete it because of the deadline. Still, the ending really left me hanging.

 

[KEM10]

Killer 7. It rapes your mind

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

i would say fable 2 has the worst ending for a game i have played in a long time. after all that bullshit...just ughh.

fable 1 wasn't too bad either, how did they screw that up so badly to fable 2?!?!?!

but OP i will slightly disagree..i enjoyed the hell out of mass effect 1's ending (the saren battle wasnt hard, i will agree to that) but overall i did enjoy all the cutscenes majorly. before and after the endingish.

overall besides that i've enjoyed most endings quite well.

well.besides borderlands. that also was complete...ugh.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Medal of Honor Frontline had an awesome ending. The second last mission was the really difficult one, running through trenches, getting shot at by guys on guard towers, and the last mission was just a very entertaining turkey shoot.
You were in a small bunker with a tonne of weapons, machine guns, grenades, bazookas, just every weapon, and nazis kept respawning in a small clearing outside, so you just ran out, killed a few, drew them into the bunker, killed them, healed, rinse and repeat.

The ending cinematic was also suitably epic,

Spoiler

you killed the big bad nazi general, and stole an experimental plane that looked suspiciously like the B2 bomber, then flew off in it as the base was bombed into oblivion.

 

[ecoho]

I guess I'm the minority here, but both the Mass Effects felt like excellent finales to me. I'd go so far as to call them the best I've seen in a game. It just felt so cinematic, and in the case of ME2, it was great seeing how your preparations or lack of preparations finally came into play. Then again, I'm speaking about the respective last levels, not just the final fight. The final fights aren't anything special.

As for a bad ending...Fable 3. Worse than Fable 2 in my opinion. Sure the enemy was more interesting and diabolical and there was an actual fight, but after all that build-up for some incoming apocalyptic sort of battle, you fight in one part of one area and kill the big-bad without any trouble. Your choices don't even manifest in any tangible way other than a 'score' at the end.

THAT was what the whole game was building towards?

ok i agree with you on mass effect 1 and 2 i liked both endings but thats mostly due to the fact that i looked at them as a sort of book 1 and 2. One was made to get you interested the other was made to move the plot forward(yes the final boss battle was a bit anti climactic but hey its the middle game/book its suposed to leave you wanting more) Now think about this when ME3 comes out it will truly be the end so all that epic build up will actualy end in some kinda finalie.


biggest disapontment though Mercs 2. the entire game youve been blowing shit up going in to an area and killing every thing then you get a nuke and just say bomb here and kill the boss with a fucking quick time event?! are you fucking kiding me?!! at lest in the fables it like youve grown so much more powerfull then them that killing them is so easy but in mercs 2 all you do is get more toys it make me think the basterd i was playing was holding out on me for the entire game........