Games you can't win (Spoilers within)
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I'm not sure if this counts, but there's the classic arcade games from pre-90s era, where getting a happy ending was impossible because there was no ending. You just kept playing, racking up as many points as possible and facing bigger and bigger challenges until your character kicked the bucket.
Surprised nobody mentioned the last Prince of Persia.
That is a game were, in order to save someone you get to know during the game, you have to destroy everything that you saved, and the bad guy rules the ashes of what remains. Think of it like Okami except, in the last 10 minutes, you have to set the entire world on fire so that Orochi wins...
This come to my mind aswell.Neverhoodian said:
I know it was a prequel to Halo Combat Evolve and all (especially when Master chief is the last Spartan) and since he didn't exactly vanish in the planet downfall but it still suck that we couldn't saved him.
What about The Stanley Parable?
Admittedly, I haven't played it in a while, and only experienced a handful of the "endings", but don't think there's any real satisfying win possible.
Admittedly, I haven't played it in a while, and only experienced a handful of the "endings", but don't think there's any real satisfying win possible.
This all boils down to context. In the context of our world, all the endings are terrible, but in the context of the world of Papers, Please, these two are pretty good. Consider this: if you side completely with the rebels or the regime, does your character's station in life improve by the end? Definitely. That makes them good endings. Trying to play both sides naturally is a negative ending, and the failsafe George Costanza ending is fairly neutral (there are some losses, some gains).MASTACHIEFPWN said:
I see no reason why turning the game off after the credits roll cannot be seen as an equally canonical ending.hermes200 said:
I really, really loved Deus Ex: Invisible War... It was nowhere near as bad as everyone thinks it was... But I have to say I didn't find any of the potential endings appealing. As such I just gave up on the game after completing it and just chose a random option.
Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville fits that category for me. I got right to the end of the campaign, had a bad-ass well-armed group of survivors that could fight off any zombies and clear the map pretty easily, but the final level had something of a surprise ending
I turned into a super zombie, achieving a bad end by not having picked up enough of the zombie research plots before the final map - was impressed but bummed out by that ending!
Really? Nobody has mentioned Far cry 2 yet?
Such storytelling! Much logic! Thank god from Far cry 3 onwards endings, or at least not all of them, haven't been as craptastic.
Game ends with you ending yourself with either explosives or a pistol, because a dude with a messiah complex says you are bad and you should feel bad. Apparently after working as mercenary with body count high enough to populate a small country, you suddenly develop a conscience. I swear it was the dumbest shit I ever saw in video game.
I don't know about Call of Duty, but for Dragon Age and Fallout 3, it depends if you consider heroic sacrifice "losing."stormtrooper9091 said:
Cataclysm Dark days Ahead comes to mind.
A survival roguelike in a post apocalyptic setting. Main enemies are different kind of zombies, but you will also face robots, wildlife, mutated wildlife (bloody giant earthworms!) even fantasy creatures like the jabberwocky and if you want other survivors (who can be allies or your worst enemies)
Thing is all you can do is survive, there is no endgoal but surviving aslong as possible. You can create your own fortified home with barriers and spiked holes in the ground. Or create your own murder death automobile complete with spikes and turrets.
You can mutate yourselfe or augment yourselfe with bionics (but beware... most mutations have negative side effects)
Also the monsters arent your only enemies, you have to scavange for food and water, or start raising crops on your own.
You can learn and raise your skills from books you find and add new recipes to the massive crafting system, reaching from a rock in a sock to building your very own grenade launcher.
But again... this game is not winnable. In the end you will die one way or another.
What makes it different from project zomboid is the massive amount of content and diverse enemies you can encounter. However this all comes at a price ofcourse since like any roguelike it is either ASCI graphics or a tile based presentation.
A survival roguelike in a post apocalyptic setting. Main enemies are different kind of zombies, but you will also face robots, wildlife, mutated wildlife (bloody giant earthworms!) even fantasy creatures like the jabberwocky and if you want other survivors (who can be allies or your worst enemies)
Thing is all you can do is survive, there is no endgoal but surviving aslong as possible. You can create your own fortified home with barriers and spiked holes in the ground. Or create your own murder death automobile complete with spikes and turrets.
You can mutate yourselfe or augment yourselfe with bionics (but beware... most mutations have negative side effects)
Also the monsters arent your only enemies, you have to scavange for food and water, or start raising crops on your own.
You can learn and raise your skills from books you find and add new recipes to the massive crafting system, reaching from a rock in a sock to building your very own grenade launcher.
But again... this game is not winnable. In the end you will die one way or another.
What makes it different from project zomboid is the massive amount of content and diverse enemies you can encounter. However this all comes at a price ofcourse since like any roguelike it is either ASCI graphics or a tile based presentation.
It's literally just a different dialog option that appears with the Transcendent One if your Wis is over 24 (I always pump Wis/Cha in Torment because of how many options it opens to you). You basically will yourself out of existence in the dialog, and the Blood War video is skipped. That's all that's really different. I didn't go to the Blood War, because there was no me to go to the Blood War.Ihateregistering1 said:
It's sort of like the Adahn thing but in reverse. If you don't know what I mean, if you mention Adahn enough times to enough people (including introducing yourself as him), the belief that Adahn exists causes him to and you can encounter him. He doesn't exist if you don't seed the idea that he does, though. Just don't tell him you imagined him into existing. =p
Or playing until the game loops back on itself, then its an existential crisis nightmare of realization that everything you do is pointless and you're doomed to do it over and over again, and its costing you money.sageoftruth said:
Part of me thinks it'd be brilliant and part of me thinks I'd just never play the game again.SmallHatLogan said:
It's a bit cliffhangery about that.Dalisclock said:
Still,excellent gasme, got some feels out of me inbetween mowing down nazis.
Dragon Age 2, in many ways
You screwed up so bad that Hawke
You live in the end and stop the threats of Mages and Templars in Kirkwall but
1. Kirkwall is pretty much destroyed by the fighting.
2. The good people in Kirkwall who struggled for peace have been killed by your (or your companions') actions including Grand Cleric Elthina.
3. Your entire family (except your uncle and MAYBE one of your siblings) is dead.
4. Many of your companions may be dead or have abandoned you. Some might have even betrayed you. Your love interest is not protected from this, meaning you can easily be betrayed by the person you loved and have to kill them.
5. You start a massive civil war across Thedas
6. You released Corypheus (the closest thing Thedas has to Satan) from his prison and he becomes the primary antagonist in Inquisition.
7. As of Inquisition, you and any of your remaining companions are on the run because of your involvement in the end of DA2.
1. Kirkwall is pretty much destroyed by the fighting.
2. The good people in Kirkwall who struggled for peace have been killed by your (or your companions') actions including Grand Cleric Elthina.
3. Your entire family (except your uncle and MAYBE one of your siblings) is dead.
4. Many of your companions may be dead or have abandoned you. Some might have even betrayed you. Your love interest is not protected from this, meaning you can easily be betrayed by the person you loved and have to kill them.
5. You start a massive civil war across Thedas
6. You released Corypheus (the closest thing Thedas has to Satan) from his prison and he becomes the primary antagonist in Inquisition.
7. As of Inquisition, you and any of your remaining companions are on the run because of your involvement in the end of DA2.
You screwed up so bad that Hawke
can sacrifice themselves in Inquisition to atone for their mistakes in DA2.
Nethergate, which the OP mentioned isn't unusual among Spiderweb games in presenting a 'can't win scenario'.
Among Spiderweb games, I think the Geneforge series in particular shows this trend quite well. Particularly when it comes to the 'canon' endings for the games.
Among Spiderweb games, I think the Geneforge series in particular shows this trend quite well. Particularly when it comes to the 'canon' endings for the games.
The canon ending for G3 has to be either the protagonist dying before the end of the game, or becoming a mutagen addicted lackey for the Rebel faction, who go on to commit mass genocide in their ending. There's a bit of fan speculation that the insane monomaniacal mutant named 'Monarch' who turns up out of nowhere to menace both the Shaper and Rebel factions halfway through the fourth game is the player from the third game. Either way, neither of the travelling companions from the third game want to talk about the protagonist, which makes it sound like things worked out very well.
Helped the Shapers and stopped the Rebels from releasing the 'Unbound', an army of genetically engineered psychotic balrogs- earning the trust of the shaper leaders Alawan and Miranda, being named an honorary shaper and being given governership of the surviving rebels after the civil war is over? Too bad, the canon ending leaves Alawan crippled for life, miranda is dead, and the unbound are released and overrun the continent, leading to (again) mass genocide and the continued dragging on of the civil war.
The Half-Life series?
I still haven't wiped out the Combine, so I haven't won. When do I get to win Valve? Is this your way of telling me that, in life, I don't always get to win? Despite my best efforts? Sometimes aliens just bust in your windows and kill your friends and a big robot dog appears to save the day but it's too late and you just gotta deal with it but then time stops and I don't get revenge?
I don't like that lesson. I'd prefer Half-Life 3.
I still haven't wiped out the Combine, so I haven't won. When do I get to win Valve? Is this your way of telling me that, in life, I don't always get to win? Despite my best efforts? Sometimes aliens just bust in your windows and kill your friends and a big robot dog appears to save the day but it's too late and you just gotta deal with it but then time stops and I don't get revenge?
I don't like that lesson. I'd prefer Half-Life 3.
It is, but it does seem rather heavily hinted at, considering BJThe White Hunter said:
wasn't gonna make it to the helicopter before the nuclear strike hit.
For that matter, Singularity doesn't really have a good ending either. No matter what ending you get,
the Soviets, or some variant thereof, still run the world in the new timeline and it's heavily implied that the ending where you end in the helicopter is the canon one, due it being the only one that isn't a summery. Though that ending is slightly less depressing then the others, with the implication that the Soviet Union in the new timeline is a little less oppressive then the other ones in the game