Best/Worst game endings

[zoidberg rules]

We live in hope...[paedo smile]

[Freshbite]

Dice wouldn't lower themselves to that level. Hopes disintegrated.

[Ragdollmaster]

Back on topic; my brother recently bought a PS2 (for epic nostalgia gameplay etc) and a handful of games for it. Not too long ago, I finished MGS2 again and rediscovered its horribly overcomplex and confusing ending. Dear lord When I was younger and had originally finished the game five or six years ago, I had hoped that I'd be able to understand it better at an older age. No such luck.

[underthedeep]

Back on topic; my brother recently bought a PS2 (for epic nostalgia gameplay etc) and a handful of games for it. Not too long ago, I finished MGS2 again and rediscovered its horribly overcomplex and confusing ending. Dear lord When I was younger and had originally finished the game five or six years ago, I had hoped that I'd be able to understand it better at an older age. No such luck.

dude seriously. and what was that shit like... 3 hours?

ok probably not that long but it was a LONG FUCKING TIME where i could not save/play

speaking of witch, i was so unsatisfied with MGS4. so damn unsatisfied.

[Ragdollmaster]

"WE MUST HAVE AN EPIC SWORD FIGHT ON TOP OF FEDERAL HALL, GOGOGO. PS THAT AI YOU JUST SPENT THE WHOLE GAME DESTROYING IS STILL ALIVE GG BRO." My main problem was with the jarring transitions- you go from the computer room to Arsenal Gear? Yeah, that makes so much sense- "Let's capture somebody who we know doesn't have any helpful information whatsoever! YEAH! And let's definitely not kill him, even though he's probably the reason we're a few dozen guards short of a regiment at the moment."

I tried to avoid saving as much as possible because I frankly couldn't bear to listen to Raiden and Rose talk about their relationship, the cunts. Even the new fast-forward button available on the Codec could not spare me from reading a few sparse lines ("I THOUGHT THERE WAS SOMEONE ELSE")

As for MGS4- I felt it did at least an adequate job of explaining most of the "wtf" factor in the series, but some of the cutscenes were a bit redundant toward the end. I had to listen to Big Mama, Naomi, and Liquid Revolver Ocelot Snake all explain the same crap about the Patriots I hope that Rising will cover some more of the loose ends, though.

[zoidberg rules]

Personally, I never really liked MGS that much at all, I was always more of a Splinter Cell fan. Although, I do think that the whole story thing got a bit boring towards the end, I mean, like, "OMG Cyber-Terrorists are gonna hack some shit and make the 3rd world war happen, then the whole world and their cousins are gonna nuke each other then the whole worlds gonna go kabluey and your the only person in the world with the right training to stop them so we're gonna send you in there hideously underarmed but it's o.k. you'r not gonna die unless you suck" (Deliberately not punctuated).

Basically, every one of the games have followed this general storyline, their only defining and redeeming features are the new gameplay aspects brought into the franchise by the later games, which admittedly (in my opinion) worked to keep players interested.

Plus, with each of the games came a new set of characters, so each one had it's own ways in which it could all go tits-up, which was only exaggerated in double agent by the "trust-meter", which I nicknamed the "tits-up-o-meter". I sincerely hope that conviction at least started to break free from these cliches, although, even if the aforementioned storyline does occur, at least it will all go down in a completely different way due to the ingame redesign which should make you feel properly like Mister Fisher-dude is actually a convict.

[Ragdollmaster]

I've always felt that Splinter Cell was much more stealth oriented than the MGS series, the main reason being that in MGS you're usually armed to the teeth with everything from silenced pistols to anti-air missile launchers about two hours into the game and have enough rations to feed a small African village for a week. It's far too easy to kill guards/soldiers, particularly in the first two games where all of the soldiers have lost their contact lenses and can only see 5 feet in front of them. Admittedly, Splinter Cells' enemies haven't always been the smartest, but the limitations on weapons for old Sam and the sheer brute force of a typical guard have made stealth much more important in SC.

I'm currently having a bit more fun with the fourth MGS game because I'm playing it through on Extreme mode, which basically turns it ultra-realistic; you can die in three shots (if they're from an APC's or Gekko's heavy machine gun at least), you can carry much less ammunition and medical supplies, enemy soldiers' armor actually helps (sometimes shooting them in the chest with a small calibre weapon will not damage them due to their bulletproof vests, shooting in them in the head may just cause the bullet to ricochet off their helmet, etc) I'm finding it much more in-depth now, actually. Extreme is kind of the way the game is meant to be played :v

[underthedeep]

I've always felt that Splinter Cell was much more stealth oriented than the MGS series, the main reason being that in MGS you're usually armed to the teeth with everything from silenced pistols to anti-air missile launchers about two hours into the game and have enough rations to feed a small African village for a week. It's far too easy to kill guards/soldiers, particularly in the first two games where all of the soldiers have lost their contact lenses and can only see 5 feet in front of them. Admittedly, Splinter Cells' enemies haven't always been the smartest, but the limitations on weapons for old Sam and the sheer brute force of a typical guard have made stealth much more important in SC.

I'm currently having a bit more fun with the fourth MGS game because I'm playing it through on Extreme mode, which basically turns it ultra-realistic; you can die in three shots (if they're from an APC's or Gekko's heavy machine gun at least), you can carry much less ammunition and medical supplies, enemy soldiers' armor actually helps (sometimes shooting them in the chest with a small calibre weapon will not damage them due to their bulletproof vests, shooting in them in the head may just cause the bullet to ricochet off their helmet, etc) I'm finding it much more in-depth now, actually. Extreme is kind of the way the game is meant to be played :v

too bad i sold it. bahahah

[Ragdollmaster]

lolsmooth. Don't worry, though; besides the nifty little extras I brought out, you're not missing out on much compared to what you get just playing through the game on the normal difficulties.

[underthedeep]

honestly i just didn't like how more than half of the game was cinematic and not playable. and MGO wasn't all that great either, rather disappointing.

[Glabbit]

Hmmmmn.
So what have people got to say about Portal's ending?
I noticed Yahtzee found it particularly great, and I think I found it rather intriguing if a little too full of "what happens next?", but I'm still a bit hazy as to the how or why.

[Renegade_Turner]

I liked the song at the end. Other than that, it wasn't too interesting. It was a good game though.

[Ragdollmaster]

honestly i just didn't like how more than half of the game was cinematic and not playable. and MGO wasn't all that great either, rather disappointing.

That's been a bit of a trend with the whole series; ever since the first Solid game for PSX, cutscenes have been heavy, even with more gameplay to balance them out. I did, however, appreciate that they cut out so much of the bullshit Codec scenes and replaced them with cinematic scenes in the fourth game- I have to admit that watching an epic firefight is funner than listening to somebody talk about an epic firefight. While some cutscenes were boring or redundant, I found most to be worthy enough to watch; besides, skipping through all the cutscenes is essentially skipping through half of the game.

As for MGO, it definitely felt different from most online modes of games, and it definitely encouraged teamwork more than, say, MW2, but the novelty wore off quickly. Games felt rather slow-paced, too, since there's no way to sprint in Metal Gear and the maps were big, and 16 players is a relatively small limit. We achieved that with what, the first Halo? I did, however, like the implementation of SOP online; being able to see your allies through walls and whatnot was pretty helpful as you could use it to judge where there were more enemies based on where your allies died. CQC was a bit tougher to do online than in-game, which makes sense in a PVP warzone, I suppose, but I was disappointed by how few throats I got to slit :/ While true that you can spend a lot of time and effort in being sneaky and have the end result be effective, it's not efficient. If you're already behind someone, just pop 'em in the back of the head a few times with an automatic and you're good to go. Human shields are always a plus, though

[zoidberg rules]

I can play portal's credit song an guitar! It's awesome.

I haven't seen the newer ending, but I have heard about it, just from the fact that they have now changed the ending to be a cliffhanger is proof in itself that valve are nearing completion on portal 2, which means that we should have it in roughly 3-4 years, working on valve time that is

[Glabbit]

The portal 2 trailer is out - I love it.
Saying it'll be out in 2011... I wonder if they're going to make that?

Furthermore, what I'm confused about is how (spoiler incoming) all that machinery somehow survived that massive ripping explosion at the end of Portal one, and where did all those new-design pistons and platforms suddenly come from?
Worker nano-bots built 'em and repaired GLaDOS while they were at it? Sounds a bit silly to me.