Game endings

[NuY]

Elektra Glide. Okay. This game is awesome. I decided to play it for the first time in a good few years last night. It took a while getting used the inertia and controls again, but it went swimmingly, getting a bit further on the track each time with those bloody stupid balls and cubes floating and bouncing around at me. And then I reached the end of the track.

 

Ah.

 

Nice ending.

 

A noise that went from low pitch to high pitch. No text, no flashy display of anything - nothing but a noise, and then back to the title screen.

 

I think if I'd completed this back in the day (Admittedly it wasn't actually that hard), I'd have been seriously cheesed off with that. If a game is going to have an end (as opposed to not ending, eg. Galaxian/Galaga/any shmup you care to name!), then surely that end should offer some sort of reward, be it a tune, a congratulations message, anything?

 

I dunno, maybe I've just been spoiled by the likes of MGS and GTA, but some reward would have been nice.

 

The best ending that I recall in a game of that era IMHO was on Impossible Mission on C64. It was short, but

you could imagine walking in on Elvin and watching him turn around, uttering those words and then...? Personally I always imagined that Agent 4029 or whoever subsequently then kicked the crap out of him

Wouldn't explain Impossible Mission 2 or 2025 though...

 

So I throw it open to the floor - in an 8-bit context (any machine) of the games that actually ended, should they have endings, or should they use all available memory to pack as much into the gameplay as possible?

Edited June 5, 2008 by NuY

[Rybags]

The sad thing about so many Atari 8-bit games was that they either had no ending, or the one they did have was utterly pathetic.

 

In the pathetic ending corner, from memory I can recall:

Rainbow Walker

Spelunker

Shamus

 

and Elektraglide. It was annoying enough that it got so hard and the flying objects brought you to a complete stop, but it was a huge slap in the face to finally finish the game only to find the ending was virtually the same as the standard "losing" ending.

[urborg]

It was annoying enough that it got so hard and the flying objects brought you to a complete stop, but it was a huge slap in the face to finally finish the game only to find the ending was virtually the same as the standard "losing" ending.

 

Probably due to 16KB limitations. Bigger games very often had a real endings, even if it was only "Congratulation!" message.

[Rybags]

For a lot of games that was the case. But Elektraglide, from memory was for 48K systems.

[Shannon]

Necromancer. Great game, lousy ending.

[Heaven/TQA]

I really should have a look on Necromancer... do not know why everybody thinks that's a true classic... In 20 years I never got into it...but maybe simply because I had to boot the translator disc first...

[Heaven/TQA]

re: endings

 

but many Atari games have this kind of Star Raiders "ranking" system which I found great... even many on 2600 esp. Activision game.

[Irgendwer]

...

Nice ending.

...

 

Nice:

Karatheka

 

Medium:

Jungle Hunt

Agent U.S.A.

Bruce Lee

 

CU

Irgendwer