Games generally don’t have downer endings – when they have endings at all, I was really pissed off that the into movie for Wing Commander 3 was 15 mins long and the ending movie was 3 or so – but when they do they’re interestingly done, usually. Mostly a game rewards the player, when they do that and have a downbeat ending it’s pretty cool.
The only one I can think of right now is Planescape: Torment. The best possible game ending still winds up with your character dead and in hell.
Silent Hill 2. But, then again, most of the “downness” to it was due to the fact that you’re left with a feeling of “What the fuck?!?”
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. There are two endings (that I found). One results in you - the title character - being killed by, and with, his love. The “happier” ending results in your lady love being killed, no matter how you try to save her.
Descent 2. One of my favorite ending sequences ever. After doing the job that you were connived and tricked into doing, after defeating all the enemies and unraveling a sinister techno-viral plague, after travelling all over the galaxy wiping out an invading menace… your hyperdrive malfunctions and you’re left drifting out in the middle of unknown space with a crippled starship and lethal amounts of radiation.
Unfortunately, Descent 3 didn’t capitalize on the potential… pity.
Half-life: You get a choice. You can either join the mysterious man in the suit and therefore become one of the “bad guys”. or you can refuse to join and be teleported, weaponless, into the middle of an army of monsters.
Messiah: After defeating Satan on the moon, the game ends with you stuck on the moon looking wistfully at Earth with no way to get back and no indication that you will be returning to Heaven.
Dues Ex had multiple endings, none of which was particulary upbeat. But with all of the twists and turns in the game it is to be expected. Ditto Halflife.
“Fallout - Depending on how you play the game, either everyone dies or only a few people die. Either way there’s death.”
Thats just a bit of an exaggeration. There is no “one” or even “two” endings to it. The clips that play are dependant on how you affect the power in each town or village. A lot of people do die over the course of the game, but not really in the ending. In any event, they were all jerks. The world of Fallout is harsh, but fair.
“Final Fantasy VII. There’s reason to believe that the entire human race is wiped out.”
Are you aware there are at least two endings? I believe you got them one in which the bad guy sorta wins, despite being set back.
I think you’re thinking of a different game. If you poke around on the last CD of the game, you’ll only find the movies for one ending. That’s how I saw the ending without ever going into the final dungeon.
And speaking of the Final Fantasy series, FFX had a major downer ending. Two of the three main characters are no longer around afterwards, even though a large part of the plot consists of the efforts to keep one of them with the surviving character.
(And yes, there are seven characters, but four of them really are supporting cast.)
Rampage. After playing this game for fuckin’ 20 hours straight, it just shows your monster smash the last place on the map, says “Congratulations,” and rolls credits. What a fucking dissapointment.
I can’t remember if it’s Doom or Doom 2, but one ends with you climbing out of Hell, all relieved, and then looking out onto the cityscape with an impaled bunny head on a stick.
Diablo. You fight this demon, kill it, then impale yourself in the forehead with it’s spirit stone, making sure that eventually, this fucking being of pure evil is eventually going to possess what is potentially the most powerful fighter in the world. Way to go, chum.
Both Starcraft games left with a feeling of “Yeah, the immediate danger’s over, but the Zerg are still going to swallow the universe.”
Are you sure? I’ve played that game a dozen times, and it always ends the same way: the party leaves the crater on the airship, arrives at Midgar in time to watch Meteor almost hit it. “Holy” fails, but Aeris’s spirit calls up the lifestream to help. Roll credits. Then we see Nanaki and his grandchildren (?) arrive at Midgar, which has been retaken by nature.
I’ve heard there were alternate endings that included Yuffie and Vincent, but they were removed due to a lack of disk space.
IMHO, they left the question of whether humans survive deliberately open. Midgar has been retaken by nature, but that just shows that the Planet survived.
As for the OP, I liked Torment’s endings. Torment had the most original premise of any video game ever produced in North America – you have to get your immortal character to die.
Incidently, not all of the endings send you to hell. If you have a very high Wisdom, you can unmake your mortality. There’s no ending-movie for it, but you ascend to a higher plane.
GODAMMNIT! You realise that thanks to disc 3 being lost in some anonymous office in Fiji, I’m now going to have to buy another copy of Torment thanks to that post?
I think the alternate ending that smiling bandit is thinking of is who you go on the date with on Disk One - either Aeris, Tifa, Yuffie or Barrett (God, I can’t believe I remember those names…). Other than that, the only ending I’ve seen is Nanaki and family looking over a nature-ridden Midgar. And I’ve seen it way too many times.
Hmm…::Thinkiethink:: OK, not having finished the game yet, 1 is obvious, and I’m pretty sure I know who the other is. (Thus figuring out your triumvirate (if I’m right).) But I disagree that those three are THE main characters. The others - particularly Rikku - have as important a part to play as these 3. IMO. Actually, no, Khimari, I can agree with relegating to secondary. The other 3, though…hell, 2 get a subplot of their own that’s actually played out on screen, and completely independant of the holy triumvirate.
See, FF fans have been discussing this for awhile. After the credits, you see Red XIII in the future with his children. They look over the city and it is overgrown with vegetation. There is laughing and joy in the background and some have taken this to mean that humans are gone.
I’ve been on the date with Aeris, and with Barret three times A friend of mine claims to have gone on a date with Nanaki, although I can’t quite bring myself to believe that.
I’m pretty sure there are no alternate endings to the game, or at least not on any on the disks I have.
Oh…as to the multiple endings for FFVII thing - there’s 1. AFAIK, the only Square game with multiple endings is Chrono Trigger (maybe Chrono Cross, but I haven’t gotten more than a few minutes into that one yet…). Perhaps he’s gotten hold of a rumour set off by the fact that the ending movie is in 2 parts?
I wouldn’t bother. As I said, I don’t even remember an ending movie, so in a way, it was a disappointing ending, too.
I had a really high wisdom, because someone had told me you can choose your class over the course of the game and I wanted to be a cleric or druid – my favourites in Dungeons and Dragons. So I put all my points there to begin with, and accumulated wisdom over the course of the game.
A friend of mine claims to have gone on a date with Nanaki, although I can’t quite bring myself to believe that.