About the endings. Strange as it may seem, I don’t care much for the best ending. It’s so cosy and nobody, not even Mom, gives a shit about the stolen money. Family matters, not fame and fortune, is what she said. So much for ethics.
Eddie’s ending as a homeless bum seems much more fitting to his lifestyle. Karma and all that. I even found it touching. That one and the worst ending.
In the Roger-ending he definitely remembers his temporary transformation (“they didn’t believe my roach story”), just like Mom urged him to recall everything he’d seen and heard. So he deliberately chose not to save Eddie. How I wish they had made him scream “goodbye daddy!” instead of “goodbye Eddie!”
The designers missed a golden over-the-top opportunity here.
What makes the story great in my opinion, is that it’s consistently over-the-top and yet interesting, funny and satisfying. Not so easy to achieve, over-the-top can be extremely boring. Also told in a clever way, like when you gradually find out that after Angelina told Eddie on the Golden Gate bridge to think of his son, he actually did try to find him. The burned pic and stuff in Roger’s shower is the perfect way to tell the player what happened. Subtle, to the point and even moving. Well, at least for me.
I’m always willing to suspend my disbelief when a game is good and immersive, but nitpicker is my middle name. Both the bar and Eddie’s room have plenty of portraits of Mom. So Roger never ever set foot in the bar? Oh, come on! And then there’s that great, sappy letter from
Loving Reunions, which had me in stitches. Love can fill that empty hole inside you... your cold and broken heart. I’m sure Patricia Haven with her glib cliches is used to dealing with bitter souls, but even she must have raised an eyebrow when she had to write a letter to a son living at the same address as the father.
