Adventure Gamers - Forums

Oh, oh! I love these topics! My turn, my turn!

Space Quest 3: Hands down, my personal favorite.
Full Throttle: Perfectly executed and thrilling. And a tad bittersweet. Still one of my favorite endings.
Grim Fandango: Another great one from Schaffer, and note that I didn’t like the overall game that much.
The Last Express: Beautifully orchestrated and worthy of a classic cinema epic.
A Mind Forever Voyaging: Perhaps the best ending of a text adventure and surely among the best ever.

But, when it comes to Sci-Fi endings…

Mission Critical

One of the very, very few endings so wonderful that elevated a game from being “good” to “masterful”. Rivals the best sci-fi stories from the best writers. Technically it’s two endings, but both of them are equally thought-provoking.

/palmface

Of course, I love the Monkey Island 2 ending. I’ve always loved it, no matter the general opinion. I think it’s genius.

Also Loom. Lucasarts was so much better at endings than Sierra…

Agustín Cordes - 20 January 2013 03:14 PM

Mission Critical

One of the very, very few endings so wonderful that elevated a game from being “good” to “masterful”. Rivals the best sci-fi stories from the best writers. Technically it’s two endings, but both of them are equally thought-provoking.

Well, from what I remember, I didn’t like ending of Mission Critical (too supernatural). In fact, it was for me big disappointment as The Dig or Fahrenheit endings. And it for me actually turned the game from “masterful” to “very good” (still its my TOP10 adventure).

Oscar - 20 January 2013 09:53 AM

Hmph, then I must have not paid enough attention. Then again maybe I missed all that stuff, since the game wanted me to be omniscient enough to be in the right place at the right time.

Their hands touching just before the train arrives in Vienna. The ending of the dangerous scene with Vesna in the baggage car. You must have seen it, or you wouldn’t have made it past Vienna.

There are many I liked, but the one that made me laugh the most and also got me thinking was the ending to The Feeble Files.  It reminded me of the movie/book Being There where the idiot ended up running the world.

I also liked the endings to Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, where what you did or didn’t do changed the course of history.

Drolin - 21 January 2013 04:10 AM

Agustín Cordes - 20 January 2013 03:14 PM

Mission Critical

One of the very, very few endings so wonderful that elevated a game from being “good” to “masterful”. Rivals the best sci-fi stories from the best writers. Technically it’s two endings, but both of them are equally thought-provoking.

Well, from what I remember, I didn’t like ending of Mission Critical (too supernatural). In fact, it was for me big disappointment as The Dig or Fahrenheit endings. And it for me actually turned the game from “masterful” to “very good” (still its my TOP10 adventure).

Nothing supernatural at all but rather an extremely interesting take on the future of humanity. Very philosophical, unlike most games at the time.

And I agree that the ending of The Dig was lackluster. The complete opposite: turned an IMO great game into fairly run-of-the-mill. As for Farenheit, couldn’t tell… I didn’t feel like mashing so many buttons to reach the finale.

The more I think of it, the more I’m surprised at my inability to remember an adventure game ending. The first I could think of was the one from Monkey Island 2, which I really liked. I guess the ending of Heavy Rain made an impression, I expected a plot twist, but I didn’t expect it to twist the way it did. The same goes for Resonance, I guess.

I never got into the syberia games, I tried the first, but it didn’t immediately appeal to me. Reading some of your experiences with its story and ending have made me consider giving them another shot.

ADan - 25 January 2013 07:14 PM

I know that the hardcore escapists will not accept that as a fact… Although they of all people should accept this “reality” most freely.

Spoilers to MI 2 ahead - I’m not sure if it’s a known fact or not, but I think we can assume Gilbert had the ending to MI2 in his mind already during the production of TSoMI. Even if not, that’s how he saw it, and no one has the right to question whether that’s the right way to finish the game. But one can dislike it, nothing wrong with that. There’s another problem with “It was all a dream” endings - NO ONE wants to hear what Alice did in the real world after she woke up next to her sister. It’s Wonderland, Oz, Monkey Island... which we’re connected to.

Then, the MI series is a special and more complex case where you have the third installment done with different authors, who had a tough task but, IMO, did a good job in continuing the story the way they thought it should be done.

Spoilers to The Whispered World ahead!

Actually, it’s a similar case, and one can wonder how Hullen and Daedalic would continue from here. I’m surprised to see many of you liked the ending - not that I didn’t like it (and I’ve found it quite emotional), but I think some of the non-linear and multiple ending opportunities were also quite as interesting to implement here, although I’m not really sure how.