There is one thing though that can make a bad game seem not too awful: a great game with a really bad ending. You invest all your time and energy into the story and the characters only for it all to crash and burn at the end. It’s like the writers took all the great things they did and just threw them in the dumpster for some odd reason.
I feel that it’s worse to go through a game that you really enjoy to be left in complete disappointment at it’s end. You feel lied to, plain and simple.
This list is based on my personal experiences. There are some games with bad endings that I haven’t managed to play yet or some that I think are alright or did well. So if you guys disagree, always leave a comment.
1. Dragon Age: Origins/Awakening
This choice is interesting for me because its ending was actually ruined by the beginning of its expansion.
You are probably thinking: “What in the heck do you mean by that? You can pretty much choose the ending!” Let me explain.
In my own playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, I chose the ending where I sacrificed myself to save the world (yes I just love martyrdom in my fantasy settings!) After all I went through and the tremendous sacrifice that I made, I felt I’d perfectly wrapped up the story I was a part of and had influenced. I was rather puzzled at the time when I heard that BioWare was releasing an expansion to Origins. I thought: “What more could they tell?” I was excited, however, because I loved the base game. Once I booted up Awakening, I was shocked to see my character from the previous game alive and well. Awakening is supposed take place AFTER Origins. I felt like I was cheated, like my choices didn’t matter at all. I was pretty mad about that. So, whatever you folks think, I had to put Dragon Age: Origins and its expansion, Awakening, on here.
2. Mass Effect 3
Guys I promise you, I’m not dumping on BioWare. But, from what I have seen, quite a few of their games ended on a bad note. I think there are numerous reasons for this but I think the biggest is that they already have a pre-determined ending where no matter what, your choices aren’t going to matter. Who could forget the rollercoaster that was Mass Effect 3. Oh lordy. Never has a game gotten me so invested in what it’s trying to do, but left me angry and disappointed. Now, in my opinion, I feel that Mass Effect 3 could have been one of the greatest games of all time. The first 98% of the game was one of the greatest gaming experiences I have ever had IN MY LIFE. That’s how much I loved this game. But, its ending ruined it all.
I literally cried over the deaths of Mordin and Thane. Never have I cared for fictional game characters like I did those two. When I got to the end, I saw that I pretty much only had two choices to make on how to end it all. I actually got so angry at this I was physically shaking. Yeah I was that mad. I spent $60 bucks to complete this amazing adventure I’d been on with Commander Shepard only to have it reduced to Red Choice or Blue Choice. Luckily, I had the third option based upon certain choices I made so I went with the synthesis option (or The Green Choice.) But still, if you didn’t get enough points to get that ending, you were left with only two choices! And while I know that BioWare (well, EA is truly to blame) tried to make up for it by expanding the ending, it didn’t do much. You still felt lied to and manipulated by what happened. So, for that, Mass Effect 3 had to make this list.
3. Resident Evil 5
This game literally makes my brain hurt thinking about it. There are so many good elements to Resident Evil 5 but it’s tainted by all the stupid things that are in it. It’s like if you bought a really good bottle of wine but with it comes an instruction to pour half of it out to “maximize your tasting experience.” That is what RE5 is all about. As for the ending, I think I only need to show this:
4. Dead Space 3
Oh EA, why must you ruin good things?
Dead Space 3’s ending is mostly ruined by two things:
The whole game in general went way, WAY away from its survival horror roots and turned into a post-RE4 survival horror action game
It made no sense to the overall story that it was trying to tell. It’s like EA totally forgot that the previous two games existed.
My biggest problem with the ending is that it culminates with this huge, boring (to me)apocalyptic-like ending. It tries to push the Isaac and Ellie angle into this uninteresting mold. Instead of ending this game on a high note since this was to be the last game of the franchise, it leaves us with an ambiguous and strange ending – with post-credits scene hinting at something more to come.
Please, don’t do these things at the end of a game that’s supposed to end a franchise! It just leaves us wanting more and more. The worst part is that we know we aren’t going to get it. I know I praised BioShock Infinite in my other article for doing things right, but Dead Space 3 fails is that it uses the few connections it had to the franchise to make it feel like it was Dead Space, when it wasn’t.
Quit baiting us EA!
5. Batman: Arkham Asylum
Talk about a letdown at the end to a great game. I still don’t know why Warner Bros. went with the ending they gave to Batman: Arkham Asylum. I know that the game was meant to be a set-up for a franchise, but The Joker should never ever be turned into a giant Bane-monster. Just never. The fight between Batman and Joker-Bane-Monster was also overly simplistic. The Joker didn’t feel like a threat, even with the Venom juice making him into a giant monster. You didn’t even fight him most of time. You just fought his goons and pulled him down throw punches at him. Honestly, what was the whole point of fighting The Joker in this manner?
It almost feels that at this point in the game the developers just wanted to get to the end and get to work on the next big game in the series, which was Batman: Arkham City. I mean, how else do you explain it? How do you explain this?:
In the words of JonTron: “I’m speechless. I got nothin’.”
What do you folks think? Leave a comment and check out my other article: Top 5 Games With Epic Endings!
