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Original post by SiCrane I don't recall all the details, but Vagrant Story sticks in my mind as not having a happy ending.

Vagrant Story, like FF 7, had a confusing-as-all-hell ending, so it was hard to figure out whether it was happy or what. But I did think it sucked that Vagrant Story had no alternate endings, that kind of defeated the purpose of the new game+ feature.

For me, it doesn't bother much if my avatar dies or something similarly bad happens, but

- Before that, the avatar's actions must have achieved something amazing. Something like the truce in Matrix:Revolutions would personally piss me off - I want my enemies crushed...
- Ending must fit the atmosphere of the rest of the game. Max Payne 1/2 do this just right, but actually the games led me to believe than in true noir fashion Max would end up much worse off...
- Must be professionally done - no twists right at the end, when the game itself is already over, just for the sake of being clever.

Probably said this before, but I think Chaser is hard to top in disappointing endings (EDIT: link added) - http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/chaser/outro/outro.htm

[Edited by - AgentC on August 1, 2005 2:03:53 PM]

Argh, what happened there? I double checked I was logged in and everythng!
That last Anon. Poster was me, and it removed my formatting for the spoiler warning.

Go rent the movie Brazil and watch it.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid However, I only think it works if you have a "winning" ending for the heroes. In the Fallout example, the hero still achieves his/her goal of making the vault safe. A "losing" ending where the protagonist is thwarted before achieving their goal would not work well as it doesn't fit in our preconceptions of the story structure; the story will feel incomplete.

I very much agree with this. Noir endings are too hip and faddish for me philosophically. I don't buy into the notion that I should be happy because everything's screwed up in the end. I think with your world fiction and your ending, you're saying something about how you either think the world is or should be. But noir is so negative that it rings false, kind of like junk food for the mind (like horror movies).

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Original post by mumpo Half-Life 2's ending is not happy unless you were really annoyed by all of the resistance types.

Indeed it wasn't. And I absolutely love it. Most of my friends were pretty disappointed, though.

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Original post by shmoove How about something really anticlimatic? A "Thelma and Louise" game where at the end you have no other choice but to drive off the cliff in order to "win" the game, for example.

Or what if the game ended in a situation you could never get out of alive, but there wouldn't be a hardcoded way of how it would end? Let's say at the end you'd be at the top of a TV-station tower, having broadcast & exposed a conspiracy. All around you could see the revolution begin, but you would never be part of it alive, as you'd be swarmed by enemy troops with no way out except down in freefall... Would this be too indistinguishable from a normal death/gameover sequence, so that some would retry it over and over again to "win"? (perhaps would need some fade to white / time slowing down / other beautiful stuff, to distinguish)

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Original post by Wavinator I think with your world fiction and your ending, you're saying something about how you either think the world is or should be.

Exactly, the world doesn't suck, but it's not that great either. All the examples I gave are things that I would really like to play. And not necesarilly in a Max Paynish film-noir type game. It would feel a lot more real, make you think. Maybe add some morality into the equation - the end doesn't always justify the means. But I guess it would be hard not to fall into a trap of just slapping on a bitter end just to be different or cool (the princess in love with Bowser for example, although I would be laughing my ass off with that one).

shmoove

You don't mind unhappy endings in movies as much because all you're doing is sitting there. With games, you actually have to actually do stuff to get to the end, so it feels like your investment of effort was wasted.