Jayel

Multiple endings are wasted on people like me

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Apart from a few lucasarts adventure games, I never played through a game more than once. Never.

I heard Blade Runner has 715 endings, but I only saw one.

Not that I wouldn't like to see all the endings and poke every nook and crany to see all that a game has to offer... I just can't find the time.

I assume it's the case with a lot of gamers.

I don't mind "different experience from gamer to gamer" thing games like Deus Ex have going on, but it seems like waste of money for me to pay 50 bucks for a game that I won't even see 1/10th the content.

Hmmm....

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It is pretty irritating at times, although I do like it when there's a couple of different endings like in Metal Gear Solid. The fact that you get a different special item to play with the next time around (such as a stealth suit, or tuxedo if you do both endings) gives some incentive other than a different cutscene to actually do it.

715 endings though? Jeeeeeeesus christ that is excessive.

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I heard that Star Ocean 2: The Second Story has about 80+ endings. Mind you, this is a J-RPG which probably takes 80+ hours to complete just once.

Think about that, huh? 80*80. That's 6400 hours, for one game. Incredible!

I dunno, I played it for about and hour before I got bored and turned it off...

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The only games I've played more than once are Half-Life, LBA2 (both have only one ending) and Fallout 1 & 2 (but I got the same endings all the time because I always did the same things). I prefer games where I can experience everything in one go, and not games where you have to play a game a thousand times to see all the stuff. So, in conclusion, multiple endings are also wasted on people like me, too, as well.

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I completely Silent Hill 2 until I'd unlocked all the endings. Mind you, that was to try and make sense of just one ending. I was going to compile a list of all the clues from every ending and see if I could work it all out. I came up with a page of scribbles that went like this;

Ending 1: Girl is somewhat Hell-Like. WTF?

Ending 2: Girl definitely has some aura of Hell around her. Also; WTF?

Ending 3: I think the girl is from Hell. And WTF?

I prefer a definite ending to a game. I also hate optional characters, but that's another story. I like being able to take different paths in a game, like in Parasite Eve II (If I remember correctly, anyway), but overall I'd rather one ending.

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I agree. Though for me it's not about not having time. The thing is ... if I made decision A the first time through I probably felt that was best, or liked that choice the most. It's hard to force myself to pick B, C or whatever the next time through.

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That irritates me with different paths in a game, too. It's been a long time, but I think I liked the way the paths were done in Parasite Eve II, and Resident Evil: Nemesis. Maybe I'm thinking of Dino Crisis. Or maybe I hated that game. So long ago.

IIRC, PE2 had different locations if you chose different paths, so the replay value was pretty damn good. Once again, I have no idea if I'm thinking of the right game.

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I don't know... it depends on the game.

For example, while playing Mafia, you gotta to betray someone- you just gotta do this -and the player is never allow to choose to stay on this character's side. It's too bad. It's frustrating

On the other end, some game posses such a good storyline that several ending aren't needed.

In fact, what really annoys me with the several endings process is that it's often cheap : it's like projecting a movie and ask the audience ten minutes before the end of the story what kind of end they want.

And what really annoys me with a single ending is that it doesn't really use the power of interactivity give by the media... and you end up with a storyline very similar to what propose others media.

What could be interesting, on another hand, is to give the player multiple views on the same story; Farenheit is scaveging this way but I wish it would be more subtle.

Imagine a game similar to Mafia and let's say that the beginning takes place when each member of the hero's family has just been killed by a gang and that an opposite gang propose the player to enter the "Family" to avenge these murders. What could be really cool is to allow the player to :

- be part of the mafia and become a real schycho Joe Pesci Style

- be part of the mafia and keep a moral attitude

- become a policeman and always be on the side of Justice

- become a policeman and become a "ripoux"( don't know the word in english) you know a bad cop

With a very dynamic environment where things also happens off-screen, with the mafia and police doing their stuff, it would be quite easy.

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My friend and I are currently obsessively trying to get 100% completion on the PS2 Grand Theft Auto games. It's pretty fun, but really there's no reward save for appeasing our compulsions.

I really like Hitman 2 and Contracts for the way you can try a whole bunch of different scenarios. And the way it actually rewards you for how good a hitman you can be. Man, I can play the hotel level in Contracts forever just exploring and trying stuff out. Anyone else seen the bit where the maid and the bellboy duck into a room to get it on? Hilarious!

I hate games like Final Fantasy and Siren where you're expected to hunt around to every pixel on the map to find stupid bonus items that fill in the storyline. Although I guess I'm doing that in GTA which makes me a complete hypocrite pretty much. Ah, who am I kidding. I just like shooting people.

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In days of yore we were always encouraged tos earch every level thoughly so we didn't miss anything. Now with multiple ebdings people like me are confused and it becomes a tedious chore. I understand that less linearity is the more realistic approach and I need to adapt but I'm having difficulty.

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It depends on how good the game handles the multable endings on weather or not it is any good. If every ending is worth seeing and you don't fell cheated on the ending, then it is good. If the multable endings end up being a chore, than it's crap.

I think that after you beat a multable ending game that the outher fates should be made available, so I can get on with my life.

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My friend and I are currently obsessively trying to get 100% completion on the PS2 Grand Theft Auto games. It's pretty fun, but really there's no reward save for peasing our compulsions.
I think there is a reward - on Vice City at least. :fart:

I did try to get as much of GTA3/Vice City completed as possible, but I got fed up and gave up at around the 70% mark. That's pretty depressing. Meh.

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I like the idea of multiple endings. For certain games with moral choices, if I play the game one way, say slaughtering everyone I see, then there's no way the final outcome should be predetermined and no different to if I'd played by only killing those I need to kill.

Jedi Knight, Blade Runner & Deus Ex are 3 that spring to mind where gameplay style do, and should, lead to different endings. If you don't want to go through the hassle of replaying a game to see a different ending, then just cheat or download a savegame.

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Jedi Knight, Blade Runner & Deus Ex are 3 that spring to mind where gameplay style do, and should, lead to different endings. If you don't want to go through the hassle of replaying a game to see a different ending, then just cheat or download a savegame.

Not Deus Ex. You made the choice between three endings in the final level. Gameplay style had nothing to do with it. Gameplay style affected only minor things (and there was something about Paul appearing in the end or not appearing depending on something you did earlier).

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Multiple endings are only interesting when there are multiple paths that lead to them. It's not entertaining to replay the game over and over again, the exact way, just to make a decision at the end that will change it's ending.

--Erwin

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I agree completely. And even just one ending with multiple very different paths in the middle of a game is better than multiple endings that depend on choices just near the end. I think.

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I also hate pointless ones like the alien ending in the original Silent Hill. Not only did you have to play it the whole way through to see it, it was completely stupid. And had nothing to do with the game. At least the ones where you make choices that affect the outcome make sense.

It's getting stupid with DVDs where the movies have multiple endings as well. Like, a piece of film art should logically lead only to one ending. It can't just be arbitrary that the main character either lives or dies at the end, for example. Well, I guess unless your making a movie about the arbitrariness of life. Hey, that's a good idea... anybody got a camera?

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Not Deus Ex. You made the choice between three endings in the final level. Gameplay style had nothing to do with it.

Ahh my mistake. Pick the game out of the three I mentioned that I've not only not completed, but only just really started playing. ;)

Point still stands though.

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Movies are different... if your thinking of something like 28 days later where an alternate ending was included on the DVD... its just where people who wish to know more about the film can see it... the original is still the intended ending.

What developers should aim for is an experience that changes depending on th players style/choices.

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I prefer having one good ending instead of ten bad endings... I almost never replay games anyway (unless it's a game like Civilization, etc, where there's no linear story at all), so the multiple endings are wasted on people like me too. The exception is adventure games, where I replay the classics with an interval of a few years (so I don't remember the whole story when I replay it)

Last one up was Day of the Tentacle, and the next one will probably be Sam & Max or Monkey Island 2... Just have to finish my exams first

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multiple endings add replayability.

Max Payne 2 for example, the game was short but sweet, I've replayed it many times, and if you beat it on all difficulty levels, you can see the true ending that they are going to base Max Payne 3 off of.

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multiple endings add replayability.

Max Payne 2 for example, the game was short but sweet, I've replayed it many times, and if you beat it on all difficulty levels, you can see the true ending that they are going to base Max Payne 3 off of.

Same here, I played it through three times in a row.

The real ending was quite sweet.

It's going to be interesting to know who makes MP3, it's not going to Remedy.

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It's going to be interesting to know who makes MP3, it's not going to Remedy.

What! how do you know this! I heard they were gonna do another one but not for a few years! :frusty: Max is great by the way!

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I remember that someone of Remedy said after MP2 came out that MP3 is going to come but Remedy will not do it.

But I hope Sam Lake still does the script even if Remedy doesn't do the game :)

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