Top 10 Worst Endings to Fantastic Games By The Master  [8 more lists]

For many of us, The Legend of Zelda is probably the first game that ever made us feel any kind of a sense of story. There are goblins, dungeons, weapons, fire-breathing monsters, and the theme song. Oh, the theme song. This theme song makes us sad for the prospect of a film adaption of this franchise, because if they don't live up to the greatness of the theme, our dreams are dead. Even just hearing the intro to it, no not the chorus, the intro from the 8-bit opening screens, brings a tear to our eyes... which is why we felt so betrayed at the end of this otherwise classic and timeless accomplishment.

You see, you go through all these dungeons, all these quests, monsters, weapon upgrades, and arguably the best music in video game history... only to hit a "Thank You" screen.

There have been many games that end with Thank You screens, but this one is by far the most disappointing. You see, a "Thank You" screen is not appreciated by real gamers. We want to thank YOU, the programmers, for giving us this wonderful game to which we have established an emotional connection. At the end of The Legend of Zelda, they robbed us of our involvement with the character and story by rubbing our faces that to the makers of the game, this was just a lark.

Battletoads had essentially the same problem, but Battletoads was so hard it was like signing up for a boiling acid bath with a sandpaper sponge, so the "Thank You" was offensive in an entirely different way.

Halo 2 is one of the best action first person shooter games of all time. There. We said it. Haters can be hating all they want, but the controls were flawless, the battles intense and the storytelling pretty flawless until the PIECE OF S**T ending of this game.

You know what? It wasn't even an ending. It was a trailer. It was a trailer for Halo 3. We spent a really long time playing through a glorified trailer.

The game ends with Master Chief flying through space towards what appears to be the last level in the game. All the pieces are in place for the epic conclusion of Halo 2. And when he's asked, "Master Chief, do you mind telling me what you're doing on that ship?" Chief says, "Sir... Finishing this fight."

The End.

Uh, no, you're NOT finishing this fight. You're ending on an abrupt, and even worse, a cryptic cliffhanger that provides no emotional satisfaction whatsoever to your enormous and devoted audience. We appreciate that there's another Halo game coming, what we do not appreciate is shortchanging Halo 2 just to sell more copies of Halo 3. Newsflash, assholes. We're already BUYING Halo 3 anyway.
****k. You.

The games in the Half-Life franchise are regarded as some of the best games ever made. The story, main character, gameplay and tone make the games some of the most engrossing gaming experiences in existence.

But how does Half-Life 2 end? Getting zapped out of the frying pan right when the poop hits the fan... Man...

Even Valve (who's responsible for the game) admits they didn't get the ending right, which is why they created episodic continuations of HL2 instead of just working on Half Life 3.

In one of the best 1st person shooters ever, you fight your way through zombies, aliens, hard as c**p to kill tripods, fight your way through a giant factory, only to get to the lamest boss battle of the game and a quick cut to, "You've done your job. Let's get you out of here before this place blows up. Oh and we're leaving your friend behind." BYYYEEEEE!!!

This may actually be the biggest rip-off since Columbia House. It's like the developers just said, "Screw it. If there's one thing audiences hate it's a strong denouement." But of course, the only thing audiences hate about a strong denouement is having to pronounce it correctly.

"De-NOW-ment?" "Day-no-MAH?"

Scroll to 2:16 for the "ending."

The Lion King game came out at a time when movie tie-in games were NOT universally awful. Like the critically-acclaimed Aladdin videogame before it, The Lion King was a fine example of a challenging, lusciously animated (particularly for the time) platformer that didn't insult the audience of either film or the game. Until the end, of course.

You see, a movie tie-in videogame actually has something of a handicap in the story department, since you probably bought the game because you're a fan of the movie, and as a fan of the movie you know how the story ends. Scar is thrown off of a cliff, Matthew Broderick becomes King of Africa (which we were okay with, for some reason), and the supporting cast looks happy. It's the 16 bit generation, so we'd be happy with a nice shot of all of the lovable Lion King characters looking happy in the luscious African wilderness.

Instead, we get... THIS. It's weird and uncomfortably long shot of Simba roaring for a while, and then a weird still frame of him standing triumphant while somebody doing a pretty lame James Earl Jones impression provides a COMPLETELY non sequitor line of dialogue from the movie. Credits.

We never thought we'd actually prefer a "Thank You" screen, but YEESH.

One of the most classic and enjoyable, quickly-beatable, hilarious, kind of racist, and fun-packed games to ever come out of the NES, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!! really made a mark on all of our childhoods. We got to walk up to some of the greatest foes we've ever faced, figure out their rhythm, then beat them senseless. If you make it past all the actually-kind-of-hard-to-beat later fighters, you even got to fight the legendary Mike Tyson, who can pretty much knock you out with one punch, and who at the time the game was released was still considered pretty cool.

After a heart-pounding cavalcade of rounds which meant that surely you would NEVER make it to the end, you beat Mike Tyson. With no cheats. AWESOME. Surely, confetti will rain, the announcer will announce you as the winner, your coach will congratulate you (I mean c'mon, the guy even biked while you ran, that's a GREAT coach. Who does that anymore?) and hot ring-girls will come and offer you their numbers. No? Oh wait, there IS something! Oh, it's the guy we've been waiting to beat the whole game. He thinks we're a good fighter... yeah, cause HIS opinion really matters. WE JUST KICKED HIS ASS. We KNOW we're a better fighter than him!

After he calls you a good fighter, we get a roster of everyone we beat throughout the game. Cause after an exhausting and amazingly impressive fighting tournament that's JUST what people want to see, the guys who almost killed them. Even Metroid gave you a picture of a hot chick!