I know what you mean. It's great when the ending o...

2007-12-22T06:39:00.000+13:00

I know what you mean. It's great when the ending of a game allows the player a slam dunk, instead of punishing you for trying to complete the game. The strongest instance of this in recent games I've played is Hitman: Blood Money, which is an incredible game, but misses the point at the very end. Don't read on if you want to avoid spoilers.

So you've been "killed" by the villain of the story, and laid on a pedestal for an ironic "funeral," a way of the villain celebrating his victory. But Diana, your contact at your employing Agency, has infiltrated the villain's organization as his assistant, and manages to slip you the revival serum and your dual .45's as a bit of an escape plan. You think, "fuck yeah!" and get pumped to mow down this bunch of assholes who would see you dead. You pounce off the slab, guns blazing.

And then you run out of ammo and die while reloading. So you load your save and try again, only to be dropped by a hail of gunfire after shooting only a few guards. So you try again, and again, then you try that trick you read online about taking the priest as a human shield but the guards just shoot him anyway and then you're left out in the open and you die again, and HOLY SHIT this was supposed to be an awesome slam dunk of an ending. But it's not. You end up having to keep quickloading and finally figure out a way to survive through trial and error. It just ruins the momentum they'd built up. Either that or I'm just terrible at the game.

In any case, they should have tuned that final scene the way Valve tuned the super grav gun, or Team Ico tuned the magical sword, or Ubi Montreal tuned the scene after Farah's death. I'm still disappointed about the ending of Hitman Blood Money, because it promised to be so cool, but of all the times I've played it, it's just never 'worked.' Ah well.

Comments on Hit Self-Destruct: Recurring Dreams

I know what you mean. It's great when the ending o...