There are few things in life more satisfying than finishing a long, difficult book. The payoff, both in reaching the conclusion of the narrative, and the sense of accomplishment at having fulfilled such a large commitment, can be immense. It would be remiss of me to brag about the heavyweight titles I've ticked off over the past few years, but my most recent undertaking was probably one of the most rewarding things I did all last year. Especially as it was mostly about whales.
And so, it was once the case with video games. Particularly before the advent of 'saving', the completion of even a simple game could take huge amounts of patience, effort and time. The ending, like those last pages of a book, was a key reason why we started playing in the first place. Sure, multiplayer and arcade style games still had their place, but fond 8, 16 and 32-bit memories consist more of completion and satisfaction than particular levels or tricky moments.
Over the past few years, however, the idea of a game as simply something to 'finish' has shifted somewhat. For starters, the availability of downloadable content means no story need ever end, as long as the makers think there's a paying audience. Also, the ubiquity of broadband means multiplayer gaming is now the standard, not the exception it once was. There is no real 'finish' to most MMORPGs.
Whereas once the only reason I wouldn't complete a game would be because it was too hard, now small piles of games lie scattered around my television unloved. They will never be finished. Bioshock. Assassin's Creed. Super Mario Galaxy. I even lost interest in Dragon Age, which captivated my imagination for a good three to four weeks. What incentive is there? The fact that I have more games available to me, and more of a higher quality, than I did as a child is certainly a mitigating factor. But is it just me that doesn't care whether or not I 'complete' a game anymore?
Taking Modern Warfare 2 as an example, what does it even mean to 'finish' the game? To complete the narrative 'For the Record' campaign? How about to complete it on the hardest setting? Or perhaps it should be to get 100% in all the different game modes? But then what about Prestige mode, and all that entails?
Remember some of the classic game endings from the days of gaming yore on
this list. How many releases from the current generation of consoles would make it on there? Are endings something today's gamers care about?
Games have become so huge, that even story-led titles need scores of subplots and diversions to keep things interesting. It seems nowadays developers are stuck between a rock and a hard place - make a single, satisfying narrative and the game will be accused of being too short. Make something sprawling and huge, and any sense of momentum of the primary narrative is completely lost.
The cutscenes that rewarded finishing Fallout 3 and GTA 4 - two games I did actually manage to complete - were scant reward for the hours of time invested. The satisfaction felt paled in comparison to that with the games of my childhood. Has the great ending been consigned to gaming history's dustbin?
