Sessler's Soapbox: Games Must Climax!

Posted by Patrick Roche-Sowa - Wednesday, November 05, 2008 1:19 PM

With all the amazing games coming out this holiday season, you might want to stop for a moment and ask yourself "How many times can I save the world this year and still enjoy it?". Well once you ponder that query, you will understand Mister Adam Sessler's concerns that he airs in this week's Sessler's Soapbox. That's right, I just helped you get inside Adam's head. It's scary in there, isn't it?

In this installment, The Sess discusses the epic themes of apocalyptic conquest that we have all become accustomed to while playing our favorite interactive media experiences and the climax that they move towards in their story arc. Do games reach the same final high point that films and novels strive for? Or is the development process hindering them from reaching a high-water mark that other forms of storytelling can achieve? Listen to the man spit some knowledge and let us know what you think.

And just to clarify, watch X-Play's Resistance 2 reivew tonight at 8pm ET, and check back online for the full written review after the show.

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Tags: G4 Web Exclusive, PC Gaming, PlayStation 3, Sessler's Soapbox, Videogames, Xbox 360

Comment(s)

Posted by Manifest37 - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 1:51 PM

Too true, crazy climactic bosses have gone the way of the dinosaur.

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Posted by BONERJAM - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 2:03 PM

Bioshock is a perfect example of this, an awesome game and story but the final boss and both endings were really lame. FF7 is the first game that comes to mind when I think of an awesome/hard final boss and a great ending.

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Posted by Vesipham - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 2:04 PM

I agree.

Another final boss fight that, although I was satisfied with, I felt the Hive Mind from Dead Space could have been better.

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Posted by EldritchWarlord - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 2:22 PM

It don't have to be a great final boss, just something intense.

Like the warthog run at the end of Halo and Halo 3, or the fight before the Black Gate in Return of the King (the movie).

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Posted by Hife - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 2:22 PM

I played through Half Life 2: Ep. 2 recently, and that was one hell of a final battle. Running out of bullets and having to run over all the hunters in the car, having more stalkers show up right after they say "that's the last of'em." Damn, that was intense.

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Posted by mathiasreese - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 2:36 PM

COD4 was no let down.

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Posted by oia2 - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 2:56 PM

I know where Sessler's coming from but one game that did not disappoint involving the final boss battle and the fate of the world was MGS4. During that final act combining gameplay with the cinematics Kojima really laid it on that the fate of the whole free world is truly up to Snake completing his mission.

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Posted by Schr0mmel - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 3:14 PM

turn based rpgs piss me off.
i'm gonna go a head and say it right now, FF7 had an EPIC storyline, EPIC characters, and was all over epic. but turn based fight systems do not involve any type of strategy at all. its a simple formula of attacking and and using items. YAWN. P.S. i loved that game. now with a game like Condemned there was alot of strategy involved because it was in REAL TIME fighting. granted it wasn't exactly the best game or storyline. anyway, fan boys jump down a flight of stairs, cloud IS an emo kid, and who ever ruined the end of dead space and can play in traffic.

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Posted by bapesta - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 3:15 PM

the MGS4 ending battle was without doubt the greatest thing i have ever played. it just blew me away wen i played it with the presentation and snakes struggle to pass through that tunnel with the microwaves and the final fight. i was truly amazed when i played that. it was better than any movie ending or any other game ending that i have ever seen and if u havent played the game i would buy it and play if that was all that was on the disk. u need to watch it on youtube but really i did after playing it and a video on youtube does not give u the experience after so much story buildup and other has taken place. anyways that part was amazing

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Posted by bapesta - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 3:18 PM

sessler should of given that game(mgs4)as an example of a game that did it right, its the best example out there.

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Posted by JDarkley - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 3:28 PM

Ninja Gaiden I & II, for all of their faults, at least had a kick-ass final bosses, but the narrative for both games were rather thin. However, "Prey" had a very well-done narrative, but wasn't particularly challenging due to your ability to keep reviving yourself. I think the problem is that developers make a game with good narrative and they make it easy to get through the game. I'm not sure who, but a developer likened getting through a game's story to getting through a book; the book doesn't get harder as you read it. That makes sense from a narrative perspective, but a video game is not a book, it's a game. A game should challenge me at least to some degree.

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Posted by neoix - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 3:40 PM

MGS4 isn't really a good example for this discussion. I'm not trying to start a flame war, but MGS4 is more of a movie than a game, so it doesn't really count in this context.

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Posted by Smartguy81 - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 3:42 PM

NG games did have epic/hard final boss battles. To be honest, beating doom1 and doom2 w/o cheating..those last two bosses are killers! FF7 and FF8 last bosses were easy street. Nothing epic except the music in 7. For an epicly difficult final boss battle...play final fantasy 4. I bet you die a few times.

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Posted by SeanGE - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 4:14 PM

The most recent game i finished was Fallout 3, now THAT was a sick ending,lol. Liberty Prime FTW!!!

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Posted by EljhHck - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 6:39 PM

Probably one of my favorite boss battles to date was the Hive Mind from Dead Space. It wasn't actually crazy hard, but it was still an epic boss battle.
Of course Ill probably change my mind when I beat Fallout 3.

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Posted by Smartguy81 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 5:57 AM

what the hell is wrong with two of you in here? you are giving dead space info away! that game isn't that old so you should be courteous to those who haven't played it yet. Dear god, a little respect here!

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Posted by Asrugan - Thursday, November 6, 2008 9:06 AM

If Fable 2 follows in Fable 1's footsteps, the climax will be in the DLC (like it was in Lost Chapters)

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Posted by Suhaila - Thursday, November 6, 2008 9:19 AM

I suppose that the final battle should be the most spectacular, however, it's not that big a deal for me. I rarely get to the end of a game to begin with so I rarely see the end and usually I'm just so happy that I got the time to finish the game that I'm not really caring that it was sorta a meh battle. That's why I'm more for games that are episodic since then I get to feel like I got an ending already without having to finish the whole game. Oddly enough I usually finish games that are in episode form versus ones that aren't. I suppose I feel like every episode is an accomplishment and thus I'm likely to try and finish the next one.

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Posted by Killa01 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 10:15 AM

Gentleman, I think we all can agree then? THE DEVELOPERS NEED TO MAKE BETTER FINAL BOSSES. I am a BIG fanboy of the FF series (FF12 rocked my socks off, cept you can't invert the camera angle for the controller= FAIL), and as "Schr0mmel" basically said: We guys like action. Period. We like in your face, throw you through a wall, and then toss you over a cliff pummling you on the way down in realtime action. ^_^ It seems like the boss characters have no real depth to them anymore, and I feel that Sessler was right.

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Posted by Killa01 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 10:19 AM

I also see what Mr. Sessler was saying about how the games need to climax too, sorry I kinda missed the point there LOL XD, So games need to "climax" AT the final boss fight. Hmmm. So two points then: The developers need pick up on the climax at the final boss fights, and make the boss battles better. Gotcha now.

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Posted by achillez77 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 10:40 AM

@ asrugan, I hope you're right about Fable, that would be better than nothing, though I object to having to pay extra for my climax. Fable is why I got on here to comment cause Adam's totally right on. Fable is still a great game, but I started psyching myself up for the denoument and was totally let down and had nothing to do with all my pent-up energy. I suppose the shard battle could have counted but I had leveled myself up so high in anticipation of a grueling final boss battle that it was barely challenging

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Posted by joeshadowman - Thursday, November 6, 2008 1:22 PM

so the last boss of Resistance 2 is like the last boss of halo 3

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Posted by halokiller455 - Thursday, November 6, 2008 8:32 PM

Giant bosses? play a game called painkiller. Now THATS a game with big bosses.

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Posted by lawrence360x - Thursday, November 6, 2008 9:36 PM

god of war 1 & 2, ninja gaiden 1 and 2, metal gear solid 3, resident evil 4, legend of zelda, all had the best bosses in gaming and awesome ending boss fights

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Posted by troopershades - Sunday, November 9, 2008 11:54 AM

Metroid Prime Corruption was good at executing boss battles from days of yore.

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Posted by time_warrior66 - Monday, November 10, 2008 7:53 AM

Most games final bosses don't really feel like final bosses anymore. Out of the many RPG's I've played the older ones seemed to be better at pulling off climactic battles. There are very few games I think have good final bosses such as the games mentioned by Lawrence360x.

Like in Halo 2 (yeah I haven't got a 360 yet, flame me if you want but get over it.) The final boss, Tartarus, just felt like an enemy that required 2x the bullet's you would use on a Hunter or Brute. It didn't feel like it was that important a fight.

Metroid Prime 3 on the other hand, had great bosses and a final boss that truly felt like it was what you've been playing through 3 games to see.

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Posted by D_Money_911 - Monday, November 10, 2008 11:06 PM

After reading all these comments i have few to say. Sessler isnt just saying final boss battles need to be better, developers need to bring a higher climax to the story, get more bang for your buck so to say. I do have a theory on this and there are two parts to a great climax, games like resistance 2 which i just got done beating and most other teriffic save the world games have a dull ending for one reason. Developers dont have the brain power to make an epic save the world climax because once the world is saved in an extreme fashion more than likely there would be no sequel or we would go back to the dreaded day of bust sequals.

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Posted by D_Money_911 - Monday, November 10, 2008 11:09 PM

Now i can see where the developers come from thats when the second piece of the puzzle which would be your main discussion of bosses. The developer knows if his game is going to be a hit and need a sequal( FYI, this is why games such as gears when you play you think they should have done this or why didnt they think of that. 90% of the time they did but they need newer features for the sequel) so Dev. needs a story most of all, i dont care how epic a battle is, when your done if you had no sense of purpose and no obvious reward for killing it, it feels empty.

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Posted by D_Money_911 - Monday, November 10, 2008 11:12 PM

So to have a true climactic boss you need a build up which games are doing great as sessler said but developers who fail on making a truly rewarding soul warming or make your soul dark ending come on work an extra couple of weeks get ideas from everyone dont do this on your own. And if they fail to do both, well shame on you developers for slateing the hands that feed you.( Also the moron who said mgs4 doesnt count because it is more of a movie hasnt played this game. Everyone who plays mgs4 is simply BLOWN away and is the Best example of an epic boss battle that ties up with an Epic ending) and if you havent beat fable two. When you are close to the end and you will know when your close, let someone else beat it, it will save you a frustrating WTF and a broken controller. Money Out Peace

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Posted by manythings711 - Thursday, November 13, 2008 1:54 PM

I'll add the ending to No More Heroes as very satisfying and had nothing to do with "saving the world". Not to mention if you unlocked the real ending that final battle was really hard. I think games need another goal other than saving the world. FPS are the biggest culprits when it comes to bland end battles.

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Posted by Volent - Thursday, November 13, 2008 7:00 PM

I thought Mass Effect did a really good job with this. Sure, the uncharted side missions are mostly boring drivel, but the feeling of urgency and the climax of the game as the final plot twists untwist, I felt very very good about it.

The feeling that the galaxy was in danger seemed palpable, and the villains were well developed, and by the end, you felt sad for Saren.

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Posted by ZeroKadaver - Thursday, December 4, 2008 10:25 PM

I totally agree I saw the fable 2 final battle and was deeply disappointed and Zelda games need to get a SUPER OMEGA DEATH Japanese mode, the same formula has made me jaded. Mega Man is win in all of these instances.

Also, if you feel that FF isn't giving you enough of a challenge endgame you need to play a few lower level runs, If you can play a arrpeegee low level you are for all intensive purposes a gaming pro.

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