What obsession has everyone developed with the idea that games as a service must prevail despite repeatedly hitting the same wall, huh? The latest has been Warner Bros. Games, which is facing a complicated financial situation after losing 200 million dollars due to the failure of the game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. This setback has led the company to make drastic decisions, including the cancellation of an anticipated open-world game based on Wonder Woman. The underlying problems are evident, as the publisher has reported a 48% drop in […]
What obsession has everyone developed with the idea that games as a service must prevail despite repeatedly hitting the same wall, huh? The latest to face this issue is Warner Bros. Games, which is dealing with a complicated financial situation after losing 200 million dollars due to the failure of the game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. This setback has led the company to make drastic decisions, including the cancellation of a highly anticipated open-world game based on Wonder Woman. The underlying problems are evident, as the publisher has reported a 48% drop in its video game revenue, which has prompted a significant change in its development strategy.
Have you failed? No worries, we want more!
Currently, Warner Bros. is looking for a new executive producer to lead the development of a live service game, based on its most iconic intellectual properties, which could include titles from DC Comics. The job description highlights the need for a candidate who can produce a high-quality AAA game, with a focus on post-launch content and live service strategies, in order to ensure ongoing player engagement. The new executive will also be responsible for ensuring that the project meets the highest standards in terms of quality and commercial success.
The importance of achieving “critical and commercial success” has gained renewed emphasis for Warner Bros., especially after a reported 66% reduction in spending on video games. This shift in focus follows a restructuring plan that centers on franchises such as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat, and DC. However, the bet on live service games could pose risks, considering the market’s reaction to the failure of recent titles.
On the other hand, PlayStation is also adjusting its strategies after the failure of its game Concord, continuing its investment in new live services. This suggests a common interest in the industry to redefine the way video games are produced and marketed, despite recent financial setbacks.
The Stop Killing Games initiative has garnered over a million signatures in Europe, a significant effort to defend online video games that become unplayable once developers stop providing support. The movement, which opposes planned obsolescence practices, has found a strong public response, although it has been dismissed by the lobbying group Video Games Europe, which considers the initiative to be “disproportionate.” Warner Bros. and Microsoft are among those fighting against its advancement. In a recent statement, Video Games Europe, which represents major publishers like Warner Bros. and Microsoft, questioned […]
The Stop Killing Games initiative has garnered over a million signatures in Europe, a significant effort to defend online video games that become unplayable once developers stop providing support. The movement, which opposes planned obsolescence practices, has found a strong public response, although it has been dismissed by the lobbying group Video Games Europe, which considers the initiative to be “disproportionate”.
Warner Bros. and Microsoft among those fighting to prevent it from moving forward
In a recent statement, Video Games Europe, which represents major publishers like Warner Bros. and Microsoft, questioned the legal objectives of the promoters of Stop Killing Games. The group argues that the lawsuits, which include maintaining online services indefinitely and allowing private servers, would be detrimental to the video game industry. “Requiring companies to maintain online services beyond their commercial viability would create a deterrent effect on game design,” they stated.
The movement, although lacking clarity in certain areas, has resonated with many players who feel they acquire products that become unusable when the company withdraws support. On its FAQ page, Stop Killing Games states that it seeks to keep the demand simple to avoid misunderstandings. However, Video Games Europe believes that this vagueness could hinder the interpretation of the proposal and that the initiative as a whole lacks solid foundations.
Despite the resistance from Video Games Europe, the public response has been largely positive towards the initiative. Comments on social media have been critical of the organization’s stance, highlighting support for the cause. Stop Killing Games aims to continue collecting signatures, warning that there is a possibility that a significant portion of those that have reached a million may not be authentic, which could affect the legitimacy of the movement.
Currently, a hoarding phenomenon is emerging in the gaming community, where many accumulate games in their digital libraries without necessarily playing them. A report indicates that more than half of Steam players have not touched numerous titles in their collection, highlighting that the act of buying often prevails over the experience of playing. Chris Zukowski, a video game marketing expert, argues that this trend has been enabled by Steam, which offers superior social and curation features, in addition to legendary sales, thus attracting “hoarders” of digital entertainment. Accumulating […]
Currently, a hoarding phenomenon is emerging in the gaming community, where many accumulate games in their digital libraries without necessarily playing them. A report indicates that more than half of Steam players have not touched numerous titles in their collection, highlighting that the act of buying often prevails over the experience of playing. Chris Zukowski, a video game marketing expert, argues that this trend has been enabled by Steam, which offers superior social and curative features, in addition to legendary sales, thus attracting “hoarders” of digital entertainment.
Accumulating seems to be our thing
The competition from entertainment platforms, such as Netflix and video games, is leading indie developers to fight for players’ attention, who also have to manage their time among various activities, including sleeping. According to Zukowski, this poses a challenge for games that do not clearly fit within a genre; players tend to accumulate titles from well-defined genres, while those with ambiguous categories are less likely to be purchased.
As players become collectors, what many call the shame pile is repeated, where interested parties fervently buy, even without the intention of playing. Zukowski points out that this irrational behavior may have changed the commercial landscape: “If Steam players were rational and only bought games they would actually play, we would sell many fewer games,” he emphasizes.
However, this accumulation of games does not necessarily mean a disinterest in the gaming experience, but rather is part of the pleasure of collecting. With such an accessible shopping environment, players often find themselves at the crossroads of an expanding digital library, but with little time available to enjoy it.
What is the highest speed you have ever felt while playing a video game? You might be thinking of F-Zero, a Mario Kart at 200 cc on Rainbow Road, the craziness of Forza or Need For Speed… But in 2003 there was a game whose speed cannot even be replicated now. The best part? It wasn’t even a rally, kart, or high-speed car game, but a truck game. Its title, Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing, considered one of the worst titles in history and full of bugs, but with a prize that only this disaster could achieve. […]
What is the highest speed you have ever felt while playing a video game? You might be thinking of F-Zero, a Mario Kart at 200 cc on Rainbow Road, the craziness of Forza or Need For Speed… But in 2003 there was a game whose speed cannot even be replicated now. The best part? It wasn’t even a rally, kart, or high-speed car game, but a truck game. Its title, Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing, considered one of the worst titles in history and filled with bugs, but with an award that only this disaster could achieve.
Kill me, truck!
To understand how a game like this ended up on all the lists of the most outrageous games ever made, one must look at its producer, Stellar Stone, apparently from Santa Monica, California, but which allowed all its games to be made in Eastern European countries such as, for example, Ukraine. You thought you were playing something proudly American, but in reality, it was made by a guy named Dimitri in Kiev. That was the case with Big Rigs, which, when it got into their hands, was already complete, and even when playing it and seeing that it was full of bugs, they couldn’t do anything.
Imagine the situation: you have an absolute nonsense on your hands but since it was programmed in Ukraine, you can’t make changes. What you have is what you get. For its director, the game was still in a pre-alpha version, which did not prevent it from being on store shelves on November 20, 2003. Sergey Titov, the owner of the distributor, was so embarrassed that he offered to exchange the game for any title from Activision Value. Twenty people did this who didn’t know what to do with Big Rigs.
And yet, despite having terrible ratings from the industry (it has a 6 out of 100 on Metacritic), having issues with the truck controls, bugs affecting enemy movement, game physics, and collisions, and being barely playable, Big Rigs has gone down in history for all those seeking a completely different experience (even if that isn’t a good thing). Indeed, as part of these errors, you could make your truck go at a speed that no human being will ever experience.
KITT, activate super-speed!
According to what has been verified, the developers completely forgot to set a limit on the speed that your truck could reach while going backward, to which another error must be added: the truck accelerated exponentially, reaching a maximum speed of 19.7 undecillion kilometers per hour. In other words, the ability to traverse all the known space by humanity in just a millisecond. It is so much that basically as soon as you accelerated, you could win the game immediately, because the game detected that the truck had become omnipresent and had passed through all the checkpoints at the same time.
In its favor, it must be said that in November 2003 they released a patch to solve one of the most serious problems of the game: the opponent did not move or run against you at any time, so winning was just a matter of time. With the patch, it did start running… but it stopped just before the finish line. No one cared too much, because it was just one error among many: hills were climbed and descended without losing or gaining speed, you could fall into the void when leaving the game map… In short, an absolute disaster that almost surprises that it was able to break a record, even if by accident. Hey, in what other game can you exceed the speed of sound without messing up your hair and reach the edges of the universe in just a millisecond? So much for saying that bugs are worthless.
Ubisoft has shut down the servers of its racing game The Crew, rendering the game unusable even for those who had purchased it. This closure has sparked outrage from the community, which argues that the company could have implemented an offline mode that would allow playing against artificial intelligence. In light of this controversy, Ubisoft has announced that its sequel, The Crew 2, and the upcoming title The Crew Motorfest will include this offline mode, but the criticism has led the company to face potential legal action that could redefine players’ rights in the community […]
Ubisoft has shut down the servers of its racing game The Crew, rendering the game unusable even for those who had purchased it. This closure has sparked outrage within the community, which argues that the company could have implemented an offline mode that would allow playing against artificial intelligence. In light of this controversy, Ubisoft has announced that its sequel, The Crew 2, and the upcoming title The Crew Motorfest will include such an offline mode, but the criticism has led the company to face potential legal action that could redefine players’ rights in the gaming community.
#StopKillingGames is what can ensure that tomorrow you can continue playing your favorite game
In response to this situation, the #StopKillingGames initiative has emerged, driven by Daniel Ondruska, with the aim of protecting the rights of gamers. This proposal seeks to demand that developers implement offline modes in their video games, ensuring that they do not become obsolete once the servers are shut down. To advance this legislation, the project needs to reach one million signatures and gain support from seven countries in the European Union.
As of today, the initiative has collected 756,799 signatures, which means that 243,201 more supports are still needed before July 31 for the European Commission to evaluate the proposal. Recently, prominent figures from the gaming world such as PewDiePie and Gamers Nexus have publicly endorsed the initiative, contributing to a remarkable increase of 200,000 signatures in recent weeks.
It is important to note that the proposal does not require developers to keep servers running indefinitely, but advocates for alternatives that allow games to be “reasonably playable” even after support ceases. The possibility of signing this proposal is open, but it requires an ID, full name, and passing a captcha, emphasizing the community’s need to preserve the integrity of the medium.
What are your reasons for turning on the console? To have a good time, to beat your friends, to get lost in a good story, to improve little by little? Nonsense: in the 90s and early 00s there was a group of people convinced that video games should serve to educate. We could write a doctoral thesis on throwing shells or eating mushrooms to become giants, but these games aimed for us to improve in math, geography, and even sexual health. Because, of course, that’s what we all want to do after school and spending the afternoon with homework: Keep learning!
What are your reasons for turning on the console? To have a good time, to beat your friends, to get lost in a good story, to improve little by little? Nonsense: in the 90s and early 00s, there was a group of people convinced that video games should serve to educate. We could write a doctoral thesis on throwing shells or eating mushrooms to become giants, but these games aimed for us to improve in math, geography, and even sexual health. Because, of course, that’s what we all want to do after school and spending the afternoon with homework: Keep learning! Among all the tangled web of educational games in history, we have taken the trouble to choose the 5 most terrible. Those that make you think “Really, what is the need to learn things?”.
Math Grand Prix
And we start at the beginning, of course, with Atari 2600, which in 1982 launched a thrilling, unique, brutal racing game in which you competed against another player… by correctly answering math questions. Take that! If you fail, the game punishes you with a horrible sound and your car doesn’t move from its spot. If you get it right, the game rewards you with a horrible sound and you advance a little bit. Hilarious, right? Well, wait until you see it in action, because some of its extremely complex calculations are, at least at the beginning, “1+3” or “6+2”. Will you be able to beat this Mario Kart of the absolute mediocrity?
Bronkie the bronchiasaurus
Raya was a Super NES studio that was dedicated, almost exclusively, to making educational video games that are sadly well-known, such as Captain Novolin (to teach children with diabetes about their condition), Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon (which aimed to dissuade children from starting to smoke), or Packy and Marlon (also aimed at children with diabetes). But perhaps none is as strange as Bronkie the bronchiasaurus, aimed at infants with asthma… putting them in the shoes of two dinosaurs who cannot stand the smoke of San Saurian, their city, and must learn to use their inhaler. Good intentions, terrible results.
Catch the sperm
You might be wondering, “Did I read that correctly?” And the answer is yes, of course. In 2011, this mobile and PC game aimed at raising awareness about AIDS featured several characters (represented by sperm) alongside various viruses. Yes, this existed. In fact, there was even a Christmas version where the sperm passed through places decorated with Christmas trees and candles, and they even added a Santa Claus sperm. To play, the player had to shoot condoms with an imaginary gun to catch both the sperm and the viruses. I don’t know if it raised much awareness, but it is quite hilarious.
Mario is Missing
How could we leave behind the educational games of Mario for MS-DOS? Nintendo approved several of them, but the most iconic remains Mario Is Missing, where Luigi took the lead (years before Luigi’s Mansion) and searched for his brother around the globe, because Bowser had turned the Mushroom Kingdom into Earth. In each place Luigi visited, he also had to recover a mythical object from that location (the Mona Lisa in Paris, the Great Sphinx in Egypt, etc.). It tried to be the game that would end Carmen Sandiego, but it ended up being just a simple attempt.
Sonic’s Schoolhouse
And if Mario is there, we can’t leave Sonic aside, of course. In 1996, this PC game was the first in a series of educational titles… And the last one, because, although they were in development, no more ever appeared. In Sonic’s Schoolhouse, the mechanics of -mind you- Doom were revived, but in this case set in a classroom and with educational intentions: players could learn math, writing, and spelling. There was even a space for recess with minigames that resembled, to a minimal extent, what the blue hedgehog usually does! “Minimally,” indeed, is the correct word.
In reality, and although it is hard for us to believe it now, Where’s Wally? started as a simple plagiarism of another book series, Busy Places, by Philippe Dupasquier, a collection of images filled with people where something is always happening, but which did not have a playful component: they were large murals to admire. However, Martin Handford, in 1986, had a different idea: to introduce, within these images, a recognizable character that had to be found by the readers. The following year, the first book of the series was published, and it was such a success that from […]
In reality, and although it is hard for us to believe now, Where’s Wally? started as a simple plagiarism of another book series, Busy Places, by Philippe Dupasquier, a collection of images filled with people where something is always happening, but which did not have a playful component: they were large murals to admire. However, Martin Handford, in 1986, had a different idea: to introduce, within these images, a recognizable character that had to be found by the readers. The following year, the first book of the series was published, and it was such a success that from that moment on he dedicated his life to the character, in a way, obviously, very lucrative. Will he find Wally now among his bills?
Where is the pixel?
Success, especially in the late 80s and early 90s, inevitably leads to its conversion into a franchise. Where’s Wally? ended up having seven main books (the last one in 2009), several activity and educational books, a magazine, a comic strip, two animated series – in the first one, from 1991, the screen would pause for a minute in each episode so that the viewer could find the character – cereal boxes, and even a mini-game on Google Maps. A proper Wally-mania.
But a whole generation remembers Wally for his first video game, which appeared in 1991 for NES and whose gameplay was, well, just like that of the book: an image, in this case overwhelmingly pixelated, in which you have to find the time traveler in question across 8 levels. The smoothness of Handford’s stroke became pure pixel here and finding him became a task as arduous as it was boring, almost like doing homework. Moreover, the book was cheaper than the cartridge, so… what was the reason to buy this?
In the 8 levels, you control a magnifying glass that must be placed right above Wally to consider that you have found him and move on to the next level. There isn’t much more to it, except that in the higher difficulty levels Wally changes his outfit color to make it even harder to find him. Additionally, there were a couple of minor minigames. As you can see, it wasn’t much, but the curious thing is that behind this triviality was none other than Bethesda. Specifically, its programmers were Paul Coletta and Randy Linden, key figures in the history of video games who started their days rendering a pixelated image.
Where is the quality?
The critics ruthlessly tore apart Where’s Wally?, for obvious reasons. Beyond the fact that, indeed, Wally always appeared in a different place, thus providing variety and allowing the game to remain fresh, the graphics were dreadful, the gameplay nonexistent, and many wondered what the need was to adapt something so, at first glance, unadaptable. However, the game cost very little, made much more, and, logically, they began to plan its inevitable sequel.
In 1992, a year later, and already far from Bethesda, Where’s Wally? The Fantastic Journey was released, based on the third book of the saga, in which the player had to search for Wally, his dog, and various objects throughout the image across just five levels. In addition to NES, the game was released for Super Nintendo and Genesis, which significantly improved the clarity of the image. The idea was still a mess, but somehow, in 2009, a remake was made taking advantage of the capabilities of Wii, DS, and mobile phones.
Curiously, after this, Where’s Wally? has not returned to consoles in Europe (although it has in Japan), and on PC and mobile, it has only had a few titles that are either educational or simplistic. For now, the only thing that is clear is that Martin Handford, at 68 years old, doesn’t have to work another day in his life after selling his brand 15 years ago for two and a half million pounds. With that money in his pocket, anyone would start looking for Wally again!
The publishing director of Yogcast Games, Simon Byron, has emphasized that planning with small and realistic expectations is essential for success in the competitive world of video games. In a recent interview with GamesRadar+, Byron explained that his team usually anticipates sales of between 100,000 and 120,000 units over a couple of years, a figure that is considered achievable both for them and for the associated studios. Despite these conservative projections, Byron admits that he has never been able to accurately forecast the sales of a game. The way to ensure that games […]
The publishing director of Yogcast Games, Simon Byron, has emphasized that planning with small and realistic expectations is essential for success in the competitive world of video games. In a recent interview with GamesRadar+, Byron explained that his team usually anticipates sales of between 100,000 and 120,000 units over a couple of years, a figure that is considered achievable both for them and for the associated studios. Despite these conservative projections, Byron admits that he has never been able to accurately forecast the sales of a game.
The way to get games to sell: don’t get carried away
A notable example of unexpected success was PlateUp, a restaurant management game that exceeded all expectations by selling 200,000 copies in its first month. This figure contrasts dramatically with the initial projection of 100,000 units over two years. Byron expressed his surprise at this phenomenon, indicating that such results, while a cause for celebration, also create pressure on future projections, given that some titles fail to meet their goals.
On the other hand, Byron emphasizes the importance of creating and strengthening player communities to achieve the expected sales. The growth in these communities is essential, especially when considering the number of active players on platforms like Steam. “With the number of people currently playing, it should be feasible to achieve those sales targets for a publisher of our size,” he added.
As the video game industry continues to evolve, Byron’s realistic planning strategy could serve as a model for other independent publishers looking to navigate this complex and ever-changing landscape.
Siempre ha habido una relación estrecha entre la literatura y los videojuegos. Y no deberíamos sorprendernos. Muchos libros son excelentes videojuegos. Algo que se demuestra con el puerto que tendremos este mismo mes de I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, de Harlan Ellison. Pero por cada obra que es explícita y muy… Continúa leyendo “”
There has always been a close relationship between literature and video games. And it should not surprise us. Many books make for excellent video games. Something that is demonstrated by the port we will have this month of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, by Harlan Ellison. But for every work that is explicit and obviously a literary adaptation, there are several that are not. And today we want to talk to you about that. About five video games that, despite being quite well-known, you might not have realized are based on novels. And in fact, all of them are quite famous novels.
We start by cheating a little because it is true that this is the most well-known case. Although it is not in the name, it is evident that the inspiration for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. saga is Roadside Picnic by the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. This does not mean that many people are not caught by surprise: some believe that its main source of inspiration is only Stalker, the excellent film by Andrei Tarkovsky. Which also shamelessly draws from Roadside Picnic.
But what do video games and books have in common? Essentially, everything. In both, there is an exclusion zone where strange phenomena exist, men and women enter to obtain treasures and strange mutations between fantasy and science fiction that those who venture into it must deal with. Even in the existence of a mysterious object that will grant a wish to whoever manages to reach it. Because, in the Slavic countries, Roadside Picnic is a novel that had an impact that we can only begin to sense beyond its borders.
Empire of the Ants
If it were its version from the 2000s, it probably wouldn’t ring a bell. Since it received a new version on November 7, 2024, you may have at least heard of Empire of the Ants. A real-time strategy game from Microïds, with small elements of adventure and platforming, where we must lead a community of red ants. Only this time, we will personify a particular ant. Ant #103,683.
This peculiarity is due to the fact that it is an adaptation of a science fiction novel of the same name by the writer Bernard Werber. Translated into Spanish as The Ants, it was originally published in 1991 and would expand into a whole trilogy where two stories occur in parallel: a man moves into his entomologist uncle’s house and a colony of ants lives its life in an ant-city. Until both stories intersect in a way that is only possible in a science fiction story.
Maid of Sker
Among the most interesting horror games of recent years is Maid of Sker. A survival horror heavily inspired by Outlast and Silent Hill that had a very intriguing setting: a cursed hotel from the late 19th century. But what’s interesting is that Wales Interactive, the studio, didn’t have to make anything up. Because Sker House exists in reality. And it inspired a famous three-volume novel.
The Maid of Sker is a novel written by R. D. Blackmore in 1872 that, if you have played Maid of Sker, you already know broadly what the novel is about. Because the study closely followed what Blackmore narrated, bringing it to the present and demonstrating that sometimes, all you need to make a great horror game is a 19th-century novel.
The Chaos Engine
Pocos nombres inspiran tanta admiración como The Bitmap Brothers. Creando algunos de los mejores juegos de Amiga de la historia, son considerados los mayores visionarios en la historia de los videojuegos europeos. Si no a nivel mundial. Entre sus juegos más celebrados se encuentra The Chaos Engine, un excelente run-and-gun que sigue siendo un deleite jugar hoy en día, especialmente en su versión original de Amiga, que aprovechamos para destacar.
But the interesting thing is that although it is not an explicit adaptation, it is indeed very inspired by a novel. Its entire story and aesthetic are based on the novel The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, an absolutely wonderful novel that is considered the foundation upon which the bases of steampunk would be established. Although it would not be an explicit adaptation, it would serve as such a strong inspiration that it is hard not to see the relationship. And how could The Chaos Engine exist without it.
Parasite Eve
In light of the success of Resident Evil and Final Fantasy, Square decided to create something that could combine both universes. The result was an excellent game that combined survival horror, turn-based combat, and a very elaborate narrative with Parasite Eve. A game that would go on to have two sequels and that to this day is one of the franchises that, apparently, will never have a third sequel. Not because of how Square Enix focuses on other kinds of projects.
What many people don’t know is that it’s not even an adaptation of a novel. It’s a sequel to a novel. With exactly the same name. Tremendously confusing as this is, it doesn’t make the game any less playable on its own, but it does make it more interesting if you’ve read the novel. Which you won’t be able to do in Spanish, as it has only been translated into English. But to be fair, Parasite Eve also never came out in Europe, so it’s not surprising.
I think I can defend in a TED talk why the ending of Super Mario Bros is genuinely one of the best endings in video game history: it brings the plot to a close, leaves no doubts or cliffhangers, and is simple yet satisfying. However, over the years, it has not been so common to feel completely satisfied after spending dozens of hours just to see a more or less inspired cutscene. Are you ready to remember some of the most frustrating gaming moments of your life? Let’s review the 7 worst endings ever made. 6-New Super […]
I believe I can defend in a TED talk why the ending of Super Mario Bros is genuinely one of the best endings in video game history: it brings the plot to a close, leaves no doubts or cliffhangers, and is simple yet satisfying. However, over the years, it has not been so common to feel completely satisfied after spending dozens of hours just to see a more or less inspired cutscene. Are you ready to remember some of the most frustrating gaming moments of your life? Let’s review the 7 worst endings ever made.
You might be thinking “Wait a minute, how can you say that Super Mario Bros is a perfect ending and New Super Mario Bros Wii one of the worst? How does that work?” Well, there’s an explanation: try playing with Luigi. For a moment, put yourself in the shoes of Luigi. And the thing is, when you complete the game with the green-clad brother and reach the end, defeating Bowser and saving Princess Peach, who shows up to join her in a hot air balloon and return to the Mushroom Kingdom? Exactly: Mario. Luigi is left on the ground watching them drift away, with a smile on his face that conveys genuine sadness, loneliness, and pain. Nintendo, don’t do this to those of us who always choose the poor loser Luigi.
5-El Testigo
Once you have solved as many puzzles as you can, up to a total of 650, The Witness comes to its end. And what could be the ending of such an abstract game? Well, upon reaching the mountain in the center, we see a first-person video set in the real world where Jonathan Blow, the creator of the game, gets out of bed, walks through an office filled with computers where you can see in the background maps, puzzles from the game, a bottle filled with what looks like urine, a Christmas tree… We see him go to the bathroom, sit on a bench and… Well, that’s it. Fortunately, there are several more endings, but if you reach this one without knowing, you will probably be left wondering if the water you are drinking has, unknowingly, psychotropic substances.
4-Jurassic Park (SNES)
The game is decent, and also a great insight into what could be done back then with Super Nintendo in a very short development time, but after several hours of gameplay, it seems that Ocean Software forgot that they had to provide a conclusion in some way. What did they come up with at the last minute? To repeat the same animation from the beginning of the game, where the helicopter descended to the ground… but in reverse. And then, the phrase “Congratulations, you have escaped from Jurassic Park“. As you came, you leave. That’s it, there’s nothing more to see here.
3-Mass Effect 3
For three games of Mass Effect, we were promised that our decisions mattered. That they would have a brutal importance in the end of the saga, beyond who we would end up with. However, when the moment of the final choice arrived, it didn’t matter at all: three versions of the same ending, where everything was somewhat the same. Is this what we invested hundreds of hours for, so that no one has a minimal difference in their final cinematic and, moreover, leaves several plot holes open? Later on, Bioware tried to fix it, and more or less succeeded, but it opened a very significant wound in the hearts of the fans that has not yet healed.
2-Dragon’s Lair (NES)
Transitioning from the incredible arcade game with stunning graphics, almost taken from a cartoon movie, to the NES pixel feels almost like a suicide mission. In the original game, the final screen is amazing: you escape from a dragon, get the magic sword, recover the key, and rescue your beloved. Extremely difficult but spectacular, especially for the time. Even now, there is no other game like Dragon’s Lair. However, on NES, everything was, let’s say, more… shabby. On a crude 2D screen, you faced a dragon, threw several swords at it, and at the end, a mere image popped up with the text “Congratulations! Our hero has triumphed! Daphne has been saved from the evil domains of Singe. Perhaps you can live happily ever after?”. Perhaps not.
1-Ghost’n’goblins
Okay, yes, you might be losing your mind, but let me explain: Ghost’n’Goblins is one of the hardest video games in history. Defeating the enemies, beating the final boss, and completing all its levels is a mission that very few are destined to achieve. And yet, when you reach the end and defeat Satan, you discover that it’s a trap and you have to start over from the beginning, but this time at a higher level. You will only find the real ending by completing the adventure again. If you’ve ever wondered why you’ve never seen this ending I’m talking about, there’s a reason: almost no one has managed to even reach the false one, let alone the real one!
