Guinness World Records Ranks Top 50 Videogame Endings

[Ammon Ra]

Just goes to show that Guinness cannot do polls properly. Having TWO mp-oriented COD games in the top 4 is just...What the heck man...what are you smoking?!

list has been trolled. HARD.

pre-step 1) get the people incharge of the poll to go out there and play the games so you know if someone is trolling you with super mario bros, or MW2. Or oblivion. No, oblivion did not have an ending, not to mention a good one. It had an extended tutorial that resulted in closing all the oblivion gates, denying you access to expensive oblivion-realm alchemy ingredients.

step 1) remove games that have any multiplayer aspect at all. or give them half-votes for not being sp.
step 2) remove sandbox open-ended games, like oblivion, skyrim, etc.
step 3) remove anything call of duty related.
step 4) split the poll into console/pc lists.
step 5) publicize the poll on frequented gaming sites, and limit voting based on ip, captcha. maybe ask valve to publicize the poll on steam which should net you millions of views and much more votes than you could shake a stick at. Ask sony/microsoft for similar info from their proprietary networks.More votes = fewer troll entries.
step 6) split the poll based on decade, or half a dozen years.
step 7) wait a month or three.
Step 8) fish out any anomalies, or if something slipped in that shouldn't have. like COD.
step 9) double check the lists
step 10) done.

15'000 out of XX million users is not a statistically reliable sample set: AKA: this poll done by Guinness is as worthless as a peso welded to a spork. No, don't believe post-apocalyptic games. sporks aren't useful either and neither is the peso.

[Paladin]

Mark of Kri's ending: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiLzM_9Bl6Y

You won't even get how awesome it is without having played through the game to get there though.

[Starblade]

People are allowed to like things you don't, Ammon.

15'000 out of XX million users is not a statistically reliable sample set

Actually, they'd only need about 1000 for a few million as a sample size.

[Brenil]

No, oblivion did not have an ending, not to mention a good one. It had an extended tutorial that resulted in closing all the oblivion gates, denying you access to expensive oblivion-realm alchemy ingredients.

Obivion had an ending. Just like Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Skyrim have endings. The ending is the conclusion of the main quest. The Elder Scrolls games aren't purely sandbox, they're narrative games set in an open and fully explorable world that is playable even after the game 'ends'. Just because you obviously didn't like the ending (or game, it would seem), doesn't mean it didn't have an ending.

[Starblade]

That's the ending of a single narrative in that game, though. Oblivion has several. Mage's Guild, Fighter's Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, Shivering Isles, Knights of the Nine and a couple others I'm forgetting.

[overmind2000]

step 1) remove games that have any multiplayer aspect at all. or give them half-votes for not being sp.

Wait you realise you just removed nearly every single game made barring adventure type games or puzzle solvers. Asides which how does having or lacking multiplayer have any effect what so ever on the quality of the ending of the single player story mode?

[Starblade]

Half-Life gets half-votes, it's poetic.

[OhJohnNo]

But Half-life would be one of the very few NOT penalised, as its multiplayer was a mod and separate to the game.

Ammon's post does indeed reek of "STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE" syndrome.

[Brenil]

That's the ending of a single narrative in that game, though. Oblivion has several. Mage's Guild, Fighter's Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, Shivering Isles, Knights of the Nine and a couple others I'm forgetting.

It's the primary narrative whereas the rest are subplot narratives to the greater story. The main quest lines for those games were what the game world revolved around and therefore was the 'meat' of the game.

One could argue that the story doesn't end until that Champion in the story is used up, but that wouldn't be unlike other characters that are spawned in sequels to other games, like Master Chief, Mario, or whomever. The Elder Scrolls games have an ending, they just allow you to complete the subplots in any order before or after the 'ending' and allow the story to continue after the conclusion to encourage freedom of exploration and choice.

[Starblade]

But Half-life would be one of the very few NOT penalised, as its multiplayer was a mod and separate to the game.

Isn't that HL2? I can load up HL1 and play multiplayer without any mods at all.

[OhJohnNo]

I was indeed referring to Half-Life 2, sorry (though I was under the impression Half-Life 1 was the same, at least initially).

[Kronoch]

I'm rather surprised FarmVille isn't on the list. The ending is when you realize that you've wasted countless hours on something that is utterly pointless and alienated every friend you ever had with your ceaseless FarmVille requests. It's awesome!

But seriously, we could always make our own best endings top 5 list or something. Or rather a top 5 endings (gameplay) and a top 5 endings (story). For instance, while I think that PoP Sands of Time had a great ending story wise, the gameplay was terrible. It was one really hard fight against a horde of the strongest enemies followed by the easiest boss battle of the game. On the other end of the scale would be metal gear solid 2 and dragon age 2, two games that both had great final boss battles but had a story that made me go "........whaaaaaaaaat?"

The only games that I know that did both well were portal 1 and 2. A lot of games have really bad endings/endgames.

[Paladin]

Meh, to me "ending" means story ending, and probably a cinematic sequence. If it doesn't have that then it doesn't have an ending afaic. If it were about the gameplay it should be "Best last boss battles" or whatever.

[Rotlung]

Wouldn't games like Fallout, or simply any game with multiple endings, run into difficulty with lists like these?

[Saberdark]

Not necessarily. You could always rate them based on the quality of the multiple endings. Or pick the one ending that was really good and compare it with the endings from other games.

This list is pretty hilarious, though there are a few games that I agree should be on the list. Such as Assassins Creed 2 and...well, mostly just Assassins Creed 2.

[Paladin]

Fallout really only had one ending, with a few variables regarding who lived and died. The quality was pretty even regardless of how you did, so I don't see the difficulty.