In the third edition of James' new column, he looks at how games suffer from meagre endings.

Like almost every other Xbox owner across the globe, I bought Halo 2 two months ago. I bought my copy on November 9^th, 2004. I completed the game on November 12^th. It took me three days, on Normal difficulty, to complete the game I’d been anticipating for three months. From the drawn out opening sequence to the hugely irritating anti-climax, I played through the whole of Halo 2 within around ten hours. I tried to play through again on Heroic, but I gave up half-way through. What was the point? I knew what was coming. I knew which enemies lay where, what weapons they’d be carrying, what to expect. I knew all the plot twists. And I didn’t want to remember the bitter disappointment I felt when I completed the final level.

Halo 2 is a brilliant game, don’t get me wrong. I loved some of the terrific battles - fighting my way through, hacking up all those Covenant warriors with my Energy Sword (the most inspired addition to Halo 2 by far), picking off the winged Drones with a Carbine, hijacking Ghosts and Banshees. I hated some sections, such as the Library and other sections where I was forced to play as the Arbiter. But something kept me going, besides my psychotic tendencies, the exhilaration of using the Sword and the maniacal bloodlust (even if that blood was blue). What kept be going was the plot, the storyline. It made me want to keep playing, because it tricked me into believing that I would accomplish something at the end, that I would understand more about the world of Halo, that I would save humanity from the grip of the Covenant and the Flood. It made me believe that I was playing, no, fighting for something.

How wrong I was.

I found out what I was fighting for at the very end. Not a glorious ending sequence where humanity is safe and all the Halos have been deactivated. Instead, we’re left asking more questions than when we started, as well as anger at what I would rank as one of the worst endings I’ve ever seen in a videogame. Without spoiling it, the ending sequence feels like it was cut in half. As the credits rolled, all I could do was stare blankly at the screen. What the flaming hell was that? All my hard work, all the hours I spent playing this game were completely wasted. All the sections I had struggled on, all the armies of foes that I had defeated had been for nothing. The storyline is very well told and convinced me to keep playing through. The narrative of Halo 2 is undeniably excellent. But therein lies the question – what’s the bloody point of telling the story well if the story is a complete anti-climax? It would be like watching the Matrix, only to have Neo shot in the head in the middle of one of the action sequences and the film ending there. Why make us believe that we’re playing for something when in the end we’ve accomplished nothing? We’re left worse off than we started, and we have to wait until the inevitable Halo 3 is released to find out if we actually did make a bleeding difference. Well, that’s one way of ensuring sales.

In this modern world where huge, sprawling game worlds can be created, with huge detail, believable characters and an involving storyline, it pains me to say that Halo 2 is completely gutting to finish. It has all of those things, but the game ends horribly. Completing games should be a time for joy, not frustration. It’s the downside of good narratives – they involve you so much into the game that having an ending like that in Halo 2 is akin to having your testicles wrenched off with a pair of garden shears. The lesson for today, then? Don’t get too comfortable when playing games – don’t travel too far down the rabbit hole, don’t immerse yourself in a world where you’ll be forced to leave feeling frustrated and angry. Becoming too involved in a game is like becoming too involved with a woman – do so, and you’ll only have yourself to blame when it all ends badly. By all means enjoy your games, but if you become too immersed in the game world, be prepared for the consequences. And watch out for garden shears.  

James Hamilton