Crappy Ending

K

Kyrios

Guest
What's up with the ending in Half-Life 2?

You have this awesome, intense game and I spend all this time beating it [without cheating for once =] to find out that the ending sucks.

I felt cheated... kinda like with the ending of the third Matrix movie. LOL

I beat the game on easy... Is that the only ending or are there other ending's based on the difficulty level?

I never played the first Half-Life, was the ending on that one as lame as this one?

They might as well have gone with the "...and then you fell out of bed and woke up" ending.

Other then that the game rocks, I'm still glad I purchased it.

:cheers:
 
I loved the ending. It really sets the mood for HL3
 
The ending in half lífe 1 is really good i think!!! You should try it!!!
The is not that bad you just have to understand!
 
Too bad you feel that way. I thought it rocked, and a "and they lived happily ever after" ending, or even some sort of conclusion would have sucked and felt cheap. This way you feel that you've accomplished a lot throughout the game, but as soon as the G-Man starts talking you feel this is only the beginning of something much bigger.
 
Look here, the ending was fine, and yes the ending of the first was similar. I dont get where u lot come from with the ending sucks thing, what exactly do you want for a non sucking ending?

Maybe gordon freeman saves the world, you see a big party, he marries alyx and gets laid, the combine go home with their tail between their legs, we learn the history of the g-man, everyone lives happily ever after.

An ending is just a way to stop the game, the one we are given is actually rather spectacular considering you can still interact with it and it leaves it open for the third game. Really, if we were just spoon fed everything at the end you would complain anyway because it didnt end how you wanted it to. What game or movie didnt have an ending that sucked, cause im hearing more and more about crappy endings...
 
My thoughts exactly PvtRyan ....
I can understand it will confuse those who have not seen the original / played HL2 like it was Doom / have no time for actual thought process ... but HL2 is not the type of game where the story is literally thrown in your face.
 
*HL1 SPOILER*

the ending to hl2 is similar to the hl1 ending, in the sense that you get a lecture from the g-man and it finishes open-ended, waiting for the next game.
 
I loved the ending. One of the best endings in any game.
 
[SARCASM]Yes I too hate non-cliched and original endings.[/SARCASM]

But seriously though, I thought that was a great ending. I've explained many times before, but I really loved how the ending came out of nowhere. And you get the talk from the G-man.

I liked the way they did the "boss", better than the usual huge acid belching monster or the mad doctor in his huge armour suit (although, Breen is kind of a mad doctor).
They have a couple of gunships, which are hand enough on their own, and a few combine troops to slow you up (and throw about). Lucky you've got those reactor energy balls, but they're harder to use than guided rpgs. Super gravity gun as your sole weapon at the end, I love that weapon. What is there to complain about.
 
I don't know what I expected at the end but I figured there would at least be something I could sit there and watch for a minute or two.

I agree with most of the replies here that the big boss and the "happily ever after" endings suck as well.

As a newbee to Half-Life I thought the ending seemed like kind of a cop-out.
 
I liked the HL ending... The end of Op-for was better however, especially the sequence. I enjoyed the HL2 one, but I think it that is what it lacked -an actual sequence at the end. You are in nothingness, I feel you should have been in a train coach like the begining, just like the others.
 
I loved the ending..

Although I do wish it had been slightly longer, or perhaps revealed more of the story. But still, I liked it :) I can't wait for HL3 now
 
There ya go [Leagle], more of a sequence would have been nice.

I will be anxiously waiting HL3 as well... =]
 
PvtRyan said:
Too bad you feel that way. I thought it rocked, and a "and they lived happily ever after" ending, or even some sort of conclusion would have sucked and felt cheap. This way you feel that you've accomplished a lot throughout the game, but as soon as the G-Man starts talking you feel this is only the beginning of something much bigger.
Click to expand...

I can't see how you can say a conclusion would feel more cheap than the lack of a conclusion, where you could make the argument that the writer was just lazy. Although I'm not trying to make that point, you have to admit it was damned anti-climatic. It's like watching Helm's Deep in Two Towers, and have it cut out the last part of the battle. You know that there's more to come, like you pointed out, but it just pisses people off to hang them off the edge of the cliff like that, having them wait for the next game for any sort of explanation or conclusion.
 
well, the ending of HL2 is damn cool. it puts more mystery in the game w/c I really like.
 
The ending is very dramatic, as is the last battle, but I have to say that Unreal 2's was better. No happy ending there! It had you in denial for the whole of the last level.
 
KagePrototype said:
I can't see how you can say a conclusion would feel more cheap than the lack of a conclusion, where you could make the argument that the writer was just lazy. Although I'm not trying to make that point, you have to admit it was damned anti-climatic. It's like watching Helm's Deep in Two Towers, and have it cut out the last part of the battle. You know that there's more to come, like you pointed out, but it just pisses people off to hang them off the edge of the cliff like that, having them wait for the next game for any sort of explanation or conclusion.
Click to expand...

If you can manage to create an ending where everyone thinks 'WHAT WILL HAPPEN?!' then you've created a good ending. You've obviously done something good if you can keep the people on the edge of their seat, and any retard could spill out the entire story at the end. Would you really have wanted to know what happens with City 17 next? Or if Breen really bit the bullet? Alyx blown to pieces? Sure, if it would have been a simple black fade out at the end, I would have agreed with you, but now there's this scene with the G-Man. It all adds to the mystery.
 
Kyrios said:
There ya go [Leagle], more of a sequence would have been nice.

I will be anxiously waiting HL3 as well... =]
Click to expand...
Well Halflife 2's ending has done its job then.
 
PvtRyan said:
If you can manage to create an ending where everyone thinks 'WHAT WILL HAPPEN?!' then you've created a good ending. You've obviously done something good if you can keep the people on the edge of their seat, and any retard could spill out the entire story at the end. Would you really have wanted to know what happens with City 17 next? Or if Breen really bit the bullet? Alyx blown to pieces? Sure, if it would have been a simple black fade out at the end, I would have agreed with you, but now there's this scene with the G-Man. It all adds to the mystery.
Click to expand...

It's not specifically the lack of exposition that's the problem; the problem was that it was so bloody abrupt and anticlimatic. You can keep the mystery of the Gman and what happens all well intact, while still retaining some sort of conclusive event. To have to trawl through this huge, epic game, and just get cut off from any sort of climax, feels like a slap in the face rather than a reward. The events leading up to the ending were great, don't get me wrong. But it's like the two towers example. Watching Helm's Deep part way through, and just as it's about to get to the climax, the film ends. We knew the story would not end with this movie, but the film still needed to end comfortably. I felt like I was watching an episode of 24, the difference here being that, with 24 I knew I'd get something the next week.
 
Leagle said:
The ending is very dramatic, as is the last battle, but I have to say that Unreal 2's was better. No happy ending there! It had you in denial for the whole of the last level.
Click to expand...

I LOVED the ending to that game. Floating away in a recovery capsule (a la Aliens, etc) listening to the final message from your (now deceased) crew was so DAMN good. It really brought the rest of the game home to me. I admit that the rest of the game was NOT up to the ending, and I was like WFT?!?!? Did the bring in a decent writer just for the last chapters or what? I think that people dissed that game because you had to interact with the characters on your ship so much (boring talking instead of shooting stuff I guess), but it made the ending so much more effective because you have built up empathy for them. I kept hoping until the last that they were not gone, but would pop up somewhere with holes in the ship, but otherwise OK -- not to be tho.
Sorry for the spoiler tags, but if anyone reading has not played Unreal 2, I do not want to wreck the great ending.

I agree -- I think that game got a bad rap -- If you did not play until the END of the game (even up to the final level) you did not get the real punch to the head at the end. It takes guts to make an ending that is good, but does not do what the player/view expects of you. That is why I loved HL2's ending -- It was quite possibly the MOST abrupt, LEAST expected ending of any I have ever seen. But that is more realistic in my opinion.... The G-man obviously feels free to control Gordon as he wants, and the ending was the perfect way to show just how MUCH control he has -- he can (and does) derail you right at the moment of your greatest triumph.... And takes you away from Alyx, the resistance, and all you have worked so hard for. I think this was meant to build resentment of the G-man, and it makes me wonder if we will see Gordon pull something over on the G-man in HL3!
 
Did anyone else notice the far tower falling on top of you at the end?
 
this is where I get off, and I'm just gonna leave you here in the middle of nowhere. bye
 
MajorPayne said:
I LOVED the ending to that game. Floating away in a recovery capsule (a la Aliens, etc) listening to the final message from your (now deceased) crew was so DAMN good. It really brought the rest of the game home to me. I admit that the rest of the game was NOT up to the ending, and I was like WFT?!?!? Did the bring in a decent writer just for the last chapters or what? I think that people dissed that game because you had to interact with the characters on your ship so much (boring talking instead of shooting stuff I guess), but it made the ending so much more effective because you have built up empathy for them. I kept hoping until the last that they were not gone, but would pop up somewhere with holes in the ship, but otherwise OK -- not to be tho.
Sorry for the spoiler tags, but if anyone reading has not played Unreal 2, I do not want to wreck the great ending.

I agree -- I think that game got a bad rap -- If you did not play until the END of the game (even up to the final level) you did not get the real punch to the head at the end. It takes guts to make an ending that is good, but does not do what the player/view expects of you. That is why I loved HL2's ending -- It was quite possibly the MOST abrupt, LEAST expected ending of any I have ever seen. But that is more realistic in my opinion.... The G-man obviously feels free to control Gordon as he wants, and the ending was the perfect way to show just how MUCH control he has -- he can (and does) derail you right at the moment of your greatest triumph.... And takes you away from Alyx, the resistance, and all you have worked so hard for. I think this was meant to build resentment of the G-man, and it makes me wonder if we will see Gordon pull something over on the G-man in HL3!
Click to expand...
Gordon says to the G-Man: YOU STOLE ALYX, YOUR GONNA DIE!

one second later: there is a crowbar in G-Mans head.
 
I really liked it, came totally out of the blue (I was getting ready to battle my way out of the building) and it was cool (time slowing down to a stop)
 
I liked the final G-man speech.. when SUDDENLY all stops and you suddenly hear 'TIME, mr freeman..is it really that time again'.

I DO think that there should have been more like a finall boss or something.. but I don't think that would be possible at the top of the citadel..

The end was a great final speech to the greatest game next to Half-life 1 and Mafia :)
 
I loved it and I thought it would have been cool to be in a tram like the beginning too, but,then again, maybe that would be a tad redundant. But anyway, come to think of it, you probably can appreciate the ending more if you have played Half-Life 1.
 
Although, how could you possibly survive that explosion? I wasn't pissed at the G-Man, I was like, "Woah, you're the frikin bomb, you freak!"
 
it was not as good as the ending of the original hl.
but it was still very good and extremely well suited to its ending circumstances.

the only thing i dont like about the ending is the way g-man seems to freeze time, but it actually being a slow teleport or something.

this impression misleads some of the newer fans of the game.

i liked the quick blast teleport at end of original hl.
 
play it on hard man the ending is different
 
Okay, dude, what's the point of saying that? Everyone knows it's untrue.
 
Because what you have seen isn't the end (it's the beginning of the end.)
 
I don't know what everyone is complaining about. Sure, the ending could have explained a bit more, but the ending's presentation was just plain awesome. Now, if that was the ending to HL3, then that would be a valid point. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
 
Yes, the execution was brilliant, both for HL2 and Unreal2. That was what made them both so great, the shock (which for me at least in Unreal lasted the entire end level) and the fact that you are left feeling exactly like the character you play. With Gordon it is "! ...!" and with xyz (it has been a while, I'll play it again tomorrow now) it was " ...". Hehe. ;)

Where they differ is that in Unreal 2, all is revealed, wheras HL cuts out of the story back to limbo. The endings are completely different, but they both snatched me up completely. I really felt the urgent need right at the end of HL2 to escape, while in Unreal2 once I found out what was going on I felt like a pawn of Palpatine ("Give iiINnn to yourr angaaarrrr!") then the frantic escape and then all of a sudden you don't need to do anything at all anymore... except perhaps suffer from complete mental breakdown, lol.
 
I loved the ending, I just wanted the ending cinematics to be.... longer :upstare:

I mean it was great, it got me in the right mood and made me really feel like Gordon Freeman for a little bit. But I wish it had been just a little bit longer.
 
it would have been more satisfying if half life 3 would have been released sooner. I am talking from the future in past tense. or something like that
 
You will notice with game endings these days they have all been really lame. Developers don't take pride in a game ending. This is a very common trend for some reason. Don't really know why?

If I was a developer I would go against the trend and create a really awesome ending. Something you can be proud of. Even if they showed alyx get killed and g-man explains why gordon is still alive and explain alot more why he is on contract.

Maybe Valve like to leave things open for all posibilities but a happy or sad ending, doesn't matter to me at all, should be more detailed and longer imho.
 
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