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IT WAS GREAT UNTIL THAT BITCH OF A LAST BOSS

Have you ever asked someone about a game and their answer is something along the lines of “It was great but the last boss was a bitch of a last boss?” A similar question on a popular videogaming forums led me to consider games where the last bit coloured their overall enjoyment of the game. The more I thought about it, the more I realised there were multiple games where I liked it apart from the last encounter. Sometimes it made me hate the game an other times, it was juts one of those things where the worst bit happened to be the last bit. Here’s my list.

FAR CRY: INSTINCTS. This was the original Xbox version of Far Cry. Its not really a port, more of a re imagining of the PC version. I had both versions and found the Xbox game that much more fun to play, so much so that I tried to finish it. Then suddenly the last boss ramped up the difficulty on a game that wasn’t particularly easy to begin with. I tried for about an hour and a half to beat him and just when it looked as though I was finally going to beat him, he got stuck on some terrain and wasn’t responding to my shots. After wasting an hour or so trying to beat this prick I gave up. I mostly enjoyed the game, but I remembered that bastard with a hate-filled heart.

KILLZONE 2. I mostly liked this game. I won’t say loved but it was mostly very good, just not very innovative or varied. I enjoyed playing it even though it felt a little familiar. But then I got to the final encounter. I won’t describe it too much except its one of those instances where the game decides to pull the rug out from underneath you and be a puck-ass bitch. It ignores everything its taught you to date, then pads out the encounter with cheating AI and general bullshit. I find it hard to not have my overall experience coloured by this encounter and its the single biggest reason why I’d never play KZ2 again.

GEARS OF WAR: The encounter on the train was fairly brutal for me (and I played Gears 1 on Casual mode). It went on and on and the Krill kept killing me or the boss kept owning me faster than a Mexican jumping been who’s really gotta go. I managed to find the right weapon and beat the bastard but… blimey!

BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL: One of Ubisoft’s alltime great games, this short and rather sweet Zelda cum sneaking game decides to have a difficulty spike that looks like Mt Everest after an injection of growth hormones. It wasn’t just hard, it was bitchingly hard. On Mohs scale its just above Corundum.

UNCHARTED: Still one of the best PS3 games, its also got an insanely hard final encounter. You will cuss, you will throw your controller around like a petulant child and you will swear bloody revenge on Naughty Dog.

GRAND THEFT AUTO III: As its the only GTA game I’ve even gotten to the end of, I can’t say whether subsequent games were any better but, Jesus, this one was a doozie.

METAL GEAR SOLID 2/ 4 (tie) For some odd reason, when I played through MGS2 originally, I don’t remember the last boss being particularly hard, but when I replayed it, I was sweating bullets trying to beat this. MGS4 is different. It makes you fighth a boss with a completely new combat system. And its hard. But that’s not thie bad bit. Then you have to watch OVER AN HOUR of cutscenes.

What about you?