The snark wasn't enough?

I mean, I dunno. "Oh, sure he PROBABLY got MARRIED and HAD KIDS and HAD A FULL LIFE but JESUS CHRIST HOW FUCKING BORING THAT LIFE WAS AND HIS USELESS EMISSIONS OF SPERMY DNA (THAT WERE ALL PROBABLY PLANNED TOO, HOW BORING) WENT ON TO BE JUST AS DULL, CONTENT WITH PLAYING ON THE SIDEWALK" would have made me feel rotten enough to hit 'reset.'

Or Far Cry 3.

Oh god Far Cry 3's choice of endings.

"You COULD go home to your rich, privileged, white boy lifestyle in the states and have a life and family and future, but wouldn't you rather stay here with me, a batshit insane preistess junkie and warlord who raped you and kidnapped you friends? You could be a drugged out warrior and get shot at by pirates in a south asian shithole for the remainer of your life!"

The lack of a "kill the stupid woman myself" option was disappointing.

No the sane ending would have been "kill absolutely everyone then shoot yourself in the fucking head" although I would have even settled for just "shoot yourself in the fucking head".

For the record, if you choose to stay with her she kills you. The message was that she was just using you as a tool. This went over a lot of people's heads as almost nobody took that ending.

According to the guy that wrote the plot, this was satire. It did not work the way he wanted it to work.

I mean, I guess it's satire in the way that the death scene that resulted from trying to use a prostitute to beat the first Leisure Suit Larry without using a condom first was satire. a neat easter egg of a goof, sure, but seriously, its not like it was some radically blithe sociopolitical commentary -- it was just another one-dimensional character out to murder you, like pretty much everything else in the game.

the idea was that staying with Citra was supposed to play on your colonialist/"rescue the princess" impulses? But like, you could've just as easily stayed at the island because you've been viciously murdering people for days now, and returning to society with the friends that have seen you at full Throatslit McMurderman probably won't look at you quite the same way again. or because, if you actually took this alleged "anti-colonialist satire" to heart, you decided that your home country was pretty thoroughly contemptible, and not exactly something worth getting back to as soon as possible.

It's the sort of weak "I BET YOU DIDNT EVEN REALLY FINISH IT" argument poor storytellers use all the time, because they're forcing a very specific reading of their text without actually doing the grunt work of leading people into that mindset organically, then blaming the reader for not getting it on their own.

it's kinda funny, because that's such an immensely entitled way of viewing how audiences are troglodytic for not magically tuning into the author's original intent, that it may very well be the sharpest piece of satire against colonialism and white privilege that the game has to offer.

Agreed. All of this. The article I read also mentions parts where his explanations contradict each other, so it's likely he was making some of it up as he went along.

Triggerbaby: Speaking for the drugged out warriors who get shot at in third-world shitholes, it's really not so bad. Rather exciting, actually, and the pay is decent (better than the goddamn Army, anyway) and the drugs can be really good.

Also, there's a bit near the end where the main villain makes you one of those "join me and together we can rule the galaxy as etc" offers. You can actually accept, at which point the game ends, presumably with Mario becoming the ultimate force for evil in the world.

The Suikoden series, if I recall, has a few moments where you can fuck things up as well.

Suikoden 2 - there is an alternate path you can take 2/3 into the game where it is possible to relinquish your duties as leader.

Suikoden 4 - relatively early in the game, you can choose to remain on a stranded island. But that's all you do from that point on... collecting coconuts and shit and listening to a giant pussy and your boring friends who have nothing particularly interesting to talk about. But it's complete with goofy portraits.

Suikoden 5 - there are multiple opportunities to either lose a battle, or make a bad choice that ends in your death or permanently comatose state.

The Suikoden 2 alternate ending is really incredible. It's a full-blown story arc that comes out of nowhere, and ended up being the most depressing experience I've ever had playing a game. It literally ruined my day. Suikoden has plenty of false choices, but that's one instance where they totally rebuke your cynicism and call your bluff completely.

At the end of the old beat 'em up Streets of Rage the final boss asks you to join him as his right-hand man, and saying yes gets you the evil "bad" ending. If it's two player and you give different answers, you have to fight each other.

Magic Sword had the villain giving you that offer at the end after you beat him. If you accept he basically said "sucker!" and you died. It was a really cruel prank to play on a kid who probably spent in quarters to get there.

I don't know if this counts since it's not technically an ending, but my favorite was in Portal 2, where you escape one of Wheatley's traps and he tries convincing you to come back and throw yourself in the pit anyway.

It's frankly unseemly

If you said yes, the Dragonlord said something like "Now it is time to sleep!", your gold went to 0 and the game just freezes.

The game doesn't totally freeze - the evil sort of music continues, after all. Also all the text goes red, like your character is dead.

I tried to fight the Dragonlord without Erdrick's Sword. The battle just goes on and on until you die. I felt like that was kind of a bitchass move on the game's part, especially since the sword was so damned hard to find. The end castle has all those neverending mazes going on and you can run out of MP just casting RADIANCE.

It's funny how the Sega master system failed as badly as it did when you compare some of the games: Phantasy Star vs Dragon Warrior, Missile Attack vs Duck Hunt.