MGS V would be a GOAT... if not for the final act.
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00:00Designing a game that's a genuinely fun and thrilling experience from start to finish
00:04is much tougher than it looks, because when a game clocks in at 10, 20, or even 30 plus
00:09hours, there is a lot of room for players to start losing interest.
00:14And while developers will typically kick off their games with an exciting set piece to
00:18catch the player's attention, it is fair to say that a lot of games fall down hard
00:22when it comes to the climax.
00:24So with that in mind, I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Awesome Video Games That
00:29Fail In The Third Act.
00:3110.
00:32Uncharted 2 Among Thieves
00:34For its majority, Uncharted 2 Among Thieves marked a significant step up in terms of both
00:38cinematic production values and gameplay quality compared to its more uneven predecessor.
00:44But you won't find many who harbour much love for the game's final third, at which
00:48point the gunplay, already by far the worst aspect of the entire series, becomes seriously
00:54demoralising.
00:55The monotonous abundance of gunfights are less fun than a genuine task to force yourself
01:00through, while more dynamic cinematic set pieces end up taking a backseat.
01:05And once you reach the game's last area, the fabled land of Shambhala, you have to
01:10contend with the deeply obnoxious final boss battle against an antagonistic bullet sponge,
01:15as well as supernatural regular enemies that are much more frustrating than awe-inspiring.
01:199.
01:20Alien Isolation
01:23Much as those who wish to wring every last second out of their games in the pursuit of
01:26value might scoff at the idea of any game being too long, Alien Isolation is a textbook
01:32example of a game that suffers from spectacle fatigue.
01:36Given that the bulk of the game is a claustrophobic cat-and-mouse chase between protagonist Amanda
01:40Ripley and the Xenomorph, it feels like a concept best suited to a shorter playtime
01:45of say, around 6 hours, maybe 8 at a push.
01:49But a first playthrough of Alien Isolation can easily run double that, and during those
01:54final 3 or 4 hours, it is a game that becomes exhaustingly padded and overcrowded with set
02:00pieces.
02:01From fending off those annoying androids, to contending with more Xenomorphs amid a
02:06series of increasingly outlandish set pieces, it goes from feeling like Ridley Scott's
02:10original film to a sequel directed by Michael Bay.
02:14There's always something else the player needs to do in order to press forward, and
02:18the result is a game where less would have certainly been much more.
02:22Developers Creative Assembly clearly wanted to leave players exhausted by the game's
02:27end, but probably not to the point that continuing forward felt like a genuine grind.
02:328.
02:33Fahrenheit
02:34Okay, name a more iconic duo than Quantic Dream and video games that completely crap
02:39the bed in the final stretch.
02:42And yet, they've never made more of a dog's dinner of it than in their first interactive
02:46drama game, 2005's Fahrenheit.
02:49Though flawed, Fahrenheit did have a frankly incredible foundation, telling a supernatural
02:55murder mystery across a sprawlingly cinematic David Lynch-inspired canvas, while shifting
03:00the perspective between three main characters.
03:03The game opens with protagonist Lucas Caine becoming possessed and brutally murdering
03:08a man in a diner, and for the next 5 or so hours, Fahrenheit remains a consistently fascinating,
03:14if increasingly bonkers ride.
03:17But that promise falls off almost entirely in the final couple of hours, when Lucas is
03:21swiftly transformed into a Neo-esque superhero who acrobatically battles his foes with an
03:27inexplicable aptitude.
03:29Yet its worst offence lies in forcing a painfully unearned romance between Lucas and Carla Valenti,
03:35the cop investigating him which sees them shag and declare their love for each other
03:40in record time, enough so that the only response is to gut-laugh at the silliness of it all.
03:46As it turns out, Fahrenheit's final third was originally much longer, but due to time
03:51constraints it had to be cut short, resulting in this car crash of a final reel.
03:567.
03:57Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor
03:59Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor is a mostly excellent game built around its groundbreaking
04:04nemesis system, whereby the Uruk hierarchy will react to its encounters with you across
04:09the game.
04:10So Uruk's who defeat you will be promoted through the ranks, while those who survive
04:14fighting you will remember the prior clash and even show scars of that battle.
04:20But Shadow of Mordor's finale regrettably saw the developers deliver what they seemingly
04:24thought they had to do, which is a duo of nothing-burger boss fights that few players
04:30had much interest in.
04:32You defeat the first of Sauron's two remaining captains by stealth-draining his health and
04:37then stabbing him to death in a cutscene QTE, and as for the other captain, the Black
04:41Hand, he cuts his own throat as part of a ritual, allowing Sauron to possess him directly.
04:47Yet just as fans get their hopes up for an awesome final duel with Sauron's physical
04:52form, it turns out to be nothing more than a series of more QTEs, which wrap the fight
04:57up in all of a hot minute.
04:596.
05:00Shenmue II
05:01Shenmue II is in many aspects a mesmerising RPG that majorly improves upon the already
05:07brilliant original, but damn if those final two or so hours aren't just a total slog.
05:13The final act of the game sees protagonist Ryo in pursuit of his father's killer, Landi,
05:18at which point the game transitions into a painfully protracted QTE fest with limited
05:22actual gameplay.
05:24Now the Shenmue series' pacing is sedate at the best of times, but this truly tested
05:29the patience of even die-hard fans.
05:31Though some defend the section as serenely atmospheric, it is, with its overabundance
05:36of QTEs and relentless chit-chat, not to mention a total lack of combat, a stamina-draining
05:42chore to get through.
05:44This more sedate, on-rails chapter just couldn't compare to the more bustling gameplay throughout
05:48the game prior.
05:50And the fact that it built up to an agonising cliffhanger, one which wasn't really dealt
05:54with in the long-awaited third game either no less, just made it all the more deflating.
05:595.
06:00Crysis
06:01The original Crysis was, quite understandably, marketed on the appeal of using a nanosuit
06:06to navigate a large sandbox-style environment, in order to either sneak past or eliminate
06:11enemy combatants.
06:13And the first two thirds of the game are very much focused on putting paid to this idea.
06:18But in the final two hours or so of the game, there is a major shift into a more linear,
06:23less interesting style of gameplay.
06:26Because once you reach an alien structure, you're forced through an irritating zero-gravity
06:30section and even when you get back into the wide world, progression becomes linear.
06:35While the previously creative combat is replaced with dull engagements against alien creatures.
06:41And that's before getting into the concluding boss fights, which are more tedious slogs
06:45that feel like they belong in other, less compelling games entirely.
06:49The wide-open jungle combat is so ludicrously entertaining that ripping players away from
06:54it, and for so long no less, was a major creative miscalculation.
06:59As such, you couldn't really blame players if they just turned the game off after reaching
07:03the alien core on repeat playthroughs.
07:054.
07:06Halo 2
07:07Halo 2 is, in many ways, a major step up from Bungie's iconic original FPS.
07:13Offering up an incredible ahead-of-its-time multiplayer suite and campaign, which daringly
07:18saw players swap between controlling Master Chief and the Covenant Arbiter.
07:23Halo 2 also sets up a number of tantalising threads early on, the majority of which are
07:28still tragically left up in the air by the game's end, given that it ends abruptly
07:33with a closing cutscene in which Master Chief promises to finish the fight next time.
07:39Considering that the game's final mission, The Great Journey, feels like less of a finale
07:43than an excruciating ramp-up to the actual one, fans were left majorly pissed off that
07:48Halo 2's campaign basically lacked the promised conclusion.
07:52It was later revealed that Bungie was railroaded into delivering the game for a set-in-stone
07:57November 2004 release date, forcing them to scrap an intended finale in which the Master
08:02Chief and the Arbiter teamed up on Earth to battle the Prophets.
08:06And that sure does sound like a much better ending that we just didn't get.
08:113.
08:13If you thought Alien Isolation was bad in outstaying its welcome by a couple of hours,
08:17it's got nothing on cult classic action-adventure game Okami, which will take most players at
08:23least 30 hours to beat.
08:25Now there is a reason for that, as Okami is effectively three games worth of story smushed
08:30into one package, and while you might be tempted to lord Capcom for basically selling three
08:35games for one price, the third act sure is a patience tester.
08:41Just when it all feels like it's wrapping up, it continues to keep going.
08:46The final section, the Ark of Yamato, culminates in an exhausting boss rush of all the major
08:51previous bosses, and comes at the end of several you're-definitely-at-the-end-now fakeouts,
08:57and as such concludes the game on a majorly bum note.
09:00Now Okami is a wonderful title in so many respects, but also one that's tough to wholeheartedly
09:07recommend to new players because it's so grotesquely saggy and bloated.
09:12By the time it's over, you'll probably wonder what else you could have done with
09:14your time during those interminable final hours.
09:182.
09:19Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain
09:21The great agony of Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain is that it doesn't really have
09:25a proper third act at all, thus ensuring it's basically the most disappointing 9 out of
09:3110 game ever made.
09:33Due to the title being released before Hideo Kojima was actually finished with it, The
09:37Phantom Pain ends rather abruptly, as after defeating Metal Gear Slytherpus, Eli aka a
09:43young liquid snake, disappears out of dodge with machine and that's basically all she
09:49wrote.
09:50No real conclusion bar a last minute twist.
09:53Now a third chapter containing an additional mission in which Snake battles Eli on a remote
09:59island was cut due to time constraints, ensuring that despite the series' penchant for bombastically
10:05excessive finales, this one felt bizarrely cut.
10:09And that's without getting into the fact that players had to go through a measure of
10:12busy work to unlock the so-called real secret ending, which reveals that you weren't in
10:17fact playing as Big Boss at all, but instead an implausibly conceived doppelganger.
10:22The twist is dropped without much context, ensuring it massively divided the fanbase
10:26and left many angry that Konami didn't allow Kojima to deliver his full version of
10:32the final Metal Gear.
10:341.
10:35Dragon Age 2
10:36Dragon Age 2 gets a lot of justified scorn for its confined setting and shameless asset
10:41reuse, but on its own merits the core gameplay, writing and characters absolutely do live
10:47up to the quality of the original.
10:49It's a shame then that the game's third act was a haphazard rush job, compared to the
10:54more considered and delicately unspooled two that preceded it.
10:58There are few games where a looming deadline is more palpably felt within the game itself,
11:03as the final third not only races through the remaining story, but the quests more blatantly
11:08recycle dungeons and NPCs, while being egregiously littered with bugs for added irritation.
11:15Furthermore, the game's big climactic choice, choosing to either side with the mages or
11:19the templars, doesn't much affect the outcome, ensuring the possible variations throughout
11:24the journey all end up feeling quite pointless.
11:28And for all the flak Bioware still catches for Mass Effect 3, they arguably screwed the
11:32pooch much harder in Dragon Age 2 the year prior, albeit due to frankly ridiculous deadlines
11:39that were placed upon them.
11:40So that's our list, I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below.
11:44Were you as disappointed with these third acts as I was, and are there any other disappointing
11:48ones that I missed off here?
11:50Let me know, and while you're down there if you could please give us a like, share,
11:52subscribe and head over to WhatCultureGaming for more lists and news like this every single
11:57day.
11:58Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see
12:01you soon.