The Games With No Ending

You know what really grinds my gears? When you’re playing an epic adventure game, to the tune of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Psychonauts, then after you put so much time and effort into completing and finally defeating the final boss you realize there is no further inclination that you did complete the game. It is the bane of the game with no ending, and it has been an unfortunate thorn in my side as an adventure gamer and aspiring game designer. Video games are, in their essence, lacking much of a physical reward for completing them. You don’t get a certificate or trophy once you emerge from the final dungeon and topple the final boss, only the surge of self-satisfaction that all the hours you have selflessly poured into this environment have come down to this final accomplishment. The game should at least give some kind of in game sign that you have finished all that could be, however in my experience some of the most rewarding games have ended in mild disappointment with their lack of this type of acknowledgement. WARNING: There may be some spoilers ahead, so proceed if you dare.

The first game I recognized this trend in was one of the first I ever played. Paper Mario always will have a special place in my heart for two reasons; it was an initial compliment to the surprise gift of a Nintendo 64 from my parents those many Christmases ago, and it was one of the many games I never completed the first time through, only to return to it years later and dispatch it with not much effort. I was held back for many years from the fulfillment of defeating 2D Bowser because of that blasted endless passage in his castle, but once I embarrassingly figured out the pattern I finally defeated the Koopa King with all that pent up rage from years of frustration. Alas, my accomplishment will never be realized by anyone other than myself, for once I returned to the title screen in order to check my status, there was no mark of my achievement anywhere to be found.

The game Psychonauts gave me the next and likely the most frustrating experience in this category. An adventure game at its core, this underrated gem from Double Fine also incorporated the collect-a-thon theme that I loved so much about gaming. I figured, once I did complete the game the fun wouldn’t end, for I would be able to return to the quirky environments afterwards and finish collecting all the extra things that needed collecting, like figments and scavenger hunt items and giant floating eyeballs. However it appears that it was not meant to be, as to my dismay when trying to return to the game after defeating the chilling final boss (or bosses, depending on how you look at it), I not only was placed back in the final area before the boss, I was given no route to return to all the past levels in order to finish collecting everything. And I was sad.

Recently I finally got around to playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and even wrote a review on one of the most widely debated game levels of all time, and was horrified to find that a game that was so close to perfect in every other regard of its design included this never-ending game trend. Being in the depths of my college life, I returned to and reluctantly abandoned the game over a few years, but after my graduation I forced myself to finally finish and realize the full extent of this amazing game, and defeated Ganon. Yet there it was again, the exclusion of any display of my hard journey to this final accomplishment. I actually sat and stared at the final scene of the game (which, I might add, wasn’t too bad seeing, as it was profoundly moving) to no avail. With no end in sight, I jumped up in frustration and slammed the power button down on the N64, never to return to the game again. Well, unless I want to replay it at some point. Which I probably will. But still. NEVER AGAIN.

Last but not least of the games I can recall using this despicable design flaw, the yet again underrated Baten Kaitos had unique gameplay combining turn-based strategy gameplay with the utilization of customizable card decks. I’ll admit that of all the games on this list, the never ending aspect was not its most jarring weakness, but adding it on top of the others certainly didn’t make the game any better. It was a unique and risky attempt, which is commendable in a present day where many game companies lean towards the easy path towards development (*cough* Call of Duty *cough*), yet it still, like the other games in this article, left a bad taste in my mouth when the completion of the very difficult final boss battle will never be realized within the game in any way.

The most frustrating thing about these games with no ending is I just don’t understand why game developers decide to leave out such a seemingly easy aspect of the game. Why not in Psychonauts just retexture Raz’s clothing to look like the turtle neck and terrible hairdo he gains at the end of the game, and allow the player to travel through all the levels again to collect the rest of the items? Why not just show some sort of mark or seal in the game that clearly shows that the player has completed it, like Raz’s clothing change or just as simply as a star next to the save file? I’m not asking for a completely new section of the game, something the designers after years of development might not have the energy to add just to appease my ridiculous demands; I just want some small sign of closure in a medium that naturally doesn’t have one other than personal satisfaction.

Some games do it right, and prove even further that ending the game in the way I desire is probably one of the simplest parts of the design process. Banjo-Kazooie is one example, adding on to the endless list of reasons why it is and always shall be my favorite game. Initially, when starting the game from system shut down, no matter how far you have advanced Banjo always begins at the entrance to Grunty’s lair. This isn’t even too much of a hindrance, as her lair works as sort of a base area connecting all of the other levels, and has portals placed throughout it to transverse to the further regions of the environment. Once the player has defeated Grunty, the game goes through all of the ending procedures, returns the character to the title screen, and when beginning your game again, Banjo appears at the entrance of the lair. Now, there really isn’t a showing of the game’s completion, but the way the game is designed allows the player to explore previous parts of the game after completion, and isn’t confined to the final area with any flexibility like in Paper Mario and Baten Kaitos. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is another game does apply the display I describe, in the way that I explained before with a star next to the save file, showing that the player has completed the game and allowing for further gameplay even after the final boss was slain.

In conclusion, many of the games that I have experienced this flaw in are games that I hold dear to my heart, and it’s more depressing than frustrating that such masterpieces end in such a way. Now most modern day games do not end in such a way, or their design doesn’t allow for any kind of ending in this manner, however I still see some crop up here and there and it puzzles me to no end. There must have been some reason for the designers to allow their games to end this way, if anything just pure laziness towards the end of development, but every time I come across it the value of both the overall game and the time I put into their creation is lessened, and I wonder why they do not want me to have some kind of compensation for all my effort. I just want some closure dammit.

Donnie Darko Review: Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn

I finally decided to watch the cult hit Donnie Darko as I was perusing the new releases on Hulu Plus one night, after years of intentionally avoiding it for no clear reason. One of my good friends always quoted it and seemed amazed at the fact that I had not yet seen the movie, urging that it was one that I would enjoy. But alas, I fell into another ridiculous period of avoidance of a friend’s recommendation, and after finally giving in realized that I did indeed appreciate this film. This conclusion wasn’t reached easily, however, as the movie started off with a slow moving, bland, and confusing plotline headlined by some of my least favored actors. Though after reaching the excellent ending and pondering the overall meaning of Donnie Darko for a night, I was able to put aside my initial misgivings and notch the film as one that I thoroughly enjoyed and left me with exciting thoughts of psychology and fate.

At the beginning of the movie we see the unconscious protagonist Donnie Darko sprawled out in the middle of some mountainside road and awake in a daze to ride back to his suburban home. Here we meet his family, which is headlined by Donnie himself played by Jake Gyllenhaal and his sister Elizabeth, played by his real life sister Maggie Gyllenhaal. Here I must mention that I am not a fan of the Gyllenhaal acting family, and Donnie Darko didn’t much change my perceptions of them, with Jake channeling aloofness and confused facial expressions and Maggie bringing her usual smugness and annoying bitchiness to the table. If anything Jake Gyllenhaal probably fits best in Donnie’s role with his unappealing acting prowess, and I did find myself connecting to his character and the stress of loneliness he feels throughout the film.

Donnie is a troubled character, and we find out early on that he is seeing a psychiatrist because of his troubled past and is given some kind of medication. However this medication seems to be working in almost an opposing way to his psychological problems, for when we first see him take the pills we encounter his first vision of the recognizable bunny man named Frank. With his unsettling mask and echoing, almost gloomy voice, Frank warns Donnie of the upcoming “end of the world” and delivers cryptic messages of time travel and future events. During Donnie’s first vision, he is led from his home to wake up confused in the middle of a golf course, only to find out that in the night an inexplicable airplane engine crashed into his house that would have killed him if he had been in his room.

Over the course of Donnie Darko we are led through the twenty-eight days between Donnie’s initial vision and Frank’s predicted date of the end of the world, which follows Donnie and the effects some of his actions have on the citizens of Middlesex, his hometown. More visions ensue, one showing Donnie chopping at a water mane with an axe, which leads to the actual flooding of his private school. While Donnie appeared to have gotten away with it, this initiates a few different events to come into action: Donnie meets his love interest, Gretchen Ross, has one of his teacher’s (played with similar aloofness by Drew Barrymore) coursework scrutinized, as the book she assigns has an event eerily similar plotline to what happens at the school, and initiates a visit to the school by the local motivational speaker, Jim Cunningham.

At the same time we observe Donnie trying to sort out the visions and messages Frank keeps sending him and battle with his inner turmoil and fear of loneliness. One of the odd parts of the movie is how Donnie is increasingly becoming more withdrawn and sporadic because of his psychological breakdown, yet the people around him seem strangely oblivious to it. His parents ignore his pattern of “sleepwalking” and increasing misconduct in school, and his new girlfriend Gretchen also seems unfazed by his delinquency and periods of detachment. In fact, after he initially asks her out we don’t see them interact again for some time, and then we are just thrown back into their relationship as if nothing was amiss. In addition, he shows visible signs of his breakdown in front of her, but she doesn’t seem worried by it at all, even to the extent of accepting his quirks. It is hard to find attachment with any of these supporting characters if they are going to be stupidly ignorant of these obvious examples of destructiveness in our protagonist.

Donnie also forms some kind of a connection with a senile member of the community, nicknamed Grandmother Death, during his search for information about Frank’s messages and visions, realizing that she used to teach at his school and published a book on the philosophy of time travel. She also, in the only physical interaction between the two of them, instructs Donnie with the grim advice that “every living creature on Earth dies alone”. This connection opens up a lot of potential interesting plotlines; however it also is not developed at all after the initial conversation. Yes, she wrote a book that eerily explains some of the things Donnie has been seeing, and the overall theme of time travel hinges on his reading of her book, however it goes no further to advance the plotline, even creating a sequence that leads to some of the tragedy in Donnie’s life where he inexplicitly brings his friends to her house one night, only to run into a situation that leads to the death of Gretchen and the real world Frank, whom Donnie shoots.

Overall the plot of Donnie Darko has various holes and odd dead ends, and some of the events can be quite confusing up until the fantastic ending. Donnie drives off with the lifeless body of Gretchen as Frank’s countdown comes to a close, and he watches a wormhole form in the sky, engulfing an airplane with his mother and younger sister aboard, tearing it apart and sending one of the engines back in time. As we follow the engines journey, we return back to the scene where it crashes into Donnie’s house, but this time he is in his room. He smiles and laughs as the engine explodes through his roof and kills him. The movie ends with his body being taken away, surrounded by grieving family members, and Gretchen rides up to see what the commotion is about. When a local boy tells her of what happened and asks if she knew Donnie, we are left with the eerily delivered response of “No”, as she stares at his mother with a look of confused recognition in her face.

After the ending of Donnie Darko, I laid in my bed, contemplating the outcome of Donnie’s sacrifice. A troubled youth that seemed to be a burden to his loved ones and himself, Donnie seemed happy only once in the film, when he was facing his death. Thinking back to the sequence of events that happened when he initially avoided death, I realized that those around him largely benefited from his untimely (or is it timely?) demise. At least four people would live, more directly Gretchen and Frank, and indirectly his mother and sister, who wouldn’t have been on that plane if Donnie hadn’t burnt down Jim Cunningham’s house, revealing him as a child pornographer and leads the woman who would have taken the trip to stay in Middlesex to plead Jim’s innocence. He would have never flooded the school, eliminating the need to reassess his teacher’s coursework that eventually led to her getting fired. It’s less obvious, but he convinced his older sister to throw a party at their house after she was accepted to Harvard, and the next morning before he travels back in time we see cop cars pulling up to their house, which could have meant trouble for his sister.

Was it Donnie’s fate to die that day, crushed by an airplane engine? Was he purposely given visions and interactions to lead him to accept his fate, in order to benefit his loved ones? The ending of Donnie Darko brings up many questions in my mind on the ideas of fate and personal sacrifice. Donnie was largely troubled throughout most of the movie, even though he had good friends, a loving family, and a girlfriend that connected with him. Once he realized that his visions of Frank were preparing him to make this sacrifice, Donnie finally exhibits happiness. It’s chilling to think of how anyone might react to this type of encounter. Would we all be able to selflessly make a similar sacrifice after we are shown how much good it creates, as Donnie was able to? I mean, there was still some evil left in the world; without Donnie, Jim Cunningham wouldn’t have been revealed as a pedophile and the school thugs that ambush them at Grandmother Death’s house, leading to Gretchen’s death, still live unpunished. It’s hard to contemplate if I could make such a sacrifice myself, a “superhero” without recognition, a sacrifice unheralded, a living creature that despite my best efforts, still would die alone. But, as in Donnie’s case, not unloved.

One final note, and in relation to the title of my review, I was pleasantly surprised by a scene in Donnie Darko where Donnie is describing a section of the Graham Greene story about a group of boys who vandalize and destroy an elder man’s house, but do not rob him, even though they find a large amount of money in a mattress. He explains that “…the fact that they burn the money is ironic. They just want to see what happens when they tear the world apart. They want to change things.” This immediately reminded me of the quote from one of my favorite movies, The Dark Knight, where Alfred explains how “some men just want to watch the world burn”, in relation to the terrorisms of the Joker. This connection made me like Donnie Darko that much more, and I would like to think that it is a sort of shout out by Christopher Nolan in his film and that he used this movie as inspiration for his own.

Legend of Korra Quarterly Review

Reviewing the new Avatar series, “The Legend of Korra”, will probably be one of the hardest reviews I have written or will write, simply because of the high place the original series holds in my heart. “The Last Airbender” is in the top three of my favorite television series, and I find it so close to perfect that any extension of that series would be doomed to being held in lower regard in my eyes. Especially since this new series takes place seventy years after the final episodes of the original, eliminating most of the characters I had grown to love and introducing a whole slew of new ones. In addition, the series seems to be based mostly if not entirely in a new area created exclusively for it; a more technologically advanced Republic City, where all benders can supposedly live in harmony. I have to admit that I was more than a little wary coming into my viewing of “The Legend of Korra”, but I still had hope in the excellent writers and creators of Avatar, and hopefully can put aside my bias and come to love this new series.

I have decided to split my reviews of “The Legend of Korra” into four installments, one for a half of each of the two “books”, or seasons planned for it. Just a warning, this review, and the three to follow it, are not just focused on my opinions of this series, but more on how well it continues the excellence of the first one. The first thing that came to my mind when I began watching was how extremely fast the watchers are thrown into the new plotline of Korra, our new Avatar, needing to learn airbending, travelling to Republic City, and facing the new nemeses of the Avatar universe, the Equalists. I understand that there is less than half the number of episodes planned for this series as there was for the original, but I still felt a little rushed during the first few episodes. However, I was calmed slightly by the small instances of charm injected into the episodes just like the original series had, and found myself laughing out loud multiple times during Korra’s initial adventures. I just met this new Avatar and Republic City environment, and they are forcing me to like them too soon, however I couldn’t help but find a small place in my heart for them to temporarily reside thanks to the dialogue and events observed early on.

The fast movement of the plotlines introduces the main antagonist, the mysterious Equalist leader Amon, near the end of the first episode, and Korra and her new friends, the bending brothers Mako and Bolin, encounter him and his minions soon after that. This is where I realized that “The Legend of Korra” might be more serious in tone than the first series. In a show set mainly in a terrible war and around a character that had his entire people and culture exterminated, “The Last Airbender” was still able to hold a tone of merriment throughout most of the episodes. However, we quickly come across the frightening ability of Amon to take bending away permanently (an excellent continuation of the highly debated “energy-bending” used in the final episode of the previous series), and Korra’s helplessness in her initial confrontation with him. Aang didn’t fully face the danger awaiting him until at least the end of the second season, and we see our new Avatar confront it in the fourth episode, and come out defeated. I found this a lot more chilling than many of the instances of danger I observed in the original series.

In addition to the serious nature of the antagonists, I find that we are going to be denied in this series one of the more brilliant aspects of “The Last Airbender”; the development of the enemies in the show. Amon and his minions are very mysterious, and the one henchman who we have seen multiple times doesn’t even have a name. What was so great about Zuko and Azula was that we loved to hate them. They were given extensive air time and were able to develop over time, if in opposite directions. I fear that with the always masked Amon and the lack of introduction of any other main antagonists, “The Legend of Korra” is going to be missing a key element that made the original series so amazing. I hope that they can introduce another enemy later that we can watch develop the same way we watched Zuko battle with his destiny and Azula with her sanity.

One of the elements of this series I do really enjoy is the aspect of discrimination arising between benders and non-benders. The main goal of the Equalist movement is to equalize the difference in power the two types of people face, and where in the previous series we mainly saw benders (minus the fire-benders of course) as good people. However in this series we see all types of benders (minus air-bending, which is still confined to Aang’s descendants) in mob-like organizations bullying the non-benders with their powers. On the other side, we never saw this kind of hatred in non-benders in “The Last Airbender”, where most of those we met were happy to assist Aang in his journey to stop the Fire Nation. But now, especially in an environment so confined as Republic City, we see how these powers can create a rift between the two types of people. This also ties in with Korra’s internal struggle. I like how they refrained from making the hardest element for her to learn the opposite one on the spectrum (fire-bending), but the one most unlike her personality. She has completely ignored the spiritual side of being the Avatar, and air-bending being the most spiritual of the elements adds an extra difficulty element.

That being said, we are a quarter way through “The Legend of Korra” and have not seen Korra delve into the spirit side. There has been no travel to the spirit world, no communication with her past lives, and no inclination at all of the Avatar state. I’m sure the spiritual aspect of Avatar will come into play soon, however in this technological world the lack of spirituality in general is a little unnerving. Korra’s knowledge of the spiritual side of bending seems to be very important in closing the rift between benders and non-benders, yet in the first half of the first season she hasn’t even touched it in her training. I have no doubt the interactions between Aang and Korra will be amazing, and I want to see it implemented as soon as possible.

This leads to one of the main reasons I am having trouble developing an unbiased opinion about this series; the lack of tie in with the previous one. I can understand that the creators don’t want to lean too heavily on the previous series, and make “The Legend of Korra” stand alone as much as possible, but I find myself paying more attention to the brief flashes of my beloved Toph than the rest of the present day episode. They have covered some of the connections, almost immediately with an excellent reference to the Zuko’s mother plotline that fans desperately wanted to see, only to be interrupted comically by one of Tenzin’s, Korra’s airbending teacher, children. We are also quickly introduced to an elder Katara early on as well, however there is no mention of any other of the characters except for Sokka (who is dead) and Toph, through her daughter (and she’s probably dead too *sob*). I want my connections to “The Last Airbender”, and while I do enjoy the small quips such as Flameo noodles, the Agni-Kai Triad, and Cabbage Corp (not my Cabbage Corp!), I feel I can’t completely appreciate this series without more prominent communication between it and the original series. It seems that allowing Korra to interact with her past lives and enter the spirit world would initiate this connection I desire, and I hope they do it soon to sooth my itch.

However, on its own “The Legend of Korra” still has its own original elements that work well. In this new world of Republic City, it’s nature vs. technology, a concept originated in the first series with the more technologically advanced fire nation but delved more in depth as how it levels out the distribution of power between the two types of people. In a world that is more like present day society than the vast natural environments seen in “The Last Airbender”, this series can introduce and develop through some newer concepts. One of the more valuable lessons learned in the original series is how not all fire benders are evil, and that moral is flip-flopped a little in this series, where we now learn not all benders are good (and the complete elimination of the fire-benders are evil” notion, seen most prominently with Mako). Like I mentioned before, the mob-like community uses their powers to discriminate against non-benders, and it’s understandable why some would want to fight back. In addition, we see an aspect of city politics we wouldn’t have seen in the previous series, where the council, while there to protect the citizens of Republic City, still have their own, less than honest plans.

Overall “The Legend of Korra” has set the stage for a solid series, however not enough has happened in the first six episodes covered in this review to completely dispel my concern. We are thrown almost immediately into this new storyline, however afterwards there was still little advancement in the overall bender vs. Equalist plotline, as well as Korra’s battle with air-bending and the spiritual side of being the Avatar. In a series that doesn’t have the luxury of the scope of episodes “The Last Airbender” had to develop both the protagonists and antagonists, it would be nice to see some of the familiar journeys into being the Avatar and protecting the world that Aang experienced, and soon. It’s hard for me to develop an unbiased opinion about this new series, and while I want to love it as much as the previous one, and it still has the same charm and elements that should appease my desire for past series connections. “The Legend of Korra” will never live up to the high standard I hold “The Last Airbender” in my heart, yet frankly, I don’t see anything wrong with that.