RGV Double-Tap: Final Boss Battles Part 1

By Creasy37

When did it become okay or chic to have the computer finish the game you just dropped $60.00 on for you? The last three games that I’ve reviewed for RGV have all had the computer take over and finish off the bad guy for me. In a freaking cut-scene of all things.

In Modern Warfare 2, I spent hours going through the game and became a killing machine, laying waste to enemies and civilians alike. IW gives me the throwing knife on the end level (as well as in the MP -one hit kill for the win), and, at the end of the game, I couldn’t possibly be trusted, after all I’ve played through, to line up my throw and pull the right trigger to unleash my shiny twirling blade of instant doom!

In Army of Two, I’m a Private Military Contractor betrayed by his friends, employers, and country, and have more money and heavy weaponry than the proud nation of Djibouti, yet, when the game is finished, the designers felt the need to have the computer take over and finish off the mastermind behind it all for me? Piss off! Army of Two: The 40th Day did virtually the same thing. Only they added one hint of a wrinkle to the whole thing, that managed to be somehow more patronizing to me.

Then, the worst happened, and it was then I realized I needed to start the call against the raging “here let me polish this off for you, puny human” machine. Two weeks ago, at the end of Splinter Cell Conviction, much like at the end of Army of Two: The 40th Day, I was given a choice whether or not to Execute or Spare the big, bad guy, and I felt giddy, not patronized, that I got to “press a button to win game.”

That’s not okay! But we, as gamers, have allowed this to continually happen, by sitting around like complacent little monkeys! Maybe it’s because of my ever-advancing age, but I remember a glorious time when I actually had to make it through a difficult end boss to see the end cut-scene. Stepping into the way back machine, does anybody but me remember the satisfaction of beating Mike Tyson at the end of Punch-Out? Or more recently, defeating Wesker at the end of Resident Evil 5? Granted, beating him wasn’t the most difficult thing to do ever, but the battle was epic, and lasted over multiple levels. Beginning with you fighting for the life of your partner Jill Valentine, then aboard this psychotic demi-god's escape craft, and then finally on the precipice of an active volcano! I started that fight with plenty of ammo, and ended up having to defeat Wesker with a knife strike to his cold (yet glowing orange) heart. Yet Wesker lives and it isn’t until you force-feed him an RPG that Wesker is finally, finally, defeated. That is how you end a game before the final cut-scene.

Am I really in the minority here? Are final boss-battles really out and did game developers and designers figure this out long before I did? I just find it hard to believe that we’ve grown so complacent as a gamer society that we’ve stopped caring that the difficulty curve of a game has flat-lined, making the final level of a game no more difficult than the tutorial level! Why is it that we’ve allowed these changes to take place and have convinced ourselves, somehow, that it’s okay to not have to devote a modicum of effort to actually completing a six to eight hour-long video game, and a final boss? Do we really want to keep playing games where the computer takes over and finishes the ga-

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F*ck me.