Spoilers just killed three games for me. I know the OP was just writing what he wants but seriously :/

I just realized how thankful I am that GOG shows the last post/page first and not the OP now.

Dude, put a warning in your first post for this thread for those who have not played Unreal 2 and Fallout 3 etc.

Yes, they can get away with bad endings. Some, like The Walking Dead, which had me crying like a wee baby, even get applauded for it.

Endings I *really* don't like are blatant sequel bait endings. Especially when a sequel never gets made, ugh...

I think the big problem is Writing and really it's wide spread. Video Game Writing tends to be on the weak side, and most games just want to be escapism and having a sad ending in an escapist fantasy is out of place. You can't kill the Hero because mortality is something we want to escape from, you can't have the Hero not get the girl because Failure is something to Escape from.

Having a Sad Ending in just doesn't work or is much harder to work and most games can't have sad ending work since they don't want to or fail to effect Emotions other than Fun. They don't want to delve into things like Grief, Sorrow, Anger (well other than shallow killing Rage Ala God of War.), Loss and pretty much anything else that isn't fun. Sadly this makes Happy endings the only endings that work well and then there's the lack of Show not tell.

God I have to say if there's anything wrong with Game Writing it's unable to Show not Tell and even the "Greats" can't do this, I'm looking at Obsidian, their Writing is Tell Tell TELL! And really a lot of Gaming is, in some ways I think we haven't figured out how to work it with the changed in Technology. What worked for Torment because it was Text will not work when it's voice acted, being the text could convey a mental image to the reader, when it's Voice acted by the character it becomes the character Telling you it, and you just can't have an emotional hit that makes a sad ending good. A noble Sacrifice means as much as "You save the World, You get the Girl."

A good ending Happy or Sad needs to be earned but it's really Rare and I can only think of a few that get it right. Dust: an Elysian Tail, Final Fantasy 6 (not a sad ending but a wonderful one that used Show not tell even with limited 16 bit technology.) and Bioshock Infinite (even though there was a lot of exposition they did show a lot of stuff and the most important moment was shown and not told). And sadly that list is woefully short.

Why not? A fitting conclusion to the story of taxi driver who got involved with world of thugs and butchers.

*looks at SiN Episodes* :( I really liked the one game they were able to release, too. Why won't MumboJumbo have to buy Ritual Entertainment? How about letting them make the other two games? ARGH!

Nope. Gangsters don't go to heaven. In life and in death

Whoever wrote that was a bastard who hates me.

I don't mind bad endings too much, even if it's unjustified. "So you made an effort building your character to be the most ultimate bad-ass in the entire planet: now watch us kill him in this last cutscene! Muahahaa!" Nope, not that big of a deal to me. I'll just shrug it off as lazy writing and move on with my life. At least the game ended.

Cliffhanger endings however...that's a different story. I rage every time I see one. Not only is that sloppy writing imo, but it's also an obvious cry to get people to buy the next installment as well. Sometimes the next installment will be on a different platform (example: Halo series). Sometimes the next installment will never arrive (I'm looking at you, Condemned! Five years have I waited for #3, but there hasn't been even a single word about the next installment!) Games that end on a cliffhanger can go suck my hairy, wrinkly balls. Even if the game was thoroughly awesome until the end and worthy of a 100/100 score: if it ends on a cliffhanger, that's immediately at least -30 points on my rating scale.

depends on the circumstance.

as long as the game is good (Exception, Mass Effect 3), the ending won't matter too much to me.

.....Though if the ending is lied about in the advertisements, THEN it shouldn't get away with it.