EvaUnit02 on 31/8/2009 at 01:07
One really memorable "boss fight" of recent times was Colonel Autumn in Fallout 3. You can either A. kill him with 1-3 shots or B. convince him to leave, where he'll likely get ventilated by Brotherhood gunfire as soon as he steps outside. It stands out in head because it was so anticlimactic.
Anyway, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the Metal Gear Solid series yet. The boss fights are always showcase events in those games. The kicky, punchy brawl with the Cyborg Ninja, the 4th wall breaking gimmick that was required to beat Psycho Mantis, the pistol battle with Olga during Tanker chapter of MGS2, avoiding the fuck out of Fortune's attacks, etc.
I don't miss old school PC FPS bosses at all, TBH. STRAFE AROUND PILLARS, AVOID ROCKET FIRE, PUMP THEM FULL OF AMMO UNTIL THEY'RE DEAD. Console style bosses where they have a series of patterns and flashing Fuck Me weak points were always more interesting.
Boss fights in some modern console games have de-evolved to the point where they're just interactive QTE cutscenes. Force Unleashed comes to mind. I hate these with a passion.
Zygoptera on 31/8/2009 at 01:10
I shouldn't go away to eat lunch while writing, people say what I was going to say...
Best, IMO: The Transcendent One and The Master, as previously mentioned. I also have a soft spot for the somewhat WTF??? aspects of Stalker: SOC's endgame, though it hardly counts as a traditional boss.
Adversaries I really like prior to becoming end bosses almost always end in disappointment- per NV, SHODAN in both System Shocks is perhaps the best example, and I found Irenicus, as an end boss, rather pointless (though excellent as an antagonist throughout the rest of the game fighting him is just a rather more difficult, but otherwise fairly typical, fight). All three are rather... mechanistic ends to otherwise very memorable villains. Still better by far than, say, Bioshock's or Dead Space's where you could both write a ten line script to handle killing the end boss, and the bosses were less memorable in the first place.
Probably best summed up by Wing Commander 4- it was far more satisfying to bring down Tolwyn than to kill the generic (or should that be genetic?) bad guy whose name I cannot even recall five minutes previous, despite one involving combat and the other only a handful of dialogue choices. While dialogue is, practically, as mechanistic as combat in games it feels like it has a whole lot more finesse.
Nameless Voice on 31/8/2009 at 01:14
The cyber demon from Doom springs to mind as a good example of contrast:
The one at the end of Doom's second chapter was a proper end boss fight - he was incredibly tough and powerful, in a proper arena where you had to use your skill to duck behind things and avoid being killed by him.
The one at the end of Doom 3 was just a totally anticlimatic "let's use the silly MacGuffin on him" session, ruined by the fact that none of your favourite guns even work on him.
Of course, I don't think the actual fights themselves were what GBM was talking about, but more about how well-made the villain was, that you wanted to battle and defeat him/her/it at the end.
Enchantermon on 31/8/2009 at 01:23
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
In a way, talking about SHODAN as a great end boss seems a bit strange.
This.
Shodan was way too easy at the end. In fact, TNT brought something to my attention that I never really thought of before: the Many's brain is actually a tougher boss than Shodan (unless you have the Invisibility Psi power), mostly because you have to avoid all the small fries while trying to shoot small, moving targets.
Fontaine failed because at the end of the game you have as much money as you can carry and a health station within close proximity. Again, far too easy.
june gloom on 31/8/2009 at 01:26
Someone gets it.
Aja on 31/8/2009 at 01:29
I'd discuss but why spoil one of the greatest gaming experiences? If you've played it then you know.
CCCToad on 31/8/2009 at 01:46
MGS is hard to beat as far as bossfights go. Each fight gives you not only an interesting fight, but there is usually (especially in the first game) a good reason to make the player want to kill the boss.
I also loved the sonic bosses, as each one had a memorable and different attack pattern. Even some of the 3D bosses were interesting fights that stood out from the rest of the game.
Another game that we are overlooking is No More Heroes, which made its unique and interesting bossfights the main attraction of the game. Most of them were quite amusing, with my personal favorite being the cosplayer.
I also nominate Descent's bosses, foremost among them homunculus
Inline Image:
http://www.resonant.org/games/descent/D3walk104.jpgSubJeff on 31/8/2009 at 02:02
Heavenly Sword's end boss.
Spoilers.
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You really, really hate this guy by the end and are itching to cave his face in.
Then there is the triple whammy of it seeming like you won't get to do him at first, him being weak (especially compared to an earlier boss who works for him) up until then and so ripe for a beating and finally the fact that no matter how tough the other bosses were this guy just takes the difficulty curve and buttrapes it inside out.
God was I glad to end him, and not out of frustration with the difficulty but I just wanted his blood badly.
doctorfrog on 31/8/2009 at 02:06
The Ganondorf to Ganon transformation immediately springs to my mind. I don't think I've played a more epic end boss than this. Not too easy, not too hard, larger than life, unmistakably evil... a very satisfying way to end the game.
Painkiller had bosses that were equally at home on a PC screen as they would be on the covers of heavy metal albums.
The boss fight at the end of the first Fallout game was pretty good, since you could rely on your developed abilities to take him out in several different ways.
The fact I can't think of any other more satisfying end bosses offhand is due to three factors:
1. Crippling nostalgia for pre 2001 gaming
2. My current lack of patience to finish games I've started
3. A non-deliberate personal switch from games that rely on traditional stage-boss-stage-boss structures
Quite like SHODAN, Fontaine was a better boss when he was taunting and manipulating you from afar, rather than the actual fight. He doesn't hold a candle to our Lady of Silicon, of course. I have to admit that Portal's GladOS managed to do both pretty well: taunting and fighting.
