10 Video Games That Only Got Started At The End
Just when they got good...they ended.
Making a video game that maintains player attention for hours and hours is an incredibly difficult task, if only because we've all played so many games that so little is actually fresh and exciting to us any more.
And while the titans of the industry can weave their magic to keep players engrossed for dozens of hours, most games aren't quite so lucky. Many, in fact, might lose players quickly enough that they never even bother playing through to the end.
That was certainly a possibility with these 10 games, all of which offered up totally routine, forgettable gaming experiences until, in the final stretch, they finally ramped up and delivered the full-throttle, face-melting gameplay players were hoping for all along.
While some of these games are acceptable and short enough to warrant playing through to reach the good stuff, others are long enough that you couldn't really be blamed for sacking them off half-way through and moving onto something else.
In each case, it's nevertheless clear that a far more exciting and dynamic game was possible...
10. Chaos Vincent - Dirge Of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
Dirge of Cerberus might be the most beige and underwhelming game in the entire Final Fantasy franchise, a painfully generic third-person shooter starring Final Fantasy VII's cult favourite character Vincent Valentine.
Between its linearity, its dull map design, and totally unremarkable combat, it felt like an also-ran Devil May Cry knock-off given a last-minute franchise branding.
That is, except, for the final half-hour of the game's 10-hour campaign, where Vincent is transformed into his badass final form, Chaos.
This allows Vincent to hover, jump further, perform hugely powerful combo attacks, and wield the ultra-powerful gun known as Death Penalty, basically giving the game a last-minute injection of awesome long after most players had written it off as a whole lotta nothing.
Had the player been allowed to shift into Chaos form throughout the previous 95% of the game, perhaps it wouldn't have felt like such a soulless slog.