Quite often everything will culminate in an amazing grand battle against a giant enemy who up until now has been taunting you from the sidelines. The showdown is on and it's time to rid the world of this annoying terror once and for all. Wait a minute... I detest end of level boss battles. I know that's not necessarily the way all gamers feel and several full games are basically little more than a series of boss battles so I guess folks must like them. To me they just interrupt the action and I'm often held hostage until I can beat it which in some cases is never. The problem is often one of two issues. One - the boss battle has nothing to do with the fighting methods that you have been using up to that point and instead utilises gameplay unique to the boss. Or two - your character is radically unprepared to face the overpowering foe due to decisions that you made prior to that point. Sometimes it's a combination of both. As an example of the first type, many of the last fights in the Assassin's Creed series begin by inexplicably taking away all your weapons (sound familiar?) and also blocking your level ten assassin buddies. So instead of defeating the big bad guys using awesome ninja moves you zap them with the 'apple' - a glorified ray gun. All of this is totally out keeping with the rest of play and to add to the frustration there's various tight time limits and you can't even heal yourself with potions. None of this happens anywhere else in what is mostly a free roaming RPG. The most recent Deus Ex brings us to the next issue. DE:HR is a game that rewards non-lethal stealth and indeed there are achievements for not killing anyone... except that is for the awful game-breaking boss battles. If you've spent your limited praxis points on anything but offensive based upgrades and then suddenly get trapped with the first boss you're going to have a bad time. It's dull blam-blam-blam shoot them until they're dead. No stealth or puzzles, no using skills you've leant as an augmented shadow. It's almost as if the boss battles were written by a completely different team from the main game - oh wait, they were. Eidos Montreal created the bulk of the game but the boss battles were outsourced to Grip Entertainment and helmed by a guy who was unfamiliar with the Deus Ex franchise. Sweet. As for boss fights with QTEs? Just kill me now. For those of us who hate them, and I can't be alone, end of level boss fights should be made skippable or just replace the boss battle with a nice cut scene instead... And yes I can't believe I just wrote that last sentence. Which heinous crimes do you think video games makers must stop immediately? Share your thoughts below in the comments section.
A Welsh semi-retired television producer and actor known for low end work that astonishingly people actually watched and even garnered some awards. Originally residing in the electrically-challenged Amish areas of Pennsylvania he has written a few books (Hollywood Pants and Hollywood Horrible Hints and Terribly Fake Tips vols 1 & 2) which you can buy on amazon and all great book stores.
After a brief stint in Australia he now finds himself back in the Welsh valleys of his home country noting that it hasn't changed a bit!
