First impressions may count for a lot, but last impressions are arguably even more crucial where video games are concerned, because how a game closes out will surely influence how we view the entire experience.

And while an epic finale can elevate a great game to all-timer masterpiece status, the opposite is also true - an excellent game can be thoroughly derailed by a final chapter that undoes all prior goodwill.

It's an especially painful outcome when a game has been smashing it for potentially dozens of hours, but for whatever reason the ending just didn't come together as expected and soured the entire experience.

That's unfortunately true of these eight games, each of which got so, so much right until the very end, where their final levels proved so alienating as to basically undo all that brilliance.

Perhaps the final mission was infuriatingly difficult, maybe it was an abject failure on a story level, or was simply so damn tedious that we all swore off revisiting the game ever again.

Whatever the reason, these games threw it all away during their woefully ill-conceived climaxes...

While many will passionately argue that Driver was ruined by its infamously maddening tutorial, if you can power through and figure out how to slalom to the game's satisfaction, the bulk of the experience is an absurdly entertaining vehicular action romp.

But Driver ends up slamming into a brick wall during its very final mission, "The President's Run", where players are tasked with driving the President of the United States to a safehouse while being doggedly pursued by both cops and mobsters.

Above all else, this mission represents a gigantic difficulty spike compared to everything else post-tutorial, made worse by infuriatingly unbalanced, hyper-aggressive enemy AI, unpredictable traffic patterns, tricky weather making handling more difficult, and a lack of checkpoints.

As such it's common for players to fail this mission dozens upon dozens of times, and even if you persevered long enough not to rage quit on the spot, there's a good chance it soured your opinion of the entire game.

Jack Pooley

Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.

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