Here’s the thing about endgames: if the midgame was any good at all, the endgame has to be radically different.
That’s because a good midgame basically consists of a series of new obstacles, skills that must be mastered, or other permanent developments (My black bishop has been taken! I can now Force-push!) and eventually they pile up. By the time you’ve gotten to the end of a robust PC game, you’re likely to be either:
- buried in accumulated minutae: say, micromanaging planets in a 4X strategy game like Master of Orion;
- stuck in a monotonous slugfest: cf. Black and White, Age of Empires, or the countless real-time-strategy games that disintegrate into resource management; or
- boringly overpowered: ol’ Diablo has the endgame mechanics of backgammon: just keep rolling the dice until it’s over.
Instead, a good endgame turns a corner somehow, cutting across all the skills you’ve gathered or perhaps requiring an entirely new sort of skill. And for my money, a good endgame is the key to making a good game great.
Below the fold: a few endgame techniques to look for and my pick for the best endgame ever.
Posted by Mike
