Nonstandard Game Over: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:Moon crashing 4315.jpg|link=The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask|frame|[http://www.zeldawiki.org/Terminan_Apocalypse This] is what happens when you let the moon listen to too much of 2Pac's Fuck Da World.]]

 

 

In most games, players see the dreaded [[Game Over]] screen when their [[Player Character|in-game avatars]] are defeated in some way. Maybe they [[Life Meter|took too many wounds]] and lost all their [[Hit Points]], or maybe they fell down too many [[Bottomless Pits]] and lost all their [[Video Game Lives|lives]]. They could have failed an [[Sliding Scale of Video Game Objectives|objective]] or lost a critical [[Non-Player Character|NPC]]. They might have forgotten to pause the game while reading the walkthrough they pulled from [[GameFAQs]] and the game's [[Timed Mission|timer ran out]]—you get the idea. These are all standard failings, usually treated with a simple, default message: "Game Over."

* Punishment game overs that the game levies against usually unsuspecting players who attempt to [[No Fair Cheating|break the rules]] or derail the plot (e.g., when the game actually lets you [[Refusal of the Call|say "no" to the main quest]]—the opposite of [[But Thou Must!]]); and

* Odd or bizarre noncanon endings [[Press X to Die|that the player can choose to acquire]], which usually involve failing a mission objective in such a way that causes the death of the main characters.

 

This page is about the unusual, context-sensitive methods by which players trigger a [[Game Over]] screen. It doesn't include the times when the game [[Fission Mailed|tries to trick you into thinking that the game has ended.]]

For standard Game Overs that result from an instant-kill attack, see [[One-Hit Kill]].

 

{{examples}}

* One of the ''[[Kirby]]'' games has a [[Boss Rush]] mini-game. When you lose all your lives, you [[Death Throws|fall down one last time as if there's a hole]]. And instead of "Try Again" and "Quit", you get "Accept Defeat".

** The [[Nintendo Hard|notoriously cruel]] ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video game)|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' text adventure also does this if you, as Ford Prefect, negate the events of the game by not saving Arthur Dent from the Earth's destruction in the first place. It is particularly notable for causing chaos and consternation among players by actually quitting the game in MID-SENTENCE.

** Quitting the game became a less acceptable option over time at [[Infocom]], but the ''Enchanter'' Trilogy, sequel to the ''[[Zork]]'' Trilogy, kept up the tradition of having special ways to die. In all three games it is possible to take actions that not only cause you to fail your mission but make the world substantially worse off than it was before. Thus, your score displayed at the game over prompt, which normally would be some score taken out of a total (100 out of 400, say) and give you a rank dependent on your score (from "Charlatan" to "Enchanter" to "Sorcerer" to "Archmage"), would instead become a score of -100 and your rank would be "Menace to Society". In the original game, ''Enchanter'', one earned this rank for releasing a powerful Lovecraftian demon upon the land; in the sequel, ''Sorcerer'', one earned this rank for successfully tracking down your demon-possessed mentor and allowing the demon to transfer itself to your far more powerful body; and in the finale, ''Spellbreaker'', it was revealed that the [[Evil Plan|entire plot of the game was a cunning trap]] and that actually succeeding in your goal would grant you this rank if you didn't see the ruse in time.

* In the computer game version of [[Frederick Forsyth]]'s ''[[The Fourth Protocol]]'' (in 1984), you have to uncover a Soviet plot to explode a nuclear bomb near a US Air Force base in Britain, to influence the upcoming British elections and lead to the election of an anti-NATO, anti-American, anti-nuclear, pro-Soviet government. Usually, if you take too long or don't get anywhere with the plot, you get a memo telling you you're [[Reassigned to Antarctica|being reassigned to]] [[British Frozen Rocks with Penguins and Landmines|the Falkland Islands]], until you get far enough. When you find the bomb you have to defuse it, and if you mess it up you are told the plan succeeded: Britain fell to the Soviets, and they started working on Europe from two fronts. But sometimes a different ending appears: the bomb leads to a limited nuclear war, destroying both sides and making the northern hemisphere uninhabitable. This comes "From the annals of the Australio-Indonesian Empire..."

* In the ''[[Strike]]'' series of Helicopter games, simply getting yourself blown up would earn a normal game over. Failing a mission or otherwise rendering the level [[Unwinnable]], however, would result in your being recalled to base for a dressing-down from your commanding officer which changed according to what you did wrong. (From ''Jungle Strike'''s first level, if you [[Turned Against Their Masters|tried some]] [[Monumental Damage]] of your own: "You redecorated the [[White House]], Beruit style!")

* Plenty of 'em in ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]''. For example, if you fall out of the sky, a plane from ''Mario Paint'' hits you, accompanied by an 8-bit [[Game Over]] music ditty.

** ''[[Hokuto no Ken|Hokuto Shinken]]...[[Street Fighter|Spinning Piledriver]]!''

* ''[[Rogue (video game)|Rogue]]'': "R.I.P.: Software Pirate. Killed by Copy Protection Mafia.", if you die while playing an illegal copy.

* ''[[Call of Duty]]'': "You are a traitor to the motherland!" if you kill a Commissar in the Russian campaign, or "You were killed by a grenade".

** Failing to move past certain events in recent installments will replace the quotes with whatever you are supposed to do. One is reminded to "Hold on for dear life" after falling to death while ice climbing.

** Dying to an attack dog in ''Modern Warfare'' or a Banzai charger in ''World at War'' has the game tell you when to press the melee button/key to save yourself.

* ''[[Operation Wolf]]'': Aside from "sustaining a lethal injury", the game will also end if you run out of bullets and grenades ("Since you have no ammunition left, you must join the hostages.").

** Strangely enough, you still have to run out of health before that happens.

* ''[[Oregon Trail]] II'': "You're Fired!" (kicked out of the wagon train), if you're a trail guide and morale gets too low.

* In ''[[Big Rigs Over the Road Racing]]'', if you download a patch so the computer could move, and it wins, the game will crash because ''[[Obvious Beta|there is no code for when you lose a race]]''.

* In the Sega CD version of ''[[Spider Man vs. the Kingpin]]'', losing to the Kingpin (the final boss) results in a sad ending sequence in which the Kingpin triumphs over the defeated Spider-Man. He then lowers both Spider-Man and Mary Jane into the vat of deadly ooze, after which they are never seen again.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Older Than the NES]]

[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]

[[Category:Ending Tropes]]