Yes, this post contains spoilers (but not the ones you probably think).

Not every game is going to have a happy “Hollywood” ending, class. Get over it. Not every single story wraps up nicely and neatly at the climax with the heroes walking off into the sunset with evil burning to death in some car that just flew through a guardrail as the villain tried to make good his (or her, or its) escape.Sometimes it’s boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy never finds girl again. But that’s not always a bad thing if it’s done right and even better, YOU get why it was done in the first place.

For me, it’s far easier to appreciate ambiguity in a game than in a film because gaming isn’t a passive process. You can sit for two hours in a theater soaking in a film while eating a barrel of popcorn only to go home afterward arguing with your friends about what you’ve just seen until you buy another ticket (or catch the film again on cable)*. With a game, you can (usually) stop and savor a sweeping vista, choose a slightly different path that changes the story (when a game allows for this) and at the end, even if you don’t get it at first, replaying is key. Going through a game a second time (or more) can often cough up elements you may have missed when you skipped that  cut scene (shame, shame!) or got busy trying not to get killed by some enemy or well-placed death trap in the form of a puzzle.

Some game endings are MEANT to be open ended simply because that loose door means a sequel can be made at some point. Other games where you’re scratching your head at the ending are that way because of someone artistic vision you didn’t quite see coming (despite the entire game being off-kilter) or hey, the folks who made the game happen to see the value in ambiguous endings as a means to get you talking and thinking. Before you ask, yes, I don’t skip cinemas when I play a game for the first time. What’s the point of jamming on a button to lose the story if you end up bitching later on that you didn’t understand anything because you didn’t bother to watch something important? Dwell on this, grasshopper as I move on…

Actually, you can use any number of great movies to teach you the value of the ambiguous ending where everything isn’t QUITE resolved or may be resolved, but it’s left up to the viewer to figure out what the heck happened. Or, it’s Sunset Boulevard, where your “hero” is dead at the beginning on the movie and you get to see how the hell he ended up in that pool. Oops. Well, that’s NOT really an ambiguous “ending” as once you see the film you know what happens to his killer (more or less). Go check it out anyway, as it’s one of the best movies ever made even if you now know the beginning (there’s a joke in there somewhere). What, is Billy WIlder too boring for you? To me, that means you’ve never seen any of his films, kid.

OK, I’ll be a bit more helpful (you are, after all, spending time reading this lesson) If you want bodies falling left and right and/or stuff blowing up with your ambiguity, just check out The Sword of Doom (a personal favorite), The Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, or Inception. For sexy ambiguity, Mulholland Dr or The Graduate. Want some scary ambiguity? Possession, The Thing (1981), the original versions of Sisters, and Dawn of the Dead along with quite a lot of other films are lurking over in the corner. No, over there (I was cleaning earlier, sorry). Follow any of those films above with a new play through of a game that flustered you previously and you’ll be surprised that you now “get” what you missed the first time…

*(I meant legally, you crazy kids with your file spit-swapping ways…)