What does it take to become a videogame boss? Menacing sunglasses? A ground-pound move? An excess of glowy bits? At least four alternate forms tucked into your trousers?
I really must ask Jonty one of these days. He doesn't appear to have any alternate forms, unless you count what happens when he plays Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Pro tip: if you're a loud angry teenager, and somebody shoots you from above using a shotgun of any kind, know that your outraged squawks are probably being relayed to other members of this very office by our illustrious editor. It's a very genteel kind of sadism.
Further evidence as to what constitutes bossdom in videogames may be gleaned from the latest OXM Countdown, below. That sagging heap of stubble and freckles is me, by the way, not something out of Dead Space.
15 comments so far...
PCG The_B on 18 Oct '12 said:
One of my favourite bosses, certainly of recent times, was the Mr Freeze fight in Arkham City, because rather than the tired shoot-the-weakpoint or 'fill with more ammunition than an Army Surplus Store' style of bosses it genuinely felt like a challenge that tested your skills thus far with the game because of how you had to take him down several times - only you couldn't use the same method twice because every time you landed a successful takedown he would remove that method from play, forcing you to actually use all the skills at your disposal, rather than just spamming one that works repeatedly. It certainly felt like a test of skill rather than of attrition.
KernowDevil23 on 18 Oct '12 said:
Top marks from that video go to Alice because she reminded me of a painful time in my recent past where I actually wanted to physically kill a video game character and any offspring he may have had.
Isaac Frost was the cause of my murderous rage and it's something I've tried to forget......
Waffles2541 on 18 Oct '12 said:
The Reaper from ME3 on Rannoch was my absolute favourite boss. The sheer size of it and the feeling of awesomeness you get after you kill this God machine is excellent.
A boss can be very good so long as they don't break the flow and serve a point. The Force Unleashed and Darksiders for example are were bosses work great. The flow still isn't broken and you have worked your way up to fight them.
RyanGowran on 18 Oct '12 said:
i second that
SidTheSloth on 18 Oct '12 said:
Agree Isaac Frost is a great shout and one i'd never have remembered, i couldn't even rage-quit as i worried it'd put me back to the start of the fight instead of the individual (and still incredibly irritating) checkpoints!
Erm, completely disagree with the ME3 one... What should and could have been an epic encounter turned into a quick lesson in abject frustration getting Shepard to Riverdance across a cliff firing a laser every few seconds. Erm, wow...
Not sure if Big Daddy's count as bosses either but they were awesome to fight - with vita chambers turned off of course!?
I never finished Bayonetta but seem to recall that had some awesome boss fights going on (as does DMC for that matter)?
Grummy on 18 Oct '12 said:
I'm with Jonty on this one, bosses irritate the bejeezus out of me. Repetitive, irritating, frustrating and boring. It's very rare that a boss fight is worth doing.
The problem is that 10 years ago, bosses were the way they are because they needed to be better than us, but give us a chance to succeed, and gaming hardware wouldn't allow for anything much more complicated than stronger enemies with big weak spots or patterns to follow. In modern gaming though, developers can change that, they don't need to create these limited boss enemies to represent a larger threat, they can make the experience work and feel right through AI, clever sound and graphic manipulation and inventive use of the game engine. The Scarecrow fights in Arkham Asylum are a great example of using these elements to make an interesting boss battle. Unfortunately, after the first time they got a little repetitive, but even so, the first time around, they were fantastic.
For me though, the best so far are in Dragon's Dogma. they tend to follow a similar pattern to old style bosses, loads of health, big damage and weakspots, but the nature of the game and how it plays makes it work better. you're not restricted just because it's a boss, you can do all the things and play the same way fighting a boss as you can against any other enemy, they just are bigger and stronger because they actually are bigger and stronger, you're not faced with a normal human enemy with a million hitpoints, you're fighting huge monsters. They take the old school boss fight, but rather than make it it's own self contained event, they dump it right in the middle of the game and let it run as normal. A fantastic way for them to work imo.
Agree about the ME3 one, it was terrible.
SidTheSloth on 18 Oct '12 said:
And how in the name of all things sacred did i forget that little belter...?!
Aw man, first time i fought a Chimera is one of my gaming highlights of this year. Awesome, awesome stuff. Fighting the bandits was less than awesome!
Only just noticed this bit too:
Weren't the bosses in TFU pretty gimmicky? I'm struggling to remember now as it's so long ago but i seem to have painful memories of an otherwise enjoyable game - but then compared to the bosses in the sequel it's got pretty much the best boss fights ever i suppose. The end of TFU2 vs Vader sums up pretty much everything Jonty (and now Grummy) mention. Absolutely horrific ending to one of the most disappointing & tragic sequels i've played!
Plamsa wing on 18 Oct '12 said:
ME3? Apart from the Tuchanka Reaper Destroyer (wasn't really a boss), none of the "bosses" were actually any good. The Rannoch Reaper fell flat when you figured out the trick.
It was also introduced by one of THE MOST pointless, on the rails set pieces, I have ever seen in a video game.
Also Kai Leng, apparently that wasn't "too video gamey" at all.
My favourite boss fight in recent memory goes to the Darksiders 2 Guardian. Not only was it the only boss fight in the entire game where you used Despair, it also had an amazing piece of music to go along with it.
The last boss from Beyond Good and Evil is the worst, you can probably figure out why.
Good call on Dragon's Dogma Grummy, some pretty darn awesome fights on that one. Just climbing a Cyclops, taking off it's armour and jumping off to shoot it in the eye with an arrow or two is one my highlights of the year so far.
I still have nightmares from those Hellhounds though, ugh.
outbreak11 on 19 Oct '12 said:
i agree that dragons dogma bosses were excellent to fight in the game, a real challenge, so were the dark souls bosses as well. they were really hard and you had to figure out how to kill them gave the game a real challenge, i still have nightmares of the demon with two swords and two hell hounds (cries) but i love the borderlands and borderlands 2 bosses because you had to have the right weapons to beat them, im loving the bosses in borderlands 2 as most of them are a realy challenge, especially in play through 2!!
SidTheSloth on 19 Oct '12 said:
That sounds suspiciously like the Capra Demon who is currently the bane of my wimpy dagger and spells only sorcerer... You neglect to mention that you have to fight him in a room the size of a wardrobe!!
Jabraham on 19 Oct '12 said:
I always liked the end boss to castlevania LOS i know it was simple but i really think it worked and just looked awesome
Decent_Jam on 19 Oct '12 said:
Sounds like Jonty has some serious boss issues from childhood, but I absolutely agree, not least because I am also 'not good enough at games' (read: terrible, just terrible...).
Mr personal favourite on the 360 is probably the disappearing ninja from Deus Ex - really it should be my least favourite because it was SO irritating. I had got the upgrade so couldn't use any skills and the entire thing was a colossal chore and nightmare, however, despite that, after a trillion attempts actually beating him was the biggest sense of achievement I've had since I completed Streets of Rage 2 (which contains as it's end boss, probably my actual favourite ever boss fight).
Hats off to Deus Ex to being so incredibly annoying that I HAD to keep playing because I was not going to let it beat me!
ItchyRash on 19 Oct '12 said:
Shepherd riverdancing across a cliff has summed up the reaper boss fight in a way I didn't think possible. Bravo sir. On Insanity it's riverdance with a extra slice of eye gouging infuriation.
I agree that sometimes boss fights can be awful and tacked on but they can be done well. Batman would've felt very flat had it been henchmen all the way through. The bosses made sense in that universe. I'm playing my way through Rayman Origins and again, you want a boss fight in an old school game like that. It's what old school platformers are about. There's certainly a place for the boss fight when done well and within the right type of game. Deus Ex just didn't do it well
FishyGinger on 19 Oct '12 said:
If you want a bastard hard boss battle, well it's not really a boss battle but the underwater pod race in the original earthworm jim was a right little b*tch.
The best one recently though, bit cliche but glados from portal, I've not played many funnier boss battles. Also thought the gherkin was quite good from skyward sword.
Vegetunks9000 on 19 Oct '12 said:
Azazel from Tekken 6 has to be the hardest boss i've ever fought on 360. But my favourite has to be Scarecrow from Batman:AA. He may be classed as a sub boss though. But the transitions to his levels were phenomenal, took me back to the days of Eternal Darkness