Secret of Mana is one of the most memorable games of my childhood. It has a mesmerizing soundtrack (just thinking about the game brings Angels' Fear and other classic songs to mind), wonderful graphics that literally push the SNES to the limit, and an epic story of world-changing proportions. It also features one of the most depressing endings in any game I have ever played to this day. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it is the most depressing ending I've ever seen.

The game begins, predictably enough, with a young male orphan protagonist, who manages to accidentally come into contact with the sacred Mana Sword and is promptly banished from the village that raised him. It's pretty obvious that any game that starts off like this isn't going to hold any punches, and it doesn't let down at all.

You discover that by drawing the sword, you've disrupted the balance of the entire world, and now you must travel to the eight Mana Seeds hidden across the planet and seal them before the evil Empire can revive the Mana Fortress. Along the way you pick up a girl who is searching for her lover Dyluck, a Mana Sprite, and a baby Flammie (the last of a dragon-like race).

Throughout the entire game you're essentially trying to do two things: seal the Mana Seeds, and rescue Dyluck. You manage to seal seven of the eight seeds, and on your way to seal the last, the Empire beats you there first and breaks all the seals you've created thus far, undoing hours worth of work in a single blow. But its ok, there's a loophole you can exploit. You can seal all eight at the same time if you make it to the Pure Land and reunite your sword with the Mana Tree.

So you go there, which is literally the longest, most tedious and downright difficult dungeons in RPG history, and fight your way through it only to have the Mana Fortress make a pit-stop and destroy the tree before your eyes. Uh...ok... So you find out that there's one last chance: you have to stop the Mana Fortress. If you don't, the Mana Beast (lots of Mana things in this game) will come and destroy the world. Oh, and you find out that your mom was the tree, so you also just got to watch her die. Wonderful.

So you go to the Mana Fortress and ultimately confront Thanatos, the one in charge. He kidnapped Dyluck earlier in the game and despite two rescue attempts has still got him, so it looks like you'll get to kill two birds with one Mana Stone and save the world and Dyluck at once. Not so fast. Thanatos takes over Dyluck's body, and Dyluck sacrifices himself to get rid of him! And to make matters worse, you took too long and the Mana Beast is knocking on your door.

So you go outside, and guess what? The Mana Beast, the ultimate weapon of the gods, is your friend Flammie! Sure, he looks a bit different, but things are bound to change when you get the wrath of the gods injected into you. So now you have to kill your lovable pet dragon, who has become the incarnation of Mana. Oh, and doing so will banish your other friend the Sprite from your world forever.

So you do the unthinkable, and sure enough, your friend ceases to exist. And then it starts snowing. Only the snow is actually the ashes of your friend Flammie. So, taking stock of things, Dyluck's dead, Flammie's dead, the Sprite is basically dead, Mana's dead, it's raining your friend's ashes, and your parents are still dead. But, "We must be strong!" you say, as you hold hands with the girl and run and skip through the epilogue.

And so you saved the world, at the cost of virtually everything you learned to love and hold dear. As much as I loved the game itself, I really can't say anything great about the ending. It's just downright depressing.

What about you? What games did you play that were excessively depressing? Can you think of one more depressing than Secret of Mana? Sound off in the comments section! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

The life of a GameSpot Editor isn't always cupcakes on your birthday, happy hours on payday, and free bagels every Friday. Lurking in the shadows, striking fear into each and every employee is a terrible game. A game known as: Big Rigs.

Alex first discovered the pain and misery that Big Rigs was capable of way back in 2003. The game's true awfulness and status as the only game in GameSpot history to ever receive a 1.0 has been well documented, but one thing hasn't been documented: Alex's use of the game to punish staff, screen potential hires, and train new editors on exactly what the bottom of the barrel looks like.

Sick of being forced to sit and endure the broken gameplay every time I crossed Alex, I grabbed a camera, determined to expose his evil ways to the world. He seemed more than happy to brag to the camera about his methods, but hopefully this video will put an end to Alex's reign of terror so that we, GameSpot Editors, can be punished for our misdeeds in less harsh ways, like getting punched in the eye or pushed down a flight of stairs.

*I'm headed to Europe for a bit of vacation before I cover the Leipzig Games Convention so you won't be seeing or hearing much from me until the end of August. As always, thanks for watching!

The best part about owning a newer, faster PC: I can render these goofy videos in like four minutes, instead of the 45-60 minutes it took on my old machine.

The other day I came across something that made me very happy--an independantly developed full-motion video adventure game. It seems that a Netherlands-based student group named Revival decided to create such a game to see how possible it was with modern-day consumer electronics, something impossible in the genre's heyday. The result was the free game Fate By Numbers.

Point and click. Doesn't get much simpler than that.

Reminiscent of Blade Runner, Fate By Numbers is, as the designers describe it, a sci-fi/noir full-motion video adventure game. Essentially, every character in the game is an actor filmed on a green screen and inserted into an entirely computer-generated world--a technique used in films such as Casshern and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Other than that, it's a fairly simple point-and-click adventure game set in a near-future world and rendered in film noir black and white.

The stereotypical Russian arms dealer

You take on the role of Alice Sanger, a female private detective who is hired to retrieve a suitcase and is pulled into a web of shadowy conspiracies that tie into her past. The acting is surprisingly good, though still kitschy--sort of like the cutscenes in Command and Conquer games.

While it's certainly a fun trip down memory lane, it's not one without faults: it's only roughly two hours long, is painfully linear, and features a story that screams of unoriginality. But all those things aside, it's definately worth playing through, especially if you're a fan of noir, adventure games, and cheesy acting.

At 1.18 GB, it's on the big side, but a slightly smaller 800 MB version is available as well, which features more highly compressed video and audio clips, at the cost of some quality.

Download the Large Version!
Download the Small Version!

"AFI to C4."

"Miss. Suffragette City to A2..."

"Hit. Welcome to the Jungle to E5..."

"Hey, I was going to use that! Hit. Er...Paranoid to A3..."

"You sunk my battleship. Metallica's 'One' to E4."

"Crap, you just sunk most of my fleet. How about the Entire Nirvana Nevermind album to C1?"

"Wow, my whole gameboard just caught on fire. And I think I just wet myself..."

In Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the game industry now has something that it hasn't had in a good long time. Two competing franchises that offer similar gameplay experiences, and are now forced to constantly one-up one another on a yearly basis to stay ahead of the game. Remember the great Madden/2K football wars of the early 2000s? That was a beautiful time to be alive. Neither franchise could simply rest on its laurels, lest the competition sneak up behind them the following year and stick a knife in their backs. Guitar Hero had it easy for a couple of years there with nothing to directly challenge it except some middling karaoke games and the DDR juggernaut that most people haven't cared about that much in years. Then Rock Band came along, and everything changed.

As much as I liked Guitar Hero II, that very much felt like a game that was the result of no direct competition, specifically the song list. Why spend a billion dollars on all the rock classics people actually want when you can get a bunch of B-tier stuff by the same bands for cheaper? Not to mention the lack of desire to pay top dollar for original master tracks when you can just cover the songs on the cheap. Then Harmonix goes and runs off to MTV and EA, and Activision is faced with a potential 800 lb. gorilla coming straight at them, gnashing teeth, rage-filled eyes and all. Now they've got to step up their game.

And to be fair, they have. Up to this point the Guitar Hero III has gone nearly step-for-step with Rock Band. The initial volley from Activision was more than solid, with bona fide classics from Weezer, the Beastie Boys, Kiss and the Scorpions. Then at E3, Rock Band fires back with song announcements of their own, including the much sought-after inclusion of Metallica, and then drops the bomb of getting full albums for the game. So what does Activision do? It starts loading up on the big guns. Slayer's "Raining Blood," Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast," ZZ Top's "La Grange," and even two of Rock Band's heralded songs in "Mississippi Queen" and "Paranoid." And then they go out and get a Metallica song for themselves, reported (but currently unconfirmed) to be "One," AKA THE Metallica song.

It can only get crazier from here, and that's a really exciting thing to see from the perspective of a potential buyer. I love me some Guitar Hero, and I believe that this Rock Band competition is only going to make that franchise better. And then on the other side, I'm super excited about what Rock Band is all about. I can't wait to see what else they have in store for their track list, and to get some serious play time in with those drum pads.

All told, 2007 has already proven to be a banner year for rhythm games, and this holiday season looks like it's going to cap it off in grand fashion. I'm sure the two publishers are all having a hissy fit right now given this sudden onset of competition, but I hope they realize that it's exactly this level of competition that's getting people excited about their products. The last thing anyone wants is another unremarkable rhythm game like Guitar Hero Rocks the '80s. There's enough rock songs out there to keep this competition going for a long, long time. And I can't wait to see how it all goes down.

On that note, I leave you with a just-released vid from the folks at ScoreHero.com of Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" being played on expert in GH III. Weep softly, or loudly, I don't care. Either way, you will weep. Thank god this is a bonus song.

I was in New York City last week not only to get the first details on NBA 2K8, but also to see a motion capture session in person. After we saw 2K8's new dunk contest we headed off to the mecca of streetball, Harlem's Rucker Park. Upon our arrival Rudy Gay Andre Iguodala, Chris Paul, and Gerald Wallace were just suiting up for the session. After they got all decked out in the very uncomfortable looking motion capture suits they warmed up for a bit and then captured a few shots so their signature shots would be in the game. Once that was done they played two-on-two for a while, giving the guys from 2K some great moves (and quite a few turnovers) to add to their game.

As you know by know I'm crazy with the video blogs so I whipped out the camera and caught some of the evening on tape. We'll have a fancier version up later in the week that will include interviews with the players, but until then you can check out this video to see how the evening went.

*Yes, that announcer dude in the background is all sorts of annoying. Imagine him going on like that for 3 hours...

I always learn wonderful and terrible thing at our weekly Game Nights. What, do you ask, did I discover this week? Or at least, I imagine you would ask if you were in an asking mood.

1. STALKER is a great game with mediocre multiplayer. I am gradually playing through the campaign, and I love it. Last night was my first time playing multiplayer, and I was somewhat underwhelmed. I love the game's shooting model, but other aspects are less than stellar. The maps are well designed but altogether too large, even if you are lucky enough to have a full match. The spawn points are absolutely ridiculous. Who puts spawn points in the rafters, where players have to crouch to slowly extract themselves from the area? Or on the roof, where you have to be careful to slowly descend, lest you fall, all while potentially under attack? Dumb, dumb spawn points.

2. Fun is as fun does. I don't know what that means exactly, but hear me out. These nights are what we make of them. I could have set up an Elf Bowling game night, and it would have been a blast, because when you get together with awesome people just to have fun, well, you have fun! I am incredibly grateful to everyone that joins these nights, because we haven't had a dud yet, and I have made some good friends this way. And so can you... just join in!

With that said, check out some dark, murky highlights from last night's team deathmatch.