I'm working on a run of this Atari 7800 game.
What I want to ask is, how many actual endings is this game considered to have? These are the possible "endings" of the game:
Ending 1: Achieved by losing all three of your lives. Clear, obvious game over which plays distinct "you failed" music.
Ending 2: Achieved by either killing or rescuing the last of the 64 hostages with one or more hostages dead. It flashes GAME OVER on the screen and plays the sortie start music (opening to The Battle Hymn of the Republic). Story-wise, you've finished the mission as best as you "could" have done, as all hostages are accounted for. Though, in a TAS, it would be fastest to kill every hostage yourself, defeating the purpose of "doing all you could" since you don't try to save anyone.
Ending 3: Achieved by turning in the last of 64 rescued hostages. It flashes both GAME OVER and CONGRATULATIONS! on the screen, and plays the very happy title screen music. Story-wise, this is clearly the "best ending": the mission was a complete success and you didn't even have to kill any enemies if you didn't want to (this ending can be accomplished "pacifist" without wasting any time).
Here's a video showing the different endings. The counters at the top are, from left to right: dead hostages, hostages in your helicopter, and hostages rescued (in the safe building).
Link to video
The run I'm almost done with is of Ending 3, but I'd like to know if I should bother doing Ending 2 next or if it isn't considered a real ending (since it just displays GAME OVER, plus the TAS route would make you a traitor).
Thanks for your response, grassini! Yeah, I kind of figured letting the hostages die wasn't a real ending, haha. I'll just submit the one that saves them all.
grassini wrote:
but all death 2 sure would be fun.
Here's the first part of what a "no hostages" run would look like, for your amusement:
Link to video
