Game Bosses Should Retire

I've been spending the rare spare moments I have playing through Tomb Raider: Legend. Yes, I know, I'm behind the times and ironically everyone's actually playing the original TR now (the new revamp of course). However, I like Tomby and wanted to do a bit of a completist's mission, collecting icons and investigating all the nooks and crannies.

While spending some time with Lara and while trying to defeat the dreaded hydra thing on the England level, for the 100th time, I began to question the need for boss battles. My conclusion is, I really don't need them in my life and something needs to be done about it.

Once upon a time, games were in arcades and the aim was to get all the little children to spend as much money as possible. This lead to games featuring high scores and enemies of ever increasing difficulty, which in the good old days meant they just got faster and there were more of them. But then some bright spark thought of creating an uber enemy who would mark the end of a level and create a crescendo of challenge for the player. This my friends was the boss battle.

Back then the boss was created to provide a mind-blowing challenge so that those little coins would keep being dropped in the machine and make the publishers lots of money. Then another bright spark invented the home console and games were no longer about getting your name on a board and feeding a machine money. With everyone playing at home on the sofa, games became about fun and enjoyment.

The trouble is, somebody forgot and boss battles became a feature of all games in the world ever. Sometimes, boss battles made gamers cry instead of laugh and sometimes they even made gamers punch a hole in the living-room wall and bruise their knuckles in frustration.

You could be forgiven, dear playchums, for thinking that end of level bosses are there to hinder progress, interrupt gameplay and narrative and send gamers into a spiral of frustration. Really, they're not. Boss battles are designed to challenge and create an adrenalin rush of excitement. For the most part, good boss battles do achieve this, but it's the plethora of bad ones that I'm worried about.

I could write down the boss battles I've enjoyed on the back of a postage stamp to be honest. I'm just not a boss battle kind of a girl. Space Channel 5 had some great boss battles, as did FFVII and PN03 threw in a few good ones, although they were on the easy side. I've definitely played more boss battles, but I think it's telling that I can't remember any of them. That's because they're not the be all and end all of my gaming experiences. As your mother always told you, it's the little things that count, rather than the giant fat guys with tentacles and an annoying laugh.

Boss battles are defunct and should be removed because they no longer serve any purpose for the greater gaming good. Today, games are placing more and more emphasis on narrative. All the best narratives rely on pacing to keep the reader, viewer, listener or player interested. The boss as brick wall obstacle has had its day.

A good boss battle is great, but a good boss battle is also very rare. Beating a difficult boss should engender a feeling of pride and triumph, but sadly this is rarely the case. Usually, on seeing the beast slain, the average gamer saves as quickly as humanly possible and breathes a huge sigh of relief that they shall never, ever, EVER have to do that again.

The sad fact is that boss battles hamper rather than challenge. It has become a lazy way to slow down the pacing of the game and usually leads to stopping all gameplay through sheer frustration. Sometimes developers forget that gaming is supposed to fun, not some sort of punishment.

Boss battles have become a tradition and an integral part of gaming, but maybe somebody needs to step back and think, maybe they've had their day. The good old fashioned boss battle has become more formulaic than a John Wayne movie.

The boss always has some annoying quip and maniacal laugh which rings in your ears as you try to kill the bastard thing. And you must always repeat some ridiculous process not once, not twice, but four times in order to defeat the boss. Please forgive me if, after completing all but the last one and I'm killed in one swipe, I switch off my console and never return to that poxy game ever again.

Pre-boss cut scenes should also be scrapped. Please, please for the love of decency can you just let us skip the darn thing. I don't want to sit through the crappy dialogue any more often than I have to thank you very much.

Call me picky, but I don't want to spend 34 hours of my life playing a game only to be slapped in the face at the end of the last level. Call me demanding, but I'd like to see the final cut scene and the credits. I'd like to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with resting back in the chair, letting the pad slip from my fingers and silently basking in the glory of finishing a game. And what gives developers the right to create some seizure-inducing boss battle that washes away any enjoyment I was experiencing and snatching the final prize from my grasp, just as the end was in sight?

My life will be no less empty if I never have to play another boss battle ever again.

Most played: Tomb Raider: Legend

Most wanted: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures