Most Atmospheric Final Levels

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Oh! Totally forgot... Castle Zvahl, and even Xarcabard! Those places were so freakin' creepy. (FFXI)

Spoiler: images

Castle Zvahl

Xarcabard

 

[latenightapplepie]

I really liked the early parts of the final level of Mirror's Edge. Until everything becomes very shooty and kicky, the movement through the cold, metallic maintenance areas of the Shard with some of the super-cool ambient sounds reminds me why I love that game.

 

[Whobajube]

someones gotta mention the final boss fight of FF9...

Spoiler

after fighting off thousands of mist-monsters and loads of bosses (one of whom destroys a freakin' planet!) you end up at the ultimate end: fight death itself!

It's a pretty epic battle, to be sure. FF9 is by far my favourite game in the series... not sure why it's so under appreciated.

 

[goater24]

The final level/chase sequence on Lylat Wars on the N64 always stood out as a great last level to me.

 

[Neosage]

Doom 3 you are in Hell there is a bigass daemon and you have some bigass guns.

 

[Fiskmasen]

The ending to MGS3 was fantastic. I can't quite remember if it was the very end, but fighting the Boss in the field was both incredibly difficult, and when you relize what her motivations were, heartbreaking.

I second that notion.
Especially coupled with

Spoiler: the fact that

you actually have to pull the trigger. I couldn't get myself to do it for 5 minutes

 

[Frybird]

Everything that is a very epic setpiece is good. So i second the Max Paynes, Mass Effect and MGS 3.

Also, even if you don't do much, the last level of the Darkness was kinda cool in terms of Atmosphere.

And it might seem out of place, but in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, the final Level before the (somewhat disappointing) Boss actually felt atmospheric for me, with the endless battle that was going through day and night, with storm and meteors and everything.

The coolest thing you could pull of with that concept

 

[Graustein]

Pick a Zelda game. Any Zelda game. When you're in the last level, you know. Especially since most of the time it's Ganon's Tower/Hyrule Castle/Both, but still, it's clearly an end level.

Same goes for the end level of Metroid Prime, between the creepy (moreso than usual) music, the fucking fusion metroids making it a race to get to the end at full health and the orange phazon that doesn't appear anywhere else, it makes for one spooky last bit.

In Diablo II, the Chaos Sanctuary would also qualify. It's a friggin' big temple of EVIL.

Finally, the last levels in Earthbound and Mother 3. They know why.

 

[rossatdi]

Lets hit it old school:

Doomsday Zone at the end of Sonic & Knuckles: You go freaking Super Sonic and blast through space to smash yourself into Robotnik's giant flying robot desperately trying to grab enough rings to keep going.

Also, Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast. Final level was played out on a giant spinning record whilst you dodged rubble.

And, Unreal II: The Awakening. You're on a space ship after a race of long dead aliens reappears firing miniature blackholes into everything. You're legging it to an escape pod and the gravity goes leading to awesome confusion.

I think a special mention should go to the 4 final stages of Left 4 Dead (well maybe not Dead Air, that one's a bit weak) but nothing beats screaming "GET TO THE CHOPPER! THEY'RE COMING!"

 

[Asehujiko]

The final level in the first Condemned game. Your flashlight's broken, your taser's not working, and you only have a burning piece of wood you use as a light source but only lets you see a short distance. It's dark everywhere. This has to be the scariest level ever in a horror game.

To be honest, I found the level before this a lot scarier. Once it became clear that those creatures with metal faces were NOT in Ethan's head, then I ceased to be scared by them.

Condemned started as something completely awesome, but the lines started blending way to much. That school area though..

That was such a great level. I died so many times on it, the enemies don't mess around there.

That they don't, not to mention his freak-outs towards the end which really screwed with me.

Ah, yes. The Butcher was a suprise with her drugs-addics-on-meathooks attacks. So was the pool scene. And the teacher made me jump out of my chair.

Department store was great too.

Orchad Processing plant? Everything is on fire, you can see the glowing path for miles and your enemies consist of some Uruk-Hai ninjas. I got some nice long range kills with the rifle though.

 

[Gormers1]

Well something that isn't mentioned here is rayman 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GYYbPxLbZI
Gave me the shivers when I was a kid. Great remix of the rayman theme that usually is more cozy. It had an epic sense of scale and a great twist in the start of the battle. I remember that I thought that this was going to be pretty easy and then BAM. The difficulty was perfect considering the difficulty of the previous levels.

 

[scnj]

Halo - Yes, it's become cliche, but I always get an adrenaline rush during the warthog sequence.

Silent Hill 2 - The hotel, what with finding out the truth about what happened, seeing Angela die, fighting Pyramid Head, then a fucked up version of Maria.

Star Wars KOTOR II - Malachor V was amazingly atmospheric. Shame they dropped the ball at the very end.

Star Wars: Mysteries of the Sith - The Sith Temple still creeps me out, even today. A perfect example of how levels in a Star Wars game should be done.

 

[Wicky_42]

The Ocarina of Time was probably the first game I completed, ever, and had by far the most exciting and rewarding end sequences that a, what, 9(?) year old could have expected, lol. Majorca's mask didn't do it as well for me, maybe because getting there was a bit more haphazard than in Ocarina of time.
Next best was Halo 1 - completing that with my sister riding shotgun was fucking epic, and was more... cinematic than Halo 3's 'random things are exploding for no really explainable reason because they are all wafer thin' sequence.

Whoever said Crysis fails, lol - the end is one big 'to be continued...' - though I hear Warhead has a better one. Crysis falls into the trap that many games do of just throwing in a random boss fight at the end that has no real meaning for the player or build up in the game play. Quake 4, Crysis, Prey and Halo 2 are all culprits that throw themselves out for mentions - Zelda is an example where practically the entire game is based around getting to that final boss fight, and makes it clear throughout just how bad Ganon is, so when you finally meet him it feels so good to royally kick his ass >

 

[KarumaK]

Ace Combat 5 was awesome, you had just stopped the Big Bad only to realize that he had a backup plan, and so you take off, using a highway as a runway, as humanities last hope. At which point you have to blow up enough of the falling satellite to save the country.

Ace Combat Zero beats that with its final battle against your former wingman Solo Wing Pixy. You two joust, literally joust, for the fate of the continent as a nuclear missile is launched and Pixy's jet carries the controls.

 

[raemiel]

The final stages of Doom 3 when in hell are a refreshing change from hours and hours of the metal corridors of the UAC base. They're really well designed and it's fun to suddenly have a whole bunch of mancubi spawn in on pillars over lava with a narrow walkway between them, felt more like the Doom of old (though I love Doom 3 anyway - its DOOM!)

I agree with pretty much everyone too over any Zelda game the final dungeon and confrontation with Ganon (or occasionally something else) is always awesomely atmospheric and have a satisfying climax. Ocarina of Time particularly for the huge battle on the top of the tower, a mad rush to escape and then a massive monster to kill. Majora's Mask also had great atmosphere where after the sense of panic that is just below the surface throughout the game emerges just before you are sucked into the moon where suddenly everything is so serene that it's unsettling.

The end of Half-Life 2 and its episodes are also brilliantly paced and structured. Especially Half-Life 2 where you take part in the insurgent's rise up before becoming isolated and (conventional) weaponless in the citadel which has loomed over you throughout the game.

 

[Bluntknife]

I'm having trouble deciding so I'll just list a few.

Oh and if you don't know the endings to Halo 3, Mass effect and Crysis and don't want to know then don't click.

Spoiler

- Halo 3's final level. Yes ,whatever, the game wasn't that fantastic but the sheer scale of everything. The fact the whole planety-thing was EXPLODING beneath your feet was just fucking awesome.

- Mass EFfect as mentioned before was another game with a truly epic ending. Fighting through wave after wave of bloodthirsty robots up the side of a gargantuan space station is rather cool.

- The ending of Crysis. Giant alien battleships, nukes going off and shit getting laz0red. What's not to love.

I aggree totaly with Crysis, its an under appritiated game, the ending just screamed epic awesomeness and my graphics card screamed for mercy.
Hmmm think theres a correlation there?

 

[Preslor]

In Jet Moto 2 the level where your driving on the track as it weaves its way thought heaven and hell it was epic

Oh man, I remember that... that really was pretty sweet for it's time.