What are your honest opinions about the boss concept?

There'd be no video game industry if there were no bosses as far as I'm concerned.

Or even if the industry did exist without bosses, I probably wouldn't be a gamer.

It depends on the game genre, but they are getting a bit long in the tooth. Having bosses in modern FPS games is wierd given the obsession with realistic weapons/damage/physics, but you couldn't have Hack n Slash/action adventure games without bosses I guess.ViscaBarcaInter

Realistic games like Call of Duty, sure, boss battles would be out of place. Like you said, it depends on the game and genre.

A good example to compare and contrast where bosses matter and don't is Metal Gear and Splinter Cell: Metal Gear wouldn't be the great series it is without its epic boss battles, whereas, Splinter Cell would be stupid if it had bosses.

Alot of games out there are done with exclusion of boss fights like puzzle games for example. Few games I've played which only had one bossfight are Ico and uncharted so it's not something you measure a game's quality with. The bossfights in today's game lack innovation and it's better to take them out than including them in the game. gamingqueen

Actually, I thought the bosses in Resident Evil 4 were quite innovative and impressive.

I like bosses in games that they make sense in... of course bosses in COD4 or some such thing would be just silly.Funkyhamster

Actually, I think it could work in some way. Like you could go up against a tank or a helicopter or something in the same way other games have you fighting some giant monster. Then again, it didn't hurt the game at all not having them beyond putting C4 on a tank, if that even counts.

Condemned 2 had some decent boss fights and I generally liked the variance of bums/crazies this time around.

I think bosses are a great addition to the majority of games (I don't play that many realistic shooters so i'm not including those)

Boss fights can be amazing fun like in Resident Evil

They can also be extremely tedious and annoying like in Guitar Hero

Depends on the game
Toriko42

Yeah, the bosses in the earlier Resident Evil games were well done as well.

Really good boss fights are almost a puzzle, you have to change your strategy or do something particular to get that particular boss, whether it's using the reflecty-sword to find its weakness in Shadow of the Colossus or whether you just have to plan more carefully instead of running in firing like a maniac (the fight against Matriarch Benezia in Mass Effect was like that, if you just charged her it was much harder than letting her wear herself out first). Those are the boss fights that make you more interested in playing the game instead of feeling like work or another obstacle you have to complete.

Playing thru Dark Sector reminds me how much i miss boss fights.. I love Dark Sector's inclusion of bosses, some are repeated, but the game puts you in different scenerio's which makes 'em jus as fun as the first time you fought the boss.. I love the tank guy in Dark Sector, especially since you can hijack that tank haha..

But games like BioShock that build up the boss fight, then make it tottaly lame are better off without a boss fight imo.. Even tho Big Daddies are pretty much boss fights (especially since their harder then fontaine) too..

Anyways, i love boss fights.. I think MOST games should have them, with the exception of some genre's like modern/real life FPS's and puzzle games, ect.. As long as the bosses are chalanging and innovative then im all for them.. :)

I don't think games need to include bosses, just some boss-type scenarios where you change up your tactics. It can be a group of enemies entrenched somewhere with MGs and rocket launchers, a tank, a place where you need to use ranged attacks even if you're a melee class, a place where instead of just shooting or hacking at enemies you're running from them (I'd like some fleeing in an FPS, the part in CoD4 where you had to escape the freighter was awesome) or just any other way to spice up or change completely your tactics.