Examples of Non-Standard Game Over in action games, including shoot-'em-ups.
- Right before the boss of Stage 2 in ALLTYNEX Second, you have to destroy a giant cannon while being attacked by enemies coming from the sides. If you take too long, the cannon will charge up and fire the Omega Javelin, ending your game immediately (regardless of how many lives you had) without even giving you the option to use a continue! You actually get an achievement for letting this happen the first time.
- Astro Blaster can have you lose the entire game if you crash into the mothership during the docking sequence at the end of every level.
- Confidential Mission: If you and your CPU partner — or the other player in a two-player game — don't both lock the Kill Sat onto the submarine and then fire, the Big Bad gets away and the island that you're on blows up. Part Downer Ending, part Game Over since the "MISSION INCOMPLETE" screen shows up.
- In Contra:
- In Contra: Hard Corps, choosing to join Colonel Bahamut before a boss battle in one of the game's alternate routes will show an ending in which Bahamut conquers the world with the player character as his lackey. However, the player will be then taken to the Game Over screen and be asked to continue (if he has any credits left).
- In Shattered Soldier, completing Stage 5 with your rank below a certain threshold results in the archipelago being destroyed via Kill Sat, taking the heroes with it. Part Downer Ending, part Game Over, indeed.
- In the NES game Cowboy Kid, if the player accepts the bosses' deal to join the Mad Brothers, they will say that Sam became one of the villains who then did bad things and ended up getting hanged by the new sheriff of the town. After this, it shows the words "GAME OVER".
- In North America's release of Custom Robo, the protagonist is freely given the option to not go on the final mission near the end of the game. If you decide not to go, the protagonist's partner, Harry, will beseech him — repeatedly — to reconsider. By steadfastly refusing to go, the rest of the team will go without him. The next day, the Big Bad arrives in the city, having killed off the others, and proceeds to destroy everything. And Harry chastises you for letting him die. After an ellipse, the game will return the player to the previous day where Harry insists that they all go.Harry: See?! I told you you should have come with us!!! Thanks to you, the whole human race was wiped out, and I died! Next time, think a little more carefully before you go picking the WRONG ANSWER!!! Got it?!!
- In Dante's Inferno, failing the Quick Time Event with Cleopatra when she starts fondling Dante results in him being seduced and a game over. Which is only natural, seeing as he's in Hell trying to save Beatrice.
- In Devastators, not only does this happen if you run out of time, but it actually tells you straight out before each mission:"IF YOU FAIL TO COMPLETE,/YOU WILL PERISH!"
- Einhänder, Stage 6: Fail to destroy the space shuttle's thrusters in time and your craft plummets to earth, where it is immediately set upon by German forces. The game ends here even if you have extra lives remaining.
- In Enter the Matrix, in some missions, if either Ghost or Niobe fail to save their allies, the mission fails and it will say "YOU FAILED TO PROTECT *insert ally’s name*". In two missions for Ghost, the missions will also fail if he doesn't shoot the plane's front tire to save his ally Axel ("YOU FAILED TO SHOOT THE TIRE OF THE PLANE"), flee the control tower after destroying the Agent Helicopter ("YOU FAILED TO LEAVE THE TOWER IN TIME"), or losing the plane Niobe and Axel's in, in a different mission ("YOU LOST THE PLANE").
- Fantasy Zone: The second game's PS2 remake has three endings, and in the worst of them, Opa-Opa turns evil and spreads chaos throughout the Fantasy Zone. It doubles as a non-standard game over, as it is the only ending that doesn't lead to a New Game Plus, and downright says Game Over.
- In Furi, staying with The Song for long enough will prompt The Stranger to sit down and accept her offer to spend his life in the garden with her.
- Galaga: You can get your ship captured by an enemy, then shoot down said enemy to obtain the double ship. However, if the captured ship is your last ship, the game will end instead, as if you had been shot down.
- Halley's Comet can end the usual way of losing all of one's lives, but also will end if the planet that the player is defending takes 100% damage.
- In Hellsinker, if you time out Rex Cavalier and only have one life left, you get a very strange sequence
referred to as the "spirit overload" ending. The boss, with its last remaining bits of energy, downloads its memories into the character's mind and drives them insane. Over time, the game over text implies, your (human) character is reshaped into an utterly inhuman Prayer.SPIRIT OVERLOAD.
YOU GOT INSANITY.
YOU MUST RESHAPE ONESELF FOR ONCOMING ASPIRANTS. - In Hotline Miami, getting caught by a surgeon or a police officer in the "Trauma" chapter will result in a surprisingly mundane punishment; Jacket will be put into restraints and sent back to his hospital room.
- Once you're introduced to the Jackals in Let It Die, they can show up at any time when you spend too long on a floor. Getting killed by one of them results in your character instantly becoming a Hater, instead of you getting the option to revive by talking to Kiwako.
- In the arcade game Magic Sword: Heroic Fantasy, choosing to accept the orb which drops when you defeat the final boss makes you the new final boss, with a caption asking who's going to save the world now.
- Mafia:
- A mission in the later parts of Mafia II has you in a house trying to hide somewhere while hoping not to be seen by a hitman. If you decide to hide in the shower, you will be treated to an extra cutscene of the hitman shooting you through the curtains, and then you get your "You got killed"-screen. Another one will take place if you drive too recklessly while transporting a bomb, resulting in a massive fireball.
- If you fail a main mission objective in Mafia III (just dying doesn't count), you're treated to a short cutscene of the FBI agent presenting the documentary in the present day. He either goes through his notes, exclaiming that "can't be how it happened," or he'll explain how Lincoln's failure brought about the end of his plans for revenge against Sal Marcano.
- Having the Sinister 7 launch the World War III protocol in the 1990 video game adaptation of Mission: Impossible will result in The End of the World as We Know It. You are immediately sent back to the title screen, and have to play the sixth mission from the very beginning.
- In NAM-1975, should you lose to the final boss, Dr. R. Muckly, he will be heard boasting that the world is now his, and the world is then shown exploding. He is then heard laughing evilly as it cuts to the Game Over screen.
- In Paperboy, if you lose all your customers, the game over screen says "Paperboy Fired" instead of the usual "Paperboy Calls It Quits".
- In the Sega Genesis and Game Gear adaptations of Predator 2, allowing the Predator to kill too many hostages (two in a single stage, or three across an entire playthrough) will end the game immediately.
- The obscure Sega Genesis title Rolo to the Rescue has a particularly depressing example for if you beat the final boss, but fail to rescue all the captured animals. Despite the titular young elephant successfully escaping the Evil Circus and returning to his mother, it's then stated that the guilt Rolo feels as a result of not rescuing his friends when he had the chance weighs heavily on his conscience, and because of that, he is never truly happy again. As one last parting shot, this is followed by the regular Game Over screen.
- Space Invaders: Perhaps one of the earliest video game examples; allowing even one of the eponymous alien ships to reach the bottom of the playfield results in an instant game over, no matter how many lives you have left. This is retained in Return of the Invaders but averted in Super Space Invaders '91 because of the difficulty of the differing formations in each wave: you simply die and the playfield is reset, minus any Invaders you destroyed previously.
- In the Sega CD version of Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin, losing to the Kingpin (the final boss) results in a sad ending sequence in which the Kingpin triumphs over the defeated Spider-Man. He then lowers both Spider-Man and Mary Jane into the vat of deadly ooze, after which they are never seen again. In the Genesis version of the game, the bad ending consists of Mary Jane being lowered into a vat of acid, Spidey vowing revenge, and "GAME OVER".
- In Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters:
- The Ur-Quan, being the reasonable people they are, will allow you to surrender to them and offer to spare the lives of your crew in exchange. They're not going to let you live, of course, and even if they did, you wouldn't have your plot-necessary Cool Spaceship anymore, so if you accept, the conversation cuts directly to a Game Over screen. Still, quite a magnanimous offer considering that everyone on your ship is currently engaged in fully voluntary rebellion.
- The game has a time limit, in that eventually the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah who have an agenda of total genocide will triumph over the green Ur-Quan and begin moving to exterminate all sentient life in the galaxy. You can monitor their progress on the galactic map as they move from species to species. Eventually, they will head for Earth, and if they arrive before you eliminate their flagship and halt their advance, the population of Earth is eradicated and it's game over.
- Star Control III can end abruptly if you allow the Eternal Ones to feed on the galaxy without improving their process to be survivable to the natives. You also get a game over if you're too trusting of the Orz, Arilou, or Ploxis, or commit enough war crimes (or bad enough war crimes) to be fired from your leadership position.
- Star Fox:
- Star Fox 2 has an alternate Game Over screen. Let Corneria take too much damage, and you'll get a cutscene that shows it being destroyed by Andross's forces. The Game Over screen will show Andross grinning like normal, but will read "Corneria fell".
- Star Fox Adventures: Quite a few for failing certain missions. While most are simply "oh well" alternate scenes, some of them can be pretty mean to Fox. One of the later ones (namely the result of failing to defend a HighTop from enemy attacks at one point in Dragon Rock) consists of Tricky whimpering and nuzzling up to Fox's lifeless body. The game resets to an earlier point after such cutscenes and does not take away a Bafomdad, however.
- In Star Wars: Rebel Assault, running out of lives or missing the exhaust port on the Death Star trench run results in a cutscene of the Death Star destroying Yavin IV, with the narrator announcing "The Death Star continued to extinguish Rebel bases throughout the galaxy, and the Alliance was defeated".
- In the Strike series of Helicopter games:
- Simply getting yourself blown up would earn a normal game over. Failing a mission or otherwise rendering the level Unwinnable, however, would result in your being recalled to base for a dressing-down from your commanding officer which changed according to what you did wrong. (From Jungle Strike's first level, if you tried some Monumental Damage of your own: "You redecorated the White House, Beruit style!")
- In Nuclear Strike, it is possible to have a nonstandard game over piled on top of a nonstandard game over. If you tried to refuel thrice after being told to return to base because of a SNAFU, General Earle orders your (literal) termination for going rogue.
- ZeroRanger's True Final Boss has a pretty cruel one: You don't get the standard post-game results screen, the high score table, or anything else associated with a normal game over. No, the game flashes, fades to black, and erases your save file, so you have to start from Stage 1-1 all over again! You are warned about it when asked if you want to challenge the boss, however.
- In Zombies Ate My Neighbors, you start with ten victims to save and the number decreases each time you let one die. If all of them die, the game immediately ends regardless of how many lives you have.
- Zone of the Enders has one that doubles as a bad ending: fail all SOS missions by getting an E rank (all buildings destroyed and no survivors), and Thunderheart will be abruptly and suddenly killed by an explosion shortly after he's introduced. ADA will confirm that Jehuty severing some of the colony's lifelines is what caused the explosion, and berate Leo for letting it happen. This is almost impossible to achieve unless one goes out of their way to do so, however.ADA: Are you happy now?Leo: I was...just playing...
