The End

This seems appropriate.

"The End", a 1980/1981 arcade game by Konami which I only found out existed a few days ago. A space shooter, similar to Galaxian or Galaga, The End has you shooting at insect things who are after your "blocks". If they manage to get enough, they'll spell out "END" and the game will... end. Your job is to stay alive while making sure they stay dead.

Though the game is nothing to write home about, it's an interesting take on the genre and despite getting an American makeover (a few sprites and the position of the blocks were changed), The End has never been ported to any home systems. Not entirely surprising however, as many of Konami's shooters were similarly tossed aside, though a few have ended up on Yu-gi-oh cards. What is surprising is how poorly this is emulated through MAME. Is its native resolution really 7:24? Nevertheless I think it's about time Konami started releasing a few of these games in a real compilation. Gradius is fun but they have made others!

Oh and if you're thinking "The End" is one of the strangest titles a game has ever had, you've clearly not played "Name that Game" for the Atari 2600. That game has octopi, and at least this game has an "END".