The "best first level" thread got me thinking; we never seem to talk about the best FINAL level in a game, the ones that bring the game to its conclusion in an awesome and climactic way.

Whatr are your picks, and crucially, what made your pick so great?

Reminder to please mark spoilers where appropriate!

"Halo" from Halo 3 immediately comes to mind. It was an insanely intense escape after Master Chief activates the Halo ring to destroy both the Ark and the Flood infestation with arguably the greatest vehicle sequence put in a video game. Especially when playing that level with others and the cheers when you finally escape. Fantastic final level!

I have a few off the top of my mind. The first Halo, for sure. King Krusha for DK64 is another I remember absolutely loving, and I normally hate final boss battles. Andross at the end of Star Fox Adventures was a great surprise. Skater Heaven in THPS2, if that counts, was mind-blowingly cool (not technically the final level, but it's the last one you unlock so I think it counts). There are many of them, and in order to think of them all, I'd have to take time to compile list.

Half-Life 2 is a notable one. I don't think what follows has any actual spoilers, but obviously it's hard to describe the final level of a game without sharing at least some information about it.

Depending on how much of it you count as the final leve, you could start it slightly earlier than the final moments and say it's since roughly the part where you get significantly more powerful, and from there it's kind of a power trip to the end of the game. Or you could count the 'final level' to be from the later moments, where you're still on the power trip, but it's also become kind of a race to the end. It's still a bit of a challenge too, but overall, it feels like you're reaching the climax and winning, and then you win... kind of. Of course all of this is occurring in a noteworthy environment, particularly the very last moment of the game.