I have to say that I've never really enjoyed The End of the Game that much. The first two tracks are OK, the playing seems the most focused on those two. I can't recall whether I've read any comments Green has had on that album, don't know what he thought of it. And from what I've read, there seems to be a lot of truth to it being a rushed recording session to satisfy a record contract too.
I believe much of the attention this album is given is just because it was his last one for such a long time, and the last album from the period (mid-'60s to early '70s) that he's best known for and that created his reputation. For people who had loved Green's blues and blues/rock playing, The End of the Game had to have been quite a shock, and I imagine it was an unpleasant shock to most of them....and not the way most of them would have wanted as a "final statement" from Green before so many years of relative silence.
I'm a fan of Pat Metheny, and I think of what the reaction to him would have been if he had stopped recording immediately after one of his "experimental" albums like Zero Tolerance for Silence or The Sign of 4. If you don't care for those albums, it's easy to just move on to the next ones that are more in line with the music Metheny is known for - it's not like one of those albums was the last one he left us with. With The End of the Game, that was not an option, not easily ignored being the "last" album from Peter Green.
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