You may be thinking of another game. In Arkham Asylum, they disabled the glide function ([1]), you definitely knew about that before the final boss.
Now, EarthBound had a hook like that one [2], where the game would first make it much more annoying to get through the game (by churning out extra random encounters), and then when you get partway through the final boss the game will freeze and delete your save game.
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I remember hearing about Rocksteady doing something similar with Batman: Arkham Asylum.
If I recall, in Arkham Asylum, it was impossible to win the big boss fight, but there was no messaging about it - it just happened.
You may be thinking of another game. In Arkham Asylum, they disabled the glide function ([1]), you definitely knew about that before the final boss.
Now, EarthBound had a hook like that one [2], where the game would first make it much more annoying to get through the game (by churning out extra random encounters), and then when you get partway through the final boss the game will freeze and delete your save game.
[1] http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=95030
[2] http://earthboundcentral.com/2011/05/earthbounds-copy-protec...
Serious Sam 3 and the evil scorpion, now that shit is hilarious and must be delightful for the developers to think about.