When I played Mafia, it had a difficulty slider for the car race. You can set it to “easy” and win the race on the first try. I assume this was added in a patch.
That final mission in Mafia, though…that was a bear. I still can’t believe I stuck with it and got to the end. Took me about a week!
I have no attention span today, so I’m not reading this whole thread, but I’m just going to assume someone has already said the library from Halo and I’d like to call them an idiot.
Let me guess, the level was too long and repetitive? Pffft. Look, it had space zombies, OK? Space. Zombies. Space zombies + shotguns = Level You Can Play Forever. The end.
No, not the end. Some of those space zombies actually jump at you, like from way far away. I mean what’s better than a space zombie that you shoot with a shotgun while he’s in the air flying at you? Hello? Am I the only one left who likes video games?
Also, my vote goes to that annoying-as-fuck Chicago mission in Crimson Skies (XB) where you spend the first half of the mission shooting at things that are near the border of the playable area, but when you get to the border the computer takes over your plane and turns it around to put you back in the mission area except you’re near a bunch of buildings so it turns you right into one of them and your plane FUCKING EXPLODES WHILE THE COMPUTER IS CONTROLLING IT YOU GOD DAMN PIECE OF SHIT GAME!!!
I didn’t like that level so much.
mike:
:D
Yeah that is fun…PC controlled player kills…Like dying during autodock in Tachyon.
Are there people who actually enjoy any of these levels? Cathcart at least expresses some enjoyment (?) at Halo’s Library sequence, but most of the other examples (JK2 stealth level) are universally reviled. Is this just a problem with a lack of institutional knowledge among designers?
Some enjoyment? It’s one of the best things that happened in a game this year! Flying space zombies that you shoot with shotguns! Put that on the box and you sold me a copy. I consider myself a bit of a shotgun connoisseur, and that one was pretty nice. Plus, I’ve always considered that eternal debate–which is more fun to kill, aliens or zombies–to be a central theme in gaming (see if I was a smarty-art writer I’d have some fancy French word here that means ‘experience’ or ‘consciousness’, like “to be a central theme in the gaming seiz vouz blah”, but instead I just have this parenthetical remark). Halo’s simple yet elegant solution was to combine the two. And then they wisely gave us a shotgun to shoot that solution. Bravo, Bungie.
Also, thanks, Sol!
The “Trouble With Gunstars” mission in Independence War 2. It violated rule #68 of Scharmers’s Bad Game Design:
NEVER EVAR PUT A LONG, UNINTERRUPTABLE CUTSCENE (OR WORSE YET, SERIES OF CUTSCENES) BEFORE A “AREN’T WE JUST FUCKING CLEVER?” MISSION.
To the “why am I being stealthy when I could just kick your ass, and nine hundred of your buddies’ asses” hall of fame list: any stealth element in SoF2. Ludicrous.
–scharmers
No kidding… I mean, you’re a Soldier… of Fortune! You don’t get paid for being stealthy. You get paid to shoot stuff!
The Library wasn’t a bad level at all, really, but the sheer repetitiveness had me gritting my teeth toward the end. You walked down the exact same corridors (literally cookie cutter design), shooting the same bad guys, over and over. A few times through and it’s fine but it went on about twice as long as it needed to. Shortening that section would not have hurt the game in any way.
Except for the giant floating space baby and a few small sections, I actually didn’t mind the Xen level of Half-Life. Again, my main beef would be that it went on too long.
I’m curious to see what level 5 of Doom II was now. Oddly, I do remember the first four – Entryway, Underhalls, The Gantlet and The Focus. Or at least I think that’s what they were. :)
The difference is that The Simspsons is actually pretty easy. I finished all of the missions (PC version), and only had to replay a few of them more than a couple of times.
Also, the game lets you try it again from a menu if you fail, which lowers the frustration factor. It seems like it wants you to finish everything.
A problem I had with all of the Starlancer levels is the constant stopping for cutscenes in mid mission. Terrible design choice. Please, for the love of cole slaw, I don’t want to play a movie. Once I’m in the cockpit, leave me in the cockpit.
The main objections to the turret missions I saw were:
They were too hard/out of place, no matter how easy you find them not everyone has the same twitch abilities and people don’t expect to find them in PC RPGs. Check the Bioware forums for a number of people who couldn’t do them, as well as the smartarse ‘You must be a spastic’ replies.
As you said they weren’t very good.
The first broke Scharmers’ law, being immediately after a long, unskippable, cut-scene with no chance to save before it started.
Although I managed to beat the first after 3 tries and reading the helpful hints on Bioware’s forum, I really think that if such things are going to be a feature of future CRPGs they should be optional.
The library level in Halo didn’t particularly bother me either. It was, as stated a bit to long for my taste, but I did not mind the inclusion of the level. The first 30 minutes I played of the library were the most fun I’ve had with a shotgun since Serious Sam. I do not see that as a bad thing. But they absolutely had no reason to make you repeat the same bloody level four times.
Heh the trick to the Kotor turrets I accidentally discovered is that you can begin shooting before the turret screen actually displays. All the enemy fighters fly in at first on the same vector directly in front of your guns, so if you click frantically while still in the loading screen you can take almost all of them out before the gun turret screen even renders its first frame.
If it hadn’t been for that trick I would have gotten seriously fed up with the game.
For me:
The library level was fine even on the Xbox. Haven’t tried it on PC yet.
Race mission on Mafia was challenging but they put in a difficulty slider in a patch. Probably should have been skipable.
Race mission in VC challenging but winnable without clipping him. Follow him until he screws up then blow past him and win. The helicopter mission on PC was worse.
All stealth levels in the middle of non-stealth games blow.
Sniper town was the worst level ever in an otherwise good game. Really killed it for me.
– Xaroc
gotta make a move in a game that’s right for meeeeeeeeeee
(deet deet deet deet, deet, deet deet DEET deet deet)
gotta get my fill of pure hot killography
(deet deet deet deet, deet, deet deet DEET deet deet)
well, we talk about talk about talk about shoooooooooootin
(deet deet deet deet, boop, deet deet DEET boop boop)
yeah we talk about talk about talk about STOOOOOOOOOOPID
(deet deet deet deet, deet, deet deet DEET deet deet)
(bang-a-dang)
won’t you take me to
(bang-a-dang)
SNIPER TOWN
(bang-a-dang)
won’t you take me to
(bang-a-dang)
SNNNNNNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPER TOWN!!!
(a wee woo wee woo wee woo, a wee woo WEE)
etc.
–phonetically sealed for your protection
–scharmers, who heartily agrees that the MoA sniper towns are probably the most egregious case of suck over skill in any shooter
Yep that was one of the helpful hints I read on the Bioware board :) . The others were that the thing at the bottom of the screen is a radar and that you can pause with the ‘Esc’ key.
In that very same game, the “meet the Oman” mission, where you have to perform the three trials, killed ID2 for me.
The STUPID trial of the mind or whatever, where you are supposed to arrange crates in a specific pattern felt A BIT OUT OF PLACE IN A SPACE SIM.
Many missions up to that point had been very though (like the one you mention) but at least they tested your skills as a pilot. This one did not. And that fact drove me nuts. And the game from my hard drive.
I remember having to do the bank mission in Vice City (PS2) a few times, but I don’t remember having any problem with the bank race. The worst level in Vice City for me (and I’m really surprised no one else has mentioned it, considering how much trouble it gave me) was the one where you rescue Lance from the junkyard. It’s a timed escort mission. Eek.
Any “squad” level in an RTS. I build. I play to build. And I prefer being able to pump out reinforcements if I screw up - means I can do it in one sitting. Having to start over because the idiot pathfinding let one of your only 4 troops wander into a minefield is excruciating to me.
Also, I second the vote for ‘any water mission’.
That whole sequence would have been fine If it had been Loading Dock - Empty The Big Trucks! or Trespasser