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Awful sections in great video games


RedTwoster

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12 hours ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

The modern day sections in the Assassinā€™s Creed games. I just want to lose myself in ancient Egypt/Greece/Viking times please. I donā€™t care about Abstergo or Animus stuff. Those levels are always a chore to get through.

Agree passionately with this. If we ever do a UKFF Fictional Twat List I'm nominating the bloke with glasses from these sections.Ā 

Not sure anyone else will remember Farenheit on Ps2, which was a bit of a precursor to Heavy Rain. ItĀ  had a mission where you're trying to get past a truck on a military base in a timing window of about 2 milliseconds. Horrendous. Made worse by obnoxiously loud spooky music which I had drilled into my memory as I failed over and over and over again.Ā 

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2 hours ago, Gus Mears said:

Agree passionately with this. If we ever do a UKFF Fictional Twat List I'm nominating the bloke with glasses from these sections.Ā 

Not sure anyone else will remember Farenheit on Ps2, which was a bit of a precursor to Heavy Rain. ItĀ  had a mission where you're trying to get past a truck on a military base in a timing window of about 2 milliseconds. Horrendous. Made worse by obnoxiously loud spooky music which I had drilled into my memory as I failed over and over and over again.Ā 

Yep, I remember that. Very irritating. A very odd game, that - more of an interactive movie than a game in places, and I look back on that sex scene mini game with cringe - but a lot of atmosphere, and a pretty good premise.

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Shadow of Rome is always the one that springs to mind. Late PS2 Capcom game, which was 70% pulsating gladiatorial combat. Great game feel, satisfying mechanics, nice variety of opponents and weapons, well implemented difficulty curve, a combo/streak high score system to add replay value.
Ā 

Also one of the few times Iā€™ve liked a weapon breaking mechanic, as it added to the feeling of desperation and fighting for survival. You canā€™t just button mash the enemies to death and you constantly feel like youā€™re up against it trying to survive, sometimes desperately running around the arena scrambling for something to use. I feel like thatā€™s how gladiatorial combat in the colosseum SHOULD feel. Youā€™re not a superhero, youā€™re a guy whoā€™s been thrown into a kill or be killed horror show.Ā 
Ā 

However, every few levels you switched to the other playable character of the story. His bits involved these underdeveloped, poorly implemented and crushingly dull stealth levels which sucked all of the joy out of the game.Ā 
Ā 

There were also chariot racing bits, which were better than the stealth parts but worse than the combat.Ā 
Ā 

Itā€™s a particularly frustrating one, as it wasnā€™t one of those games where theyā€™ve tried to do multiple gameplay styles and did Ā a mediocre job of all of them instead of an excellent job at one. Instead, they absolutely nailed one part of it and then watered it down with the rest.Ā 
Ā 

A 7/10 game because they almost intentionally made it a that way.Ā 

Edited by JLM
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1 hour ago, JLM said:

Shadow of Rome is always the one that springs to mind. Late PS2 Capcom game, which was 70% pulsating gladiatorial combat. Great game feel, satisfying mechanics, nice variety of opponents and weapons, well implemented difficulty curve, a combo/streak high score system to add replay value.
Ā 

Also one of the few times Iā€™ve liked a weapon breaking mechanic, as it added to the feeling of desperation and fighting for survival. You canā€™t just button mash the enemies to death and you constantly feel like youā€™re up against it trying to survive, sometimes desperately running around the arena scrambling for something to use. I feel like thatā€™s how gladiatorial combat in the colosseum SHOULD feel. Youā€™re not a superhero, youā€™re a guy whoā€™s been thrown into a kill or be killed horror show.Ā 
Ā 

However, every few levels you switched to the other playable character of the story. His bits involved these underdeveloped, poorly implemented and crushingly dull stealth levels which sucked all of the joy out of the game.Ā 
Ā 

There were also chariot racing bits, which were better than the stealth parts but worse than the combat.Ā 
Ā 

Itā€™s a particularly frustrating one, as it wasnā€™t one of those games where theyā€™ve tried to do multiple gameplay styles and did Ā a mediocre job of all of them instead of an excellent job at one. Instead, they absolutely nailed one part of it and then watered it down with the rest.Ā 
Ā 

A 7/10 game because they almost intentionally made it a that way.Ā 

I didn't mind the Octavian bits, but they definitely didn't compare in any way to the gladiatorial stuff. The ability to chop someone's head off and throw it at someone else, or chop someone's arm off and beat them to death with it feels like pure, shameless gratuitousness, and that's why it works.

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There's a level in Super Mario Bros on the SNES - in Star World. Where you have to eat balloons and float through a range of pipes and vines. I think it's the only level on that game I never completed.

Ā 

Also anything in Arkham Knight that involved the bloody Batmobile. Hated them all.

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Arkham Knight's first few hours felt like nothing more than a dull tutorial for all the shite little mechanics they added to it, I never made it into the game proper before deleting it off my hard drive. Plus it ran like arse even on a PS4 Pro.

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6 hours ago, Zaheer said:

There's a level in Super Mario Bros on the SNES - in Star World. Where you have to eat balloons and float through a range of pipes and vines. I think it's the only level on that game I never completed.

Fucking TUBULAR. That's what that cunt's called. I don't think it's an awful level so much, more ridiculously difficult, and probably a major contributing factor towards why I don't buy anything on Steam that's labelled 'Precision Platformer' and 'Difficult'.

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6 hours ago, Zaheer said:

There's a level in Super Mario Bros on the SNES - in Star World. Where you have to eat balloons and float through a range of pipes and vines. I think it's the only level on that game I never completed.

Whilst there was a version of SMB1 on the SNES as part of the All-Stars collection, you're thinking of Super Mario World. The Star World wasn't part of the critical path and would probably be called postgame content nowadays so it's a bit unfair to include it here.

SMB3 had already featured levels and sections you didn't need to complete in order to finish and get the ending, as has just about every mainline Mario game since. By that token Champions' Road in 3D World and the Special Worlds in 3D Land or Super Mario Bros Wonder should qualify, among others.

I somehow fluked Tubular as a kid on about my hundredth try but I doubt I'd have the patience for it these days. Plus, even though it was brutally difficult, that doesn't necessarily make it bad.

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1 hour ago, Fog Dude said:

Whilst there was a version of SMB1 on the SNES as part of the All-Stars collection, you're thinking of Super Mario World. The Star World wasn't part of the critical path and would probably be called postgame content nowadays so it's a bit unfair to include it here.

SMB3 had already featured levels and sections you didn't need to complete in order to finish and get the ending, as has just about every mainline Mario game since. By that token Champions' Road in 3D World and the Special Worlds in 3D Land or Super Mario Bros Wonder should qualify, among others.

I somehow fluked Tubular as a kid on about my hundredth try but I doubt I'd have the patience for it these days. Plus, even though it was brutally difficult, that doesn't necessarily make it bad.

Awful posts in great threads.

Absolutely fair to include it here. By your very own made up rules for the thread, the Star World wasn't "postgame" and could be found as early as World 2. You can actually complete the game without glitches using only 11 exits so that would be something like 83 uncritical levels in Super Mario World that don't count.

Champions' Road and Special Worlds would also qualify yeah, because again this is a rule you've made up.

This isn't "Awful sections in only the non-secret, non-bonus, non-DLC, and only regular without any variations levels in great videogames" thread.

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Mine would be the spinners in Sonic 3. I would say Marble Garden as a whole but I think the music and level colours are really good. The mechanics for the level wind me up to no end though!

Always skating with my head across the ceiling until I hit and wall and fall off.

sonic-3-marble-garden-3.large.thumb.jpg.e2f43fc842f26a994c6affafaa02c294.jpg

Ā 

Edited by FLips
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36 minutes ago, FLips said:

Awful posts in great threads.

Absolutely fair to include it here. By your very own made up rules for the thread, the Star World wasn't "postgame" and could be found as early as World 2. You can actually complete the game without glitches using only 11 exits so that would be something like 83 uncritical levels in Super Mario World that don't count.

Champions' Road and Special Worlds would also qualify yeah, because again this is a rule you've made up.

This isn't "Awful sections in only the non-secret, non-bonus, non-DLC, and only regular without any variations levels in great videogames" thread.

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Mine would be the spinners in Sonic 3.

Fair enough, that didn't go down well. Wasn't trying to make up any rules, but since the most popular entry in the thread was about not being able to get past a tutorial section I thought there'd be some weight behind whether completing a level was necessary to progress in the game or not. And obviously I've seen speedruns since so know about the 11 exits thing but wouldn't have been aware of that route as a kid (and you'd be missing out on the joy of most of the other levels by getting to Bowser that way).Ā 

Spinners in Marble Garden are a decent shout.Ā 

Edited by Fog Dude
On-brand brain fog
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1 hour ago, FLips said:

Mine would be the spinners in Sonic 3. I would say Marble Garden as a whole but I think the music and level colours are really good. The mechanics for the level wind me up to no end though!

Always skating with my head across the ceiling until I hit and wall and fall off.

Brilliant shout, Iā€™d forgotten how awful this section was. Iā€™ve no idea why, but Iā€™ve never been able to complete this zone with Tails. There comes a point each time where I feel trapped and donā€™t know what to do or where to go, and itā€™s not an issue Iā€™ve ever had with Sonic or Knuckles play-throughs.

Edited by RedTwoster
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