Oh my god, how I love that level. Seeing footage of it on some video game-related TV show or commercial is what convinced my 6-year-old self that I absolutely had to have that game and prompted me to spend my birthday money on it.
Turns out I made a good choice, because the entire game was flat-out awesome, but the Clocktower level is by far the best. Awesome music, fantastic visuals, cool boss fight, and when it’s over you get to do the whole thing backwards with the new character you’ve acquired.
Playing it on Expert and pounding through those fifteen note sequences that contain every cruel trick the game has in its repertoire is likely to kill you but at least you’ll die happy…
I have to admit my transgressions from an earlier time in my life. I was much younger in those days(hehe duh) and probably among the first gerneration of what would come to be power Gamers.
My name is wolfman …and I cheated at the citadel. I was getting my butt kicked, so I hacked the game to give myself 3 of the super-meson Cannons to my good best heavy energy gunners.
Heh, regenerate in the toilets and you’re screwed. Or snipe with a magnum in the control room for the doors, blasting people through the doors and windows
I’m crap at the game in general, but I loved the level in Halo 2 multiplayer where there’s some sort of factory complex, two levels and conveyor belts. With pistols you run amok and bash people over the head with the butt of your gun
Pretty sure there are others, I know I’ve played a few games with a lack of save points through a few times just to get to certain points.
The citadel isn’t easy, especially the grand hall. It feels like LAW rockets rain down from every direction. If you don’t stick to the walls it feels like you aggravate every mob in the whole building.
It is the second most action packed part of the game. The sewers would be more fun if they didn’t suck ass for some reason. Man I hate the sewers.
I’ll give you the reason. The same freaking enemies over and over. And over. And the same boring landscape. And the same (mostly) inescapable freaking river of sewage that you can accidentally run into if you bump the wrong key. Which since is likely to give you sewer rot when you get pulled under, can actually run the risk of killing your party should they be lower on hit points when it happens. Sure the conversation with Max was interesting, but if it weren’t critical to the game, it’d hardly be worth the effort. Oh, and then there was that pit trap thing that without a high climb skill you couldn’t actually get someone out of (and would only let one character at a time out of it). Fortunately, all my characters had a high climb skill. It wasn’t until later that I realized I could have gone around it by digging the walls.
Deus Ex 1 – Hong Kong. Superb in every way, including the music.
Call of Duty 4 – Sniper mission.
Not yet mentioned:
Call of Duty 1 – Crossing the Volga at the beginning of the Russian campaign, and then charging Red Square with a magazine of rounds, but no rifle. They turned Enemy at the Gates into a video game level, and it rocked. The end of the British Pegasus Bridge mission, with the orchestral music fading in as reinforcements arrived, takes a close 2nd.
Both System Shocks were PC (in the broad sense - SS1 was released for Mac) games (there may have been a console version planned for SS2 but I don’t think it came out).
Anyway, I wanted to mention the Groves from System Shock. It’s where the plant life of the station was grown, and went wild. The details made it feel just like something you’d want on a space station, and the level layout was very dangerous with lots of open ground to cover and a few little spaces you had to get into.
Unless you botch it, at which point the kid abandons him and it really is another Loser Anthem. >_>
But, yeah, the song’s disconnect from a successful playing of the level is another level of WTF on it.
You’re clearly much, much better at the game than me…I’m still struggling with Without a Fight on Breezin’. (After a couple weeks…I didn’t get the game when it first came out.) I’ve only gotten past the second verse once, and the spinner on the third killed me that time. (Suddenly throwing a spinner into the middle of a verse was just evil…)
Watching videos of people doing the levels with the Divas on YouTube is absolutely mindboggling. :eek: I don’t think I’m ever going to be that good.
Of course, on the opposite end of the difficulty spectrum is YMCA, which I have yet to fail on Breezin’ or Cruisin’ - or even get a bad verse on Breezin’. Really weird placement in the level progression for that one.
In one of the Dark Forces games, there’s a level where you’re on a space ship that is docked planetside, and the engines fail while you’re inside - you have to run through the entire level, occasionally fighting off a foe, until you can escape the ship before it impacts on the planet…
I’m also a fan of Ravenholm in HL2 and Stalingrad in CoD. I don’t remember all that many specific levels from most games…
In Bioshock, as you have to kill wall-crawling crazy people coming at you with lead pipes and revolvers, while the Dancers On A String ballette song plays in the background and you’re cheered on by the insane Sander Cohen himself. That definitely sticks out as a gaming moment of pure, unadulerated insanity and brilliance.
The Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare “Ghillie up” level is also insane. Lying flat to the ground with your subwoofer under your feet, dead still, while a column of tanks and infantry pretty much roll straight over you, had my heart beating in my chest so hard I could feel it in my ears. My nose was pretty much stuck to the Captain’s ass for that entire affair.
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames also had some instant classics. Calling down a MOAB on the oil platform you’re standing on and then running like hell and jumping into the water, while the camera pans behind you to watch the platform disintegrate utterly . . . Gratifying is the polite word. Fucking fantastic lies closer to my heart.
My personal favourite has to be from the Company of Heroes series. Specifically, the first Omaha Beach landings. Watching every last one goddamn soldier get mowed down by entrenched MG positions and then being put into control of the next wave coming in, I was already so pissed off I was literally screaming at the bloody Nazis to come within nade range. And then I discovered the bloody, gory and utterly over the top Holy Hand Grenade equivalent that was the satchel charge. Oh lordy lord!
This deserves a little more info. You are Kyle Katarn, elite bad-mutha mercenary commando, heavily armed, and a Jedi in Training. You’ve almost cornered the villain you’re after, when the capital ship is sabotaged out from under your feet. As you go through the level, the damn thing gets more and more tilted off-axis, until you’re desperately Force-leaping to try and reach the bulkheads and doors because the floor is now tilted 90*. The enemies are somtimes willing to shoot you, but they’re mostly frantically running around in terror because They Are All Gonna Die. And you have a time limit, because if you don’t escape the ship crashes head-on into the planet and you become one crispy critter on impact.
Without A Fight sucks. :mad: I don’t care much for the song, and the rhythm and beat patterns are weird.
FWIW, Hard Rock (the Divas setting) owns me, and I don’t think I’m likely to ever be able to pass more than the first couple of levels. I only got through Sweatin’ by virtue of pure muscle memory, for the most part. Hard Rock needs a lot more than that.
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - The boss rush up to the final battle, especially if you have the level 2 sword. Running around as a pink rabbit the first time into Dark World is pretty amusing, too, especially when you can abuse the Mirror to sequence break.
Super Marior World - Donut Plains 1 gets special mention for being the first level you can pick up the feather and thus fly; the Haunted Ship level and its shoutout to SMB 3 is also great fun.
Chrono Trigger - I love the whole game and how awesome all of the worlds are, but 12,000 B.C.'s floating continent overworld music is one of the few musical themes I can study to. It’s so haunting and evocative; IMHO, it’s the best variation on the Chrono Trigger main theme.
Final Fantasy VI - Tie between the Opera House (pixellated sprites singing in midi, what’s not to love? :D) and the Magitek Factory (one of the best theme musics ever).
Mega Man X - This is another one that’s really hard for me to pick, but if I had to pick one I’d say Armored Armadillo’s level.
Dynasty Warriors 5 - The Battle of Chi Bi. Either campaign is loads of fun to play.
Katamari Damancy - Roll the Moon, endless mode. Fun at all sizes.
Disgaea 2 - The final battle in Shinra Tower, especially on the first playthrough cycle where unless you’ve done some massive grinding the battle against Laharl is freaking impossible. Then Rosalin opens a royal can of whoopass - and you get your first in-game taste of what it’s like to completely and utterly own your opponent.
See, the higher difficulties in EBA actually wind up being a lot easier than the lower ones if you stick with them for a little while. I’ve S-Ranked every mission on Hard Rock but have trouble with the lower difficulties because the note charts are so damn slow. In the higher difficulties (Hard Rock especially) it’s easier to get the timing of the notes down because you’re always constantly tapping.
And I think “Survivor” is actually harder than “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
I have to admit my transgressions from an earlier time in my life. I was much younger in those days(hehe duh) and probably among the first gerneration of what would come to be power Gamers.
