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My current choice has to be Mission 3 for the Demon campaign in Heroes of Might and Magic 5. Unbelievably poor level design- in this mission, you have two problems- one, the elves are trying to kick your ass, and two- there's some druids who summon in random pixies, blade dancers and hunters every fucking week. Any units that aren't wiped out during that week grow. Within a few weeks of game time, they're at 100+ strength- not normally a problem for you, since they run at the sight of your army by around this time (since, as a competent player, you will be building up your forces- or trying to- given the lack of resources).

But-

You can't let it go on forever, you have to wipe the druids out- but if you go to the area of the map where the druids are- the elven main hero shows up- with a ridiculously unbalanced force- basically, because he's a fucking elf and elf units are getting summoned, he simply absorbs all these fucking units into his army. He attacked me and he had 258 Master Hunters (since there's a Hill Fort that allows upgrade of standard units in the level). That is enough to kill any unit in the game many times over- and there's no possible way EVER you could get that many units by recruitment. It'd take weeks and weeks and weeks, and not that much time had elapsed.

I grew so fed up with it I simply turned on the cheats, stacked my army with Archdevils, and wiped him out in the first couple of days. There's only so much bullshit I can take before I declare a level of a lost cause and cheat my way past it.

I'm of two minds whether to try it again legit or simply move on.

....crap, I'm just starting that board on my save at home. Not what I wanted to hear.

White Haven wrote:....crap, I'm just starting that board on my save at home. Not what I wanted to hear.

The level is (I've discovered from looking at the official boards) a huge source of annoyance it seems- the only way to beat it is apparently to take advantage of the scripting aand AI quirks nd basically play the level in a way it's not meant to be played. Which qualifies it for poor level design pretty well, IMO.

(apparently, you're not supposed to take the first Elf town you see, you're supposed to go after another in the NW of the map- bah)

My pet hate was the 'mini mission' in Final Fantasy 7 when you were sneaking into Shinra Tower, disc 1. You make your way through beating up dozens of guards and robots. . . .and for some completely retarded reason you're forced to be 'stealthy' while walking through a hallway to get past four security guards who you could otherwise beat the everloving fuck out of, and not only that but you completely wind up resetting the 'mini mission' whenever you're spotted, fighting not being an option. Argh.

The RC plane in GTA:SA.

If I've destroyed the targets, and the plane has an auto destruct, why do I need to get back to the damn base?

The second-to-last Order mission in DoW Winter Assault. Yes, because naturally a LAND RAIDER escorted by SPACE MARINES needs to trundle along at less than half of unarmored foot infantry speed, while trying to blitz through hostile-controlled territory. Fucking contrived tension.

The Library in Halo.

-Let's see, we got the flood, which are predictable, easy to avoid, and are not scary but annoying and stupid, and get repetitive after killing 5 of them, and we need to build a level around them. I know! let's make a room and corridor, put 150 of them in it, and then copy-paste it 30 times over in sequence!

The final boss level in Actraiser (SNES)

Any instant-fail stealth mission. Anywhere. Ever.

the bug of the European version of Rygar on NES which made impossible to finish the game...

That part in Castlevania 64 where you had to transport the nitro. If you jumped or got hit you exploded. That most horrible part of that most horrible game shall be emblazoned on my very psyche for all eternity.

Shogoki wrote:The Library in Halo.

-Let's see, we got the flood, which are predictable, easy to avoid, and are not scary but annoying and stupid, and get repetitive after killing 5 of them, and we need to build a level around them. I know! let's make a room and corridor, put 150 of them in it, and then copy-paste it 30 times over in sequence!

Yes lets!
-Most annoying mission ever in my book as well.

Vympel wrote:(apparently, you're not supposed to take the first Elf town you see, you're supposed to go after another in the NW of the map- bah)

How the fuck do you get to that town without getting wacked by the huge fuck off creatures blocking the way on the map?

Without losing most of your army

The offices in FEAR, or as a single mission, Playing Judas in Freespace. I hate missions that fail you for being seen.

Wing Commander I, the first mission when you meet up with Bhurak Starkiller. It's an escort mission too. I think I failed it a hundred times before I finally beat it.

A few of the campaign missions in GalCiv2 against the Dread Lords are freaking near impossible, especially if the objective is to conquer one of their planets. Hell, on one mission I set the difficulty all the way down to cakewalk and the only result was that they killed me more slowly.

A few of the battles in KH2 where they throw a minigame at you in the middle where you have to win always struck me as bullshit. Oh, I didn't manage to kill ten of that Organization member's water forms in ten seconds, so clearly I should lose the battle, despite the fact that I didn't come close to actually, you know, dying.

Two:

Stealth/Instant fail missions. Sorry, too many are done in the format that if you are n't reading the programmer's mind, you do not have clue one of how to properly win.

Scripted Never win. I despise these more then anything.

Zelda: Wind Waker. Looking for all the fucking triforce pieces. A blatent example of game padding if I ever did see one.

FF3/6

The Opera 'mission' Nuff said.

Many of the bosses in Doom 3: Resurrection Of Evil. You go through the game dropping demons left and right with all your big huge guns and then get to a boss which is invincible unless you hit him in a specific spot a hundred times which only becomes vulnerable for a split second or two.

Escort missions in space sims where the target you're escorting is made of paper, and they only way you can possibly succeed is by playing over and over, memorizing the exact positions that the enemy will warp in, and then you still need to have sheer dumb luck to prevent them from hosing your target because they throw their own lives away continuing to attack the target instead of taking evasive actions. Even worse is when the attackers are so durable that it takes longer to destroy even one of them with continuous firing than it takes them to destroy the ship you're supposed to protect.

The mission in the first Rogue Squadron where you're protecting three stolen AT-PT's - Escape from Fest. Unless you take out the turrets, bombers, small walkers and AT-AT's in precisely the right order - not to mention time the destruction of the shield generator to the second - you fail. Every. Single. Time.

And the tow cable on your speeder can snap almost randomly. Great design, guys.

Pezzoni wrote:Zelda: Wind Waker. Looking for all the fucking triforce pieces. A blatant example of game padding if I ever did see one.

Just the sail distances in that game were annoying. I mean, twenty fucking minutes to get from island to island -- it's realistic, but annoying, especially when you're going for triforce pieces and dungeon to dungeon to big cave that's not really a dungeon (thank god) to island to island to island to -- wow, another dungeon on a new island! I mean, I love the game, but the sail times pissed me off.

Vendetta wrote:Any instant-fail stealth mission. Anywhere. Ever.

Seconded, thirded, and fourthed. ESPECIALLY when they are shoehorned into an FPS where the level beforehand your are scything your way through more enemies you have to sneak past in the stealth level (I'm looking at you, Jedi Outcast).

Crossroads Inc. wrote:FF3/6

The Opera 'mission' Nuff said.

How can you say that? That was one of the best parts of the game!

As for me, I'd say the minigames in FFX to get the ultimate weapons. The Chocobo Race was so fucking awful and arbitrarily difficult (I hate it when developers intentionally program shitty control and act like that represents a real challenge). The 200-lightning bolt dodge was pretty awful, too.