Greatest single player game mission

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-11-29 04:02pm

All I have to say is 'This is the Kiith Somtaaw warship Kuun-Lan.'

After hearing it introduced as a mining vessel for the entire rest of the game, hearing Fleet Command announce that made me cheer. And then commit xenocide with great relish.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2004-11-29 04:02pm

The Yosemite Bear wrote:, all of a sudden it's nursery ryhmes (this is the first time you see a nanny, and it scared the fuck out of me)

"Babies must sleep"

I put it to you that the Medical deck was worse though, because it was crawling with the cyber-nannies, and also had the spiders. The fucking spiders. SPIDERS

(Normally, spiders are not a big issue for me. But the ones in Shock II are different. They're purple, they're evil, they hiss at you, and they poison you with evil toxins that don't wear off until you either die or use incalculably precious healing items)

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-11-29 04:15pm

I like the last level of Halo, if only for the fact that the game ended not with a "boss" or "fight your way through a gigantic horde to finish" scenario, but with an unconventional and somewhat refreshing race to escape a countdown that you can't stop.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-11-29 04:21pm

Freespace 2, to earn 'most awesome mission' status, needed to get over its fear of large-scale set-piece battles. Two or three warships do not a battlefleet make, nor five or six a fleet engagement.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2004-11-29 04:31pm

The last mission from Hitman 1 in the sanitarium was awesome also. That creepy place freaked the me out and when suddenly SWAT storms in, all hell breaks loose.

Datana · Post by **Datana** » 2004-11-29 04:41pm

A few favorites:

1. The battle at the Aumaan crevasse in Zone of the Enders 2. You, the Vic Viper, and 40 cannon fodder units against over a thousand enemy units (some of which gave you trouble in just twos and threes earlier on in the game) in a chaotic melee for the ages. And just when you think you've killed everything, a second, larger wave appears at the edge of the map and rushes you.

2. "Return to the Cathedral" from Thief. Scary as all hell. I've wanted to fire this up again, but haven't been able to get Thief nor Thief II to run very well under Windows 2000.

3. "The Cradle" from Thief III. Not quite as scary as RttC, but with more sheer atmosphere than in any other FPS level I've played.

4. Versalife Headquarters from Deus Ex. I keep a save here, actually, so I can go all Matrixy right out of the elevator doors. It's really the first level where you can utterly dominate your opponents with augmentations (at least on a normal playthrough for me).

5. "The Bridge of Sighs" from Homeworld. The first time I saw that level with its massive sphere of ICFs defending the hyperspace jammer, I was wondering how I would ever win it. Then I went and stole half that force to use in the last mission.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-11-29 04:51pm

Thaddis Sabbah, Mission 12 in Homeworld 2 has a chance at the title, as well, especially pre-patch (difficulty was nerfed, turns out they scaled it to be challenging to one of the best players, period, and then went 'oops!'). If you came in with a strong fleet, you could literally end up facing a single battlegroup of half a dozen or more battlecruisers, plus escorts. In words of Yosemite Sam, 'DANCE!'

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-11-29 04:53pm

Darth Wong wrote:I like the last level of Halo, if only for the fact that the game ended not with a "boss" or "fight your way through a gigantic horde to finish" scenario, but with an unconventional and somewhat refreshing race to escape a countdown that you can't stop.

Seconded. Fear the Maw.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-11-29 04:57pm

Thaddis Sabbah also gets points for saying 'We have identified a weak point in the defenses' just before sending you on what is far and away the game's hardest mission, at least pre-patch. Makes you wonder how fucked you'd be if you went in somewhere else

thecreech · Post by **thecreech** » 2004-11-29 05:24pm

Just to damn many to point out. I couldn't even start. Most of the above mentioned i would agree with

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-11-29 05:33pm

Another great mission would be the last mission from GTAIII (assuming you don't just roll in with the tank). There are guys EVERYWHERE, it's just incredibly intense. And different shit can happen each time you do it, too.

Oni Koneko Damien · Post by **Oni Koneko Damien** » 2004-11-29 06:33pm

Hmm,

Half-Life: Questionable ethics. I loved hitting the trip-mine trap, then watching the alien grunts take on the marines.

Half-Life, opfor: The tram ride, that was loads of fun. Also, the cool introduction of that second alien race as one kills a security Barney, then steals a scientist for unmentionable purposes. Also, fighting the alien shock troopers, "Shit, these things can take a grenade to the face and still keep coming, and they can teleport just as well as Vortigaunts!" Oh, and your first meeting with the new, mutated mawmen. Hearing those things breathing and hissing, just around the next dark corner, you know something bad is about to happen.

Doom 2: Tricks and Traps. Nothing like setting up a battle between a cyberdemon and eighteen barons of hell. The best part is the victor in the battle is uncertain; Sometimes the cyberdemon pastes them all, other times the barons get him caught in a corner and rip him to shreds.
Barrels o' fun: I happened to like this one because of the destructive glory, and the fact that you are put in a situation where all the ammo in the world won't save you.
Icon of Sin: Nothing line trying to line up a precise rocket hit, especially when you've got three arch-viles knocking you off the platform with their nasty combustion attacks.

Deus Ex: Well, any mission where you see Walton Simons. I swear, that character was by far the coolest in the game. That cool, dispassionate voice is so beyond awesome. Other than that, heading around the streets of Paris, depending solely on augmentations to avoid being pasted by the MJ12 troops and bots, is pretty damn cool.

Quake: Well, I liked the whole game simply because it was so damn Lovecraftian. The Vores were always my favourite creatures there.

-Damien

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2004-11-29 06:46pm

Oni Koneko Damien wrote:Hmm,
Deus Ex: Well, any mission where you see Walton Simons. I swear, that character was by far the coolest in the game. That cool, dispassionate voice is so beyond awesome. -Damien

They had to give him the coolest character in the game. He's the boss. (Tom Hall, Ion Storm co-founder)

Post by **RogueIce** » 2004-11-29 06:46pm

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - The falling cargoship one. You have to fire on maybe, what, three bad guys at most. But damn if that wasn't fun.

GTA: San Andreas - Reuniting the Families. Just because.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2004-11-29 06:46pm

Freespace: Playing Judas (the one where you're in a shivan dragon-class fighter doing recon)

Freespace2: Into the Lion's Den (DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOT!

)

Battlefield 1942: Battle of Midway

Descent: Secret Level 1.

(with level 7 being a close second)

Descent 2: Level 20 (the one with the boss that fired gauss and mercs)

Descent 3: Level 10 (you revisit the ruins of the first Descent level)

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-11-29 08:05pm

Mechcommander 2: The peace conference where your merc group's former employer lays /your merc group's/ death as a condition for a cease-fire, and your current employer agrees. Did /not/ see that coming, wow, that was one hellllll of a running firefight.

Agent Fisher · Post by **Agent Fisher** » 2004-11-29 08:13pm

Rogue 9 wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:I like the last level of Halo, if only for the fact that the game ended not with a "boss" or "fight your way through a gigantic horde to finish" scenario, but with an unconventional and somewhat refreshing race to escape a countdown that you can't stop.
Seconded. Fear the Maw.

Thirded. For me it is when you are in the hall way where there are two shields set up right outside the engine room. When you play that part on heroic and legendary, it is so fun to just try and hold that part against huge waves of flood.

Oh and first time playing 343 Guilty Spark. I had no idea what the flood was. It was close to midnight when I played that level. I was freaking out on that level. The freakiest part was when you enter that hallway that is stained with blood from grunts and jackals.

mauldooku · Post by **mauldooku** » 2004-11-29 08:21pm

Two of them:

1. Perfect Dark's second bonus mission.

You're one of the Maian Protectors captured at Area 51. You wake up at half-health, with no weapons, and no ammo. You're forced to employ all the dirty tricks in the book to escape without getting massacred, while surviving the longest level in the game, with truly insane amounts of enemies roaming the corridors. Did I mention that you *finally* get access to the Psychosis Gun, enabling you to mind-control a few of the guards? That there's one guard with Double Golden Magnums? That you cover the entire Area 51 complex, which in the normal game is split up into two different levels? That the guards carry SuperDragons?

2. Goldeneye's Control mission.

Oh good God, I still have nightmares over how long it took me to beat this one on 00 Agent. 10 or so Sentry Guns, guards with submachine guns + grenades, Boris of all people (pity you can't kill him), the entire 'protect Natalya for 3 minutes as every guard in the level warps to your location and shoots through bulletproof glass' segment, and then the mad dash to the elevator at the end, with the infinite stream of elite guards hunting you down. Yah, that was a trip.

thecreech · Post by **thecreech** » 2004-11-29 08:29pm

Agent Fisher wrote:
Thirded. For me it is when you are in the hall way where there are two shields set up right outside the engine room. When you play that part on heroic and legendary, it is so fun to just try and hold that part against huge waves of flood.

Oh and first time playing 343 Guilty Spark. I had no idea what the flood was. It was close to midnight when I played that level. I was freaking out on that level. The freakiest part was when you enter that hallway that is stained with blood from grunts and jackals.

Me tooing here... sorry but 343 Guilty Spark and the Maw are were Fantastic levels. I was freaking out also when i started fight against the flood. I always hated when 343 stated "Wait right here I'll go open the door". The humming always cracked me up to.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2004-11-29 09:29pm

Darth Wong wrote:I like the last level of Halo, if only for the fact that the game ended not with a "boss" or "fight your way through a gigantic horde to finish" scenario, but with an unconventional and somewhat refreshing race to escape a countdown that you can't stop.

I never played Halo much, so I never did this, but that sounds a lot like the escape from Zebes and then escape from the space pirate ship you have to do in Metroid Zero Mission.

For me it's any number of missions in the Allied campaign of Red Alert 2. That whole game kicked ass. My personal favorites:

The Pearl Harbor mission. The Soviets caught me by surprise when they built a nuke silo the first time and pwned me, but then I did it again and ripped them a new one. I loved how that game stroked your ego. "You defended Pearl Harbor with such ferocity that the Pacific is ours."

The mission in Mexico with the SEAL team. Those guys were badass, and unlike Tanya, expendable.

The Florida Keys mission. Sorry, reds, no nuking us today. But check out this nifty new thing Einstein made for us.

The Moscow mission. That's right, the war's moving to your turf. The video showing the prism tanks destroying the nuke silo ruled. "You are one of the greatest commanders of all time."

Operation City of Lights. This was a Soviet mission, but turning the Paris tower into a giant Tesla coil and zapping everyone just rocked.

Post by **weemadando** » 2004-11-29 09:47pm

HL1: Surface Tension

CoD: Pegasus Bridge and Stalingrad

CoD:UO: The final American mission (take and hold the mansion) and the entire fucking russian campaign.

System Shock 2: Engineering - "Babies need meat..."

R6 Rogue Spear: Sargasso Fade, attacking the Russian comms outpost was just a fucking brilliant mission.

Homeworld: Opening mission

Operation Flashpoint: The mission where you have just lost your unit and have to evac the island. All alone, deep behind enemy lines, in the middle of the day, the last chopper evacing in half an hour and a platoon strength russian force with helicopter support actively hunting you.

NOLF: The whole goddamn game pretty much, especially the zero-g levels and anything with lots of amusing henchmen.

NOLF2: Retaking UNITY HQ - Tommy-gun toting mimes abusing you in baaaad french accents.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2004-11-29 10:11pm

TIE Fighter, the one that you were suppose to save the Emperor from Zaarin's abduction!

Agent Fisher · Post by **Agent Fisher** » 2004-11-29 10:27pm

thecreech wrote:
Agent Fisher wrote:
Thirded. For me it is when you are in the hall way where there are two shields set up right outside the engine room. When you play that part on heroic and legendary, it is so fun to just try and hold that part against huge waves of flood.

Oh and first time playing 343 Guilty Spark. I had no idea what the flood was. It was close to midnight when I played that level. I was freaking out on that level. The freakiest part was when you enter that hallway that is stained with blood from grunts and jackals.
Me tooing here... sorry but 343 Guilty Spark and the Maw are were Fantastic levels. I was freaking out also when i started fight against the flood. I always hated when 343 stated "Wait right here I'll go open the door". The humming always cracked me up to.

Oh, you are thinking of the Library. I am refering to the first time you meet the Flood.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2004-11-29 10:40pm

DOOM
E2M8 -- The Tower of Babel

Awesome fucking level. You come out into one of the larger open spaces in the entire game, sprinkled with Lost Souls and large pillars, and there's this a horrendous clomping as of gigantic hooves... and then you see the motherfucker. The cyberdemon. Holy shit.

EDIT:
Come to think of it, the level design in all the Doom games is just awesome, especially in DOOM 2 where they apparently decided that they were going to go all out with the engine and you get levels like 15: The Industrial Zone and 28: The Spirit world. The levels in DOOM 2 are pretty much as far as you can go with the classic key-hunting early days of the FPS.

thecreech · Post by **thecreech** » 2004-11-29 10:45pm

Agent Fisher wrote:
Oh, you are thinking of the Library. I am refering to the first time you meet the Flood.

Oh yeah, my fault. Duh