Worst missions/objectives in gaming.

[Vympel]

TIE Fighter- the Mag Pulse mission where in order to complete the Secret Mission you have to disable the Corellian Transport that starts off on top of a container ... which is right next to an armed platform. Which fires missiles at you. And turbolasers. And you're in a slow Assault Gunboat, which you can only get to the target in time by turning down your lasers. And so on and on and on and on ...

[Lord Revan]

oh how could I forget escort the suicidal VIP from point A to point B

another thing I hate is "do something with a team (and btw we forget to say these are most incomponent fuckers we could find and they're hell bent to get in your firing line when ever it's possible)".

edit: fixed a typo

[Invictus ChiKen]

Along with the escort dumb jerks and player actions have no effect in campagin (COMMON I FUCKING CAPTURED THE ALLIED BASES ALMOST EVERY MISSION! When will Preimer Romanov order us to make use of all there technology!?)

There are also the overly scripted Missions I had to restart many times in Tie Fighter because I had done TOO well and the mission trigger wont activate.

Also I hated Ghost Recon two because DISPITE leading a team of SPEC ops, my men couldn't hit the broad side of a barn yet the other team where friggin marksmen they hit everytime. (I also hated that out of breath sound effect whenever I got hit...)

[2000AD]

Same with "Hitman" and the fucking coke baron. If you are going to make a realistic game - keep it fucking realistic.

I think that was meant to represent the coke he just snorted making him ignore pain or something. You can take him out with a couple of shots like anyone else though. Don't enter his house (IIRC this triggers the little cut scene of him snorting) instead go up in the tower behind and you can look through his window and snipe him.

Or you can just get the mingun from the tent in that level and blow him away easy stlye.

[White Haven]

Best defense mission EVER is the NTC Trinity in Freespace 2, simply because if you failed and the Trinity was destroyed the game did not end. It was mind-bogglingly hard to keep the ship up, but it was simply a small branching outcome, you didn't HAVE to be godly or rety til the end of time. Most other defense missions can suck upon the [Wang of Justice].

[Star-Blighter]

Escort the dickhead. Fucking Titan crew!!! Your in a God-damned landraider for fucks sake! Just drive to the fucking psychic shield while I single handedly obliterate the Orks, spikey assholes, and the pansies with the flamingo crests...

IS THAT TOO HARD?!?

[Vendetta]

I'm gonna go with Escort the Dickhead as well. It makes me pine for the Zelda games, where you can actually physically pick your escortee up and carry them to where you're going.

Also, the unwinnable RPG battle, and especially the "all give up and get captured" bit, where you should have been able to win easily.

please make the huring stop, I don't want anymore fly flow and fast missions, I want to fucking blow somoeone out of the sky, leave the "Trench run" for the a-10 simulators, or for one actual mission in X-wing.

See, I like those. If they're done reasonably well, as they frequently are in Ace Combat games, it's great to hop into something ridiculously fast and go places that no jet fighter has any business being.

[Nephtys]

Mine? I hate what I've coined 'Kryptonite Cutscene'. Although not an objective, it drives me insane to no end. Let's see one offender I remember.... FFX. When you invade Yuna's wedding, your squad is HELD UP AT GUNPOINT from about four guards, whom you've been killing by the dozen without any problem up to that point.

Seriously. If my sword, magic doll, and sports-ball wielding team can defeat hundreds of machine gun soldiers, why is being held up by four of them going to bother them? Damn you, cutsceeeene!



But for Objectives? I say the worst is 'Find X Widgets'. I hate running around levels trying to find the last Doodad when I've already spent half an hour looking...

[Lancer]

Escort the dickhead. Fucking Titan crew!!! Your in a God-damned landraider for fucks sake! Just drive to the fucking psychic shield while I single handedly obliterate the Orks, spikey assholes, and the pansies with the flamingo crests...

IS THAT TOO HARD?!?

even worse, even if you wipe out the Chaos and Ork bases, they still get unit reinforcements.

And cripes, would it kill them to use a Land Raider Crusader? Wasting a single cultist with twin-linked lascannons is massive overkill.

[White Haven]

The unwinnable battle can be good if it's done WELL. Grahf, from Xenogears, was beautiful in that respect...sometimes you'd win, sometimes you wouldn't..and when, at last, you fight him all-out near the end, and have the firepower to take him down, it feels SOOOOOO good.

That and the fight when the party is in their Gears and Grahf is standing /next/ to his Gear, and you still barely win...freeow.

[Pick]

One more vote for Escourt the Retard. I found this most egregious in Morrowind as you had to do it SO OFTEN.

The "Find x Doodads" is also a mission objective I absolutely detest. Just... fuck it.

THOUGH my MOST HATED missions are missions you must do that seemed grabbed from a different genre, like the racing game in the first Rachet and Clank. Side quest? Fine. But don't make me NEED to do a racing thing unless it's a RACING GAME! ARGH.

[Instant Sunrise]

I hate "Take X to Y before the timer runs out". I loathe it. (I'm looking at you Majora's Mask)

Pick, try Kameo, all collecting of items is purely optional.

[Losonti Tokash]

I believe the worst example of "Escort the dickhead" is from Renegade where you have to protect Mobius while he's running around like a crackhead and trying to punch laser turrets. In the meantime there's all kinds of hell trying to kill the both of you with pinpoint accuracy.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

In Wing Commander 1 SM2: There was a mission where you had to escort a heavy cruiser to safety with one wingmen while being pursued by over a dozen heavy fighters.

[Trogdor]

I'm going to go with scripted boss fights where you have to lose. Beatrix from FF IX was the worst. Not only did you still have 1 HP left when the game declared her the victor, but you never did get to kick her ass.

Coming in second is "hero unit must survive" in certain RTS game missions. It doesn't bother me in every mission, specifically those where you're commanding a small strike force that would be totally incapable of doing the mission without the hero unit. But missions where the hero unit isn't even useful piss me off. For example, the Allied St. Louis mission in RA2. You need Tanya for the first part, then they give you a construction yard and tell you to destroy the Soviet base. I was on the verge of winning when the reds somehow killed Tanya, who I'd left in my base, and had to start the mission from scratch.

[Akhlut]

And cripes, would it kill them to use a Land Raider Crusader? Wasting a single cultist with twin-linked lascannons is massive overkill.

I do believe this is the first time I've heard you badmouth excessive overkill before.

[Nephtys]

I change my mind. My 'new' worst objective is awful. It's beyond Find the Doodad, Beat the Clock, or Escort Sir-Lunkhead. It's the 'Gather up 60 people you know, and spend six hours a night in a dungeon and pray that you are lucky enough to roll for what you want'.

Playing WoW up to 50's, It's getting me to absolutely dread reaching 60. I mean, sure I'll play a few new things for a while, but I refuse to change my schedule for a game.

[RogueIce]

The RC vehicle missions from GTA San Andreas. I wanted to spill David Cross' blood afterwards.

So...stupid...

I mean I could understand New Model Army (which apparently was on some board or whatever, I wouldn't know as I have still yet to complete Supply Lines) or the minigun one.

But Supply Lines? Why the fuck do I have to use that goddamn plane?! Gimmie my SMG and a decent car and I could probably beat it in half the time they gave me (ok, not really since those five minutes are so stupidly low for having to fly in a slow-as-shit RC place all over the damned city), but it really makes no sense why I can't go and hit the vans myself.

ARRRRRRRRRRRG!!!!

And the aforementioned "RPG plot device of the unbeatable enemies!" That's so stupid.

But then I have one for the "escape the burning soon to be blown up building...but the bad guys still have the fortitude to try and kill you!" At least when DF2: Jedi Knight did it, the only things that shot at you were probe droids (IIRC). The rest of the human enemies were just running around.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

In Donkey Kong 64, there was a minigame called "Beaver Bother" where you played a crocodile that had to round a given number of beavers into a hole in 60 seconds. You had little control of where the beavers went, and most of the time, you ended up a few short. DK64 was a fun game in a lot of places, but there were so many "shoot out the TV Elvis-style out of frustation" moments. That was just the one that sticks in my head.

[lPeregrine]

One more vote for Escourt the Retard. I found this most egregious in Morrowind as you had to do it SO OFTEN.

Ugh, thanks for bringing back painful memories of that. God the follow AI was horrible in that game. It's just such "fun" having to spend a few minutes hunting down the NPC when they get stuck on some random tree and decide the solution is running at full speed in the exact opposite direction from me and their destination.

[Duckie]

As far as the worst objectives, Superman 64 (Hiss!) had the whole "Fly Through Some Random Rings" thing.

I hate escort missions. Really crimps the FPS style to have someone to babysit.

Edit- Jet Force Gemini from the N64 had "Collect every single Tribal Hostage before advancing to the final level". They had hundreds of the bastards, many guarded by Black Ant executioners that kill them as soon as you enter the room unless you fire from the hip with a pinpoint weapon to their head within a second.

[AK_Jedi]

Escort missions when the dumbass runs to a predetermined spot, then waits for you to go do something very specific. They either run head-on into a room full of death, or they get left behind until you realize you've completed half the level without them following you.

Also, platform jumping in fps's really pisses me off. Seriously, outside of Star Wars, where do all the bottomless pits come from?

[Yogi]

The escort mission in Wing Commander 1, where you meet Burakh Starkiller for the first time. That mission will always hold a special place in my heart.

Also, any abitrary "you need to be stealthy" now missions. It's not so bad if there is a good reason for it, but when you've been cutting through hundreds of soldiers already, why bother sneaking through THIS heavily armed outpost?

[Praxis]

Escort is sometimes fine, though. For example, the escort missions in Age of Empires were fine- I'd keep my hero far back and arrange everyone in front of him to protect from attack.

Games where the guy you're protecting runs out screaming "Shoot me!" to everyone, on the other hand, suck.

I also hate bosses where you keep shooting them until they die, with nochange at all. For example, the final boss in Elite Force. Basicly, a special device gives you 999 ammo for all weapons, and you just have to unload all your ammo into the boss while he repeats the same one-hit-kill attacks all over the place. Ten minutes later, he dies. Ugh.

[Vendetta]

The unwinnable battle can be good if it's done WELL. Grahf, from Xenogears, was beautiful in that respect.)

See, Grahf was the one that really annoyed me. (Xenogears as a whole annoyed me). There were by and large far too many unwinnable encounters in that game, but at least the unwinnables against Wiseman or id you'd be completely unable to dent them, and they'd come back and do utterly rotten amounts of damage, making it at least convincing that they were too powerful for you. The ones against Grahf felt like normal fights (as did the unwinnable battle against Rico, see, far too fucking many.