Worst missions/objectives in gaming.

[Stark]

'Do It This Way Or Else' missions. Missions where they turn the game on it's head: ie, shooter levels where you 'die' if you get seen (regardless of how easily you could kill everyone) or RPGs where you are told 'you can't go in the front' or you have to 'traverse the Lame Cave of Enormous Size', even though you could in fact just go in the front - if the front door wasn't just a texture.

And I'm supporting Leading Lamers and FS2-esque 'defend the ultra-critical ship against dozens of enemy units... by yourself. Oh, okay, have Tim. He's our worst pilot'.

[Molyneux]

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

Really? I loved those!! A bit annoying at times, but...well worth it in the end. And I loved blowing sh*t up...

[Spacebeard]

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.

Yeah, I think in general any mission objectives that force you to rely on friendly NPCs behaving properly tend to suck. In my experience, many missions that give you "wingmen" or "partners" to help you out devolve into "escort the dickhead" also because you're constantly having to rescue your dumbass NPC buddies from death. See: Ors, Jan, and Calrissian, Lando (Jedi Knight II). Whereas on the other hand, even escorting hapless civilians isn't so bad if they are units you control (many RTSs, some RPGs) or if they can be ordered to stay put until you clear the area (some hostages in Deus Ex).

I'll go ahead and bitch about some escort objectives that I hate, though:
- Innocent townspeople in the Peninsula district in Neverwinter Nights. Due to lagginess in the game or something, in my experience they don't follow you; they stand around and then randomly pop up behind you after while if you run too far ahead. Except sometimes they'll get ambushed, and you won't know it unless you go back to check on them.

- Peasants in early levels of Myth II. ("Rurik is dead!" "You bastards!")

- The Imperial commander in the mines early on in Jedi Knight II. After forcing him at gunpoint up a long stairway, you have to kill off several tiny, close-to-the-floor pirahna-like creatures attacking him, without hitting him of course, and then he turns on you and starts shooting. Lovely.

[Instant Sunrise]

I hate having to hold a position against aves of enemies while some NPC goes off and does something else. Such as, The Library.

[felineki]

Scavenger hunts. Goddamn scavenger hunts. Super Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine epitomize this, although the former's gameplay was fresh and good enough to balance it out somewhat. The latter was just more of the same.

[LaserRifleofDoom]

When did Super Mario 64 have a scavenger hunt? You collected coins- but that was in every game back then.

[Civil War Man]

For dumbass escorting, I always dread having to go through the defunct Telos military base in KOTOR II because of the fucking Czerka technician that's found there. Since I typically play light side characters, I don't want to kill him, but it takes about half a fucking hour to bring him back to the entrance because he is too stupid to follow me in that direction. Ironically, he follows perfectly well whenever I walk away from the entrance.

[RogueIce]

I hate having to hold a position against aves of enemies while some NPC goes off and does something else. Such as, The Library.

Then there's the slightly similar "follow the NPC who can walk through this area perfectly fine...but your stupid ass is gonna get attacked every 30 seconds" missions.

God I hate those. Stupid God damn NPCs.

[bilateralrope]

What I have a problem with is where the level will restrict you to a given area, and then just throw wave after wave of enemies after you for five minutes. Star Trek: Elite Force was the worst offender I've seen.

That what Serious Sam is like. All of Serious Sam.

[Vympel]

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.

Yeah, that and the 3 month hiatus was what killed the fun of WoW for me. See Penny Arcade's comic trashing WoW-

"Timesink Cavern is a new 400 man instance requiring 76 consecutive hours to complete."

(along with "fixed a bug where Shamans took damage")

At least in ordinary games, these annoying missions are almost always the exception to the rule. But in WoW, once you hit 60, that's it for you. This is now your life. Either that, or PvP, which is snooze-worthy for me.

[Dorsk 81]

Dodging the lightning stirkes on the Thunder Plains in FFX. 200 fucking times in a row to get that damned Venus Sigil. And the Butterfly Hunt in Macalania Woods to get the Saturn Sigil too. That really got on my tits.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Quake 4: Sneaking past the gigantic Michael-Moore-stuck-to-the-wall-sans-camera-looking fucktard with the feeding tube and the big huge metal claws. One or two hits and you're dead. I think I'll be invoking God Mode on this one...

[GuppyShark]

The purge of the Jedi Temple in Star Wars Battlefront 2 had me spewing obscenities as well.

I agree with everything you said right up until this. The Jedi Temple was AWESOME.

[Darth Quorthon]

The purge of the Jedi Temple in Star Wars Battlefront 2 had me spewing obscenities as well.

I agree with everything you said right up until this. The Jedi Temple was AWESOME.

You sir, are a better gamer than I.

[The Yosemite Bear]

my problem with the trench run is purely biological, since my brain isn't tricked by the fake three d effect of the graphics, I can line and lead a target, but I can't tell how much time I have to turn before becoming pizza.

[Edi]

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.

In SM2 there was a fuckload of missions that were of the "You expect me to do WHAAAAT?!" category. That expansion was completely crazy with the amount of enemies you faced. I still remember the second or third mission where you're sent out to scout the nav points and report everything and the place is swarming with heavy cruisers, Jalthi and other assorted shit. I destroyed everything and the chewing out you get at the debriefing was pure gold:

Halcyon: Did you see anything out there?
You: Nav 1 and 2 blah blah. There were three fralthi at nav 3 with a crapload of fighter escort.
Halcyon: WERE? What the fuck were you thinking? You were supposed to go and take a look and come back! What if they'd killed you and we'd have had no warning? By the way, good job, pilot.

In general I hate escort missions where the escortee is some worthless shit. Time-limited missions are also a pain in the ass, as are certain types of sneak missions where they place a dozen different restrictions on you. Best one was the infiltration of the guard headquarters in Thief 2 on expert: You need to sneak through the whole fucking place and run to and fro without being seen and you aren't allowed to even knock anyone out. Whee!

Edi

[felineki]

When did Super Mario 64 have a scavenger hunt? You collected coins- but that was in every game back then.

Finding the Stars. You had to go through each level like 6 or 7 times to get each of the Stars. I'd much rather have 50 individual levels to complete than 10 that I have to go through 5 times each.

[Ghost Rider]

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.

In SM2 there was a fuckload of missions that were of the "You expect me to do WHAAAAT?!" category. That expansion was completely crazy with the amount of enemies you faced. I still remember the second or third mission where you're sent out to scout the nav points and report everything and the place is swarming with heavy cruisers, Jalthi and other assorted shit. I destroyed everything and the chewing out you get at the debriefing was pure gold:

Halcyon: Did you see anything out there?
You: Nav 1 and 2 blah blah. There were three fralthi at nav 3 with a crapload of fighter escort.
Halcyon: WERE? What the fuck were you thinking? You were supposed to go and take a look and come back! What if they'd killed you and we'd have had no warning? By the way, good job, pilot.

As much as I enjoyed that, I despised how many times you had to use the fucking pancake Dralthi.

Thing was a crappy Scimitar.

In general I hate escort missions where the escortee is some worthless shit.

What I hate is they never SPEED up to escape. They are under attack and for some reason they are moving at the plodding of a beached fucking whale.

Time-limited missions are also a pain in the ass, as are certain types of sneak missions where they place a dozen different restrictions on you. Best one was the infiltration of the guard headquarters in Thief 2 on expert: You need to sneak through the whole fucking place and run to and fro without being seen and you aren't allowed to even knock anyone out. Whee!

Edi

But the challenge!!

Noi, I agree...it's bullshit, that for some reason they give you an artificial time limit on a mission that has no reason why, and you can only do if you had precognition of the entire mission.

[Edi]

As much as I enjoyed that, I despised how many times you had to use the fucking pancake Dralthi.

Thing was a crappy Scimitar.

I had nothing against the Dralthi. It handled a lot better than the Scimitar did. Don't know why, but I didn't get skragged nearly as often with those than with the Scimmie. Probably because the thing was far more maneuverable as long as you didn't try to turn directly right or left. The Scimitar was a foundering whale no matter what direction you took it.

In general I hate escort missions where the escortee is some worthless shit.

What I hate is they never SPEED up to escape. They are under attack and for some reason they are moving at the plodding of a beached fucking whale.

Indeed! Has been true of all the space sims I've played.

Time-limited missions are also a pain in the ass, as are certain types of sneak missions where they place a dozen different restrictions on you. Best one was the infiltration of the guard headquarters in Thief 2 on expert: You need to sneak through the whole fucking place and run to and fro without being seen and you aren't allowed to even knock anyone out. Whee!

But the challenge!!

Noi, I agree...it's bullshit, that for some reason they give you an artificial time limit on a mission that has no reason why, and you can only do if you had precognition of the entire mission.

Or sometimes when you hustle at the very end. I particularly loathed the turn-limited scenarios in one of teh Heroes of Might and Magic III campaigns (the Dragonslayer campaign in one of the expansions).

As for the Thief 2 sneaky mission, that one was fun and it was challenging as hell, though a pain in the arse at a couple of points. It also had a plot justification (you're framing an officer for a crime). But pointless ones, gaaaahhhh!

Edi

[Dahak]

The often mentioned "Escort" missions. Utterly craptacular.
Any mission that includes delicate jump sequences, where on micrometer in the wrong direction will kill you. Gah!! The one scene in SS2 on the Rickenbacker took me forever...
The "Go Find X amounts of object Y" in a mission. Again, System Shock 2, the egg hunt...
Any needless running to and fro that keeps you running back and forth to get something done. The unnerving endless freght halls of System Shock 2...
Nearly unbeatable countdowns...

[Ghost Rider]

As much as I enjoyed that, I despised how many times you had to use the fucking pancake Dralthi.

Thing was a crappy Scimitar.

I had nothing against the Dralthi. It handled a lot better than the Scimitar did. Don't know why, but I didn't get skragged nearly as often with those than with the Scimmie. Probably because the thing was far more maneuverable as long as you didn't try to turn directly right or left. The Scimitar was a foundering whale no matter what direction you took it.

Some bit yes, my problem was at least the slug pig was just shields.

Not that I care for either really. Both had some truly insane fucking missions for such crap craft.

In general I hate escort missions where the escortee is some worthless shit.

What I hate is they never SPEED up to escape. They are under attack and for some reason they are moving at the plodding of a beached fucking whale.

Indeed! Has been true of all the space sims I've played.

And it never makes sense does it?

The best are when you're escorting some important yaboo, who's in a craft that can get some good speed, and for some reason the pilot of that craft decides coasting speed is all he can do, instead of getting the hell out of dodge.

Time-limited missions are also a pain in the ass, as are certain types of sneak missions where they place a dozen different restrictions on you. Best one was the infiltration of the guard headquarters in Thief 2 on expert: You need to sneak through the whole fucking place and run to and fro without being seen and you aren't allowed to even knock anyone out. Whee!

But the challenge!!

Noi, I agree...it's bullshit, that for some reason they give you an artificial time limit on a mission that has no reason why, and you can only do if you had precognition of the entire mission.

Or sometimes when you hustle at the very end. I particularly loathed the turn-limited scenarios in one of teh Heroes of Might and Magic III campaigns (the Dragonslayer campaign in one of the expansions).

As for the Thief 2 sneaky mission, that one was fun and it was challenging as hell, though a pain in the arse at a couple of points. It also had a plot justification (you're framing an officer for a crime). But pointless ones, gaaaahhhh!

Edi

Now some missions I understand, and you pointed out a good one in Thief 2. Those I can take the time limit because the story was made to put it in, and for some missions(rare as they may be), it fits. Assassination missions or things that play up the fact there is a very limited span of time and make it feel like there's a reason for them.

But like you pointed with HoM&M3...on some it's utter garbage. Mine is one a few games of the Fire Emblem series where you have to charge forward like some headless monkey to beat a stage in 20-25 turns, when it takes 18 of those to get across the damn stage to engage the enemy.

[Sea Skimmer]

Has anyone mentioned that really fucking annoying jumping puzzle in the Lambda core in Half Life?

[JointStrikeFighter]

Has anyone mentioned that really fucking annoying jumping puzzle in the Lambda core in Half Life?

If you used the quicksave effectively[ read before every jump] than that section wasnt to hard. Far far worse was the xen jumping puzzles.

[Trogdor]

For dumbass escorting, I always dread having to go through the defunct Telos military base in KOTOR II because of the fucking Czerka technician that's found there. Since I typically play light side characters, I don't want to kill him, but it takes about half a fucking hour to bring him back to the entrance because he is too stupid to follow me in that direction. Ironically, he follows perfectly well whenever I walk away from the entrance.

I hear you. I don't think I enjoyed any part of playing as a Sith more than blasting that dumbass with Force lightning.

Anyone who played Sonic Adventure 2 knows the horror of "find three shards of the Master Emerald" missions. Huge, boring pain in the ass, especially in the dark side story where one of those missions has a time limit.

[Nephtys]

Okay, I just tried BF2 today. And if that game had a single player, an objective that would KILL MY SOUL would be 'Make actual productive use of this airplane/helicopter'.

Those things are deathtraps. Planes can't be controlled, Helicopters are flying tombs, and the only use for either is to fly over the enemy base and bail out...