Best level/mission in a game

[Loner]

Ace Combat 4: MISSION 08 - Shattered Skies

Just a pure dogfighting stage, no ground targets and a bitching rock song in the background. Taking on dozens of Migs, F-16's, F-15's, F/A-18's. and Su-37's in an F-14 is loads of win.

[RogueIce]

"Triads and Tribulations" from GTA3 (I think that's it; whatever the Mafia vs Triad gangwar mission was). That's how a real gangwar should be! Far, far better then the quickly repetitive "gang wars" of San Andreas.

[Ace Pace]

DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOTS!

Along with the entire FS1 and FS2 mission list. I can't think of many boring missions there.

In other games, Far Cry's entire opening rocked. Gardens of Kadesh from HW1 aswell.

But for best 'rock and roll factor', Ground Control: Jungle purification.

Cookie to those who recognise the mission.

[Darth Quorthon]

DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOTS!

"Now we have to wait 15 minutes before we can change our shorts." What made me love that mission so much was the way the tension was ratcheted up as juggernaut after juggernaut jumped into the system.

Another one of my favorites was "Route Canal" in HL2, the airboat mission.

I also liked the mission in GTA:SA where you steal the harrier, mainly because James Woods is hilarious. Just the way he says "Go to the flotilla, and sink the fuckers!" then afterwards when C.J. cusses him out when Torino denies anything about the fighter.

[Ace Pace]

I don't know if I can point to anywhere in HL2 as a great mission. It was a good game,very good, but no mission really 'did it' for me, every mission felt frustrating.

[Stark]

Ace beat me to one of my favourite missions. It was set up well enough so someone who wasn't expecting it would still be able to get out of the way, which really set a great tone for the rest of the mission.

[wautd]

Medal of Honour: Sniperville (or whatever was the name). About 10 snipers hidden in a bombed town. Died dozens of times on highest difficulty before I could spot every sniper.

Your fucking crazy. There is no way that section can be fun. Who the fuck enjoys having to replay the same level a dozen times?

What can I say, I like a challenge. Same reason I'm now busy playing CoD2 on hardest difficulty (it's insane I tells ya).
+ i liked the originality of that level

[Stark]

Lots of people enjoy playing on hard, but a level design so poor the only way to find the snipers is to get killed, remember where they shot from, and respawn isn't 'original', its 'shit'.

[weemadando]

Medal of Honour: Sniperville (or whatever was the name). About 10 snipers hidden in a bombed town. Died dozens of times on highest difficulty before I could spot every sniper.

Your fucking crazy. There is no way that section can be fun. Who the fuck enjoys having to replay the same level a dozen times?

What can I say, I like a challenge. Same reason I'm now busy playing CoD2 on hardest difficulty (it's insane I tells ya).
+ i liked the originality of that level

Fucking trial and error is no way for a game to play out, unless your playing fucking minesweeper.

That was probably the most soul-destroyingly bad level I have EVER played.

Except for maybe - MAYBE mind you - the mined beach assault in DF:BHD, but that game was substandard to start with and such crap was to be expected.

[Ford Prefect]

I'll elaborate...

You (the every so sexy Cate Archer) are sitting on the shoulders of a very angry and enormous Scotsman, madly pedalling a tricycle after a terrorist mime who is try to escape through your stereotypical African market from a 1960's spy film on his unicycle.

That is how awesome the No One Lives Forever games are. Everyone should fucking well play them.

I mean, I've always wanted to play them since I saw a screenshot of you with a bannanna versus a ninja, but that's just the best fucking thing ever.

[Bounty]

Majora's Mask, the entire ending minus the final boss fight. *Nothing* about the last ten minutes of that game made *any* sort of sense, but damn was it beautiful. I'll never forget that giant tree sitting in the middle of an endless field.

[2000AD]

The hotel in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. You wake up from a nightmare and find several Innsmouth natives at your door. Any normal FPS and you'd be whipping out the guns, but when you don't have a single weapon it leads to a manic chase through and across the roofs of the town. Also includes the first point where you realise your character suffers from Vertigo IIRC.

Just about every part of Shado of the Colossus, except the second to last monster due to it's final weak point being in the palm of it's hand.

[Pezzoni]

Spirit Temple in Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

The vast scale it was built on, the music, the general atmosphere, the way it functioned as essentially two complete temples, and of course, the unforgettabely amazing battles with the several Iron Knuckles. I was so dissapointed when I discovered how dumbed down they'd become in Wind Waker

The best temple of the best game ever, no contest.

[Vendetta]

I was so dissapointed when I discovered how dumbed down they'd become in Wind Waker

It did frequently chuck loads of them at you though, and you couldn't damage them at all until you'd knocked their armour off with parry attacks.

Iron Knuckles weren't even really that hard, they just look intimidating. If you keep your cool when fighting them, they'll actually drop pretty easily.

Twinrova was the best bit of the spirit temple (and probably the best of the temple bosses).

[Nephtys]

Ooh. Homeworld 2. Arriving over Hiigara and busting up that enemy invasion force, only to have three Tiamat Motherships transit-in, and start launching bombs. Cue the arabic music.

[Pezzoni]

It did frequently chuck loads of them at you though, and you couldn't damage them at all until you'd knocked their armour off with parry attacks.

Iron Knuckles weren't even really that hard, they just look intimidating. If you keep your cool when fighting them, they'll actually drop pretty easily.

In Wind Waker, it was all about well-timed pressing of a single button... I could fairly easily deal with a room of them without sustaining any significant damage, and once you had their armor off, you could deal with one before it had an oppertunity to get a single attack in.
In Ocarina of Time, on the other hand, one of those things could take you down in pretty much 4 or 5 hits... It felt like there was some real skill in taking one on, dodging and backfliping away from it's attacks, waiting for the right moment to sneak a jump-slash in... It also took much longer. It wasn't necassarially much harder, but it felt so much more satisfying.

Ahh, memories. I've got 4 days when I've finished exams before any of my friends finish, so I feel a Zelda 64 (probably Master Quest, coming to think of it ) playthough coming along

[Surlethe]

Majora's Mask, the entire ending minus the final boss fight. *Nothing* about the last ten minutes of that game made *any* sort of sense, but damn was it beautiful. I'll never forget that giant tree sitting in the middle of an endless field.

I'm going to have to second this. The final boss fight is actually too easy, I think, if you have gotten the Fierce Deity's Mask. I also love the Stone Tower -- not the temple, mind you, just the tower itself -- purely for the music, though it's been years since I beat the level.

All in all, I actually find Majora's Mask more fun than OOT, simply because it had much more depth -- cutting down on the scope and having to play three days over and over really helped to add depth, I think, because they had to come up with things to keep you busy, rather than the sparsely-populated Hyrule of OOT. Though, I should mention that I really enjoy the Gerudo Fortress in OOT: the music and the challenge of not being seen are quite fun (if logically inconsistent -- don't you think they'd set a guard over you after catching you for the third time?).

[Bounty]

The final boss fight is actually too easy, I think, if you have gotten the Fierce Deity's Mask.

It's too easy, period. Not to mention that it lacks any sort of atmosphere; just compare the fight against the one against Ganondorf in OoT. I liked most of the finale, the giants marching in to hold back the moon, the creepy kids under the tree, the small challenges you need to do and the ending movie, but the boss fight itself was too generic.

[Qwerty 42]

The Bottom of the Well in the Master Quest incarnation of Ocarina of Time was a very moody level, especially if you took the shortcut in the original version. One part of the level, as I recall, had you dropping down an invisible chute to land on a beam to get a treasure chest, at which point you had to drop down and fend of Wallmasters and Redeads. Sufficiently creepy.

Also, when one was little and such a thing was not yet predictable and contrived, the final boss fight was amazing.

[Ford Prefect]

Honestly, I loved the climax in Wind Waker. On top of the tower with Ganondorf, the water coming down from the heavens. It was a very pretty scene.

[Surlethe]

Honestly, I loved the climax in Wind Waker. On top of the tower with Ganondorf, the water coming down from the heavens. It was a very pretty scene.

How could I forget? And you actually got to duel him! It is equal, in my mind, to the end of OOT: dueling Ganon in pig-form. That ending kicked ass, too.

[Ford Prefect]

Honestly, I loved the climax in Wind Waker. On top of the tower with Ganondorf, the water coming down from the heavens. It was a very pretty scene.

How could I forget? And you actually got to duel him! It is equal, in my mind, to the end of OOT: dueling Ganon in pig-form. That ending kicked ass, too.

Exactly! It was more 'personal', I suppose, and the finisher was among the best moments in gaming I've ever had.

Link. You legend.

Interestingly, I played through the game in Link's pyjamas, which I preferred to the greenery.

[mjn6172]

Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines - This one gets two nominations. First, the haunted hotel sequence near the beginning of the game is one of the greatest scary atmospheres in any game I've ever played. There's no monsters, no enemies to fight, you're just trying to figure out why the hotel is haunted while the ghosts try to scare the shit out of you. I would also nominate the snuff film house from much later in the game; the . . . THINGS in that house always make me jump, they're tiny, fast, and pure EVIL!

I also loved the Alice in Wonderland level from the original Kingdom Hearts. I thought it really captured the feeling of the old Disney film

EDIT: I forgot to mention Pandora's Temple from God of War. Not only is it an entertaining series of puzzles as you go through, but I really started to feel bad for the engineer (Pathos?) as I went through all of his challenges and read the notes he left behind.

[Civil War Man]

Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines - This one gets two nominations.

I found two hilarious things about that game:

1. Nosferatu characters had one moment where its mandatory Appearance 0 was a great benefit.

2. Malkavian characters had multiple "Get Out of Side Quest Free" cards. ("I don't feel like doing this quest. DEMENTATION!") And they still got the experience because they completed the quest by making the necessary NPC go insane.

[Drooling Iguana]

No One Lives Forever 2 - The Tricycle chase.

Those three words just put NOLF2 at the very top of my "absolutely, positively, must find" list.

I'll elaborate...

You (the every so sexy Cate Archer) are sitting on the shoulders of a very angry and enormous Scotsman, madly pedalling a tricycle after a terrorist mime who is try to escape through your stereotypical African market from a 1960's spy film on his unicycle.

That is how awesome the No One Lives Forever games are. Everyone should fucking well play them.

I actually already have the first game, although I haven't finished it yet. I should remedy that situation soon.