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I liked a lot of the missions in Freespace II

A lot of the Golden Sun levels were excellent, such as Venus Lighthouse. However, all of the Elemental Rocks were annoying.

F-Zero GX has some of the best courses in the history of the series. Lightning, Port Town, etc.

Star Wars Rogue Leader has the best levels of the series, since they have things like Razor Rendezvous and The Battle of Endor.

Advance Wars Dual Strike also had some good maps, notably Royal Channel or something similar, where your forces had to cross a massive river in order to reach the other side. That and The Ring, possibly the best 3 vs. 1 map I've ever played, although Orange almost always loses since they cannot do a single thing to stop Green from putting together a huge invasion force if Green plays its cards right and keeps the only ports Orange can acquire under rocket surveillance.

Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II's Forest and Island levels get the nod from me as the best parts of the whole series, since they were varied. The Ruins tried to pass off some semblance of uniqueness, but it was just to long to really do it effectively, since the only really individual rooms were the Waterfall and the last room before the boss.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles- Tida Village and Rebena Te Ra. Especially considering their bosses (RTR had a zombie ghost dragon), these two levels were the highlights of my favorite Gamecube game.

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures- Ganon's Castle, Death Mountain Summit, and the return to Hyrule Castle were probably the best parts of the game.

The original unreal had some pretty nice missions. I liked the water temple in the early game and the Sunspire and Bluff Eversmoking later.

The first two Wing Commanders and their expansions had some really memorable ones as did both Freespace games.

Age of Wonders, for both the Cult of Storms and Keepers campaigns had several very nice missions as long as the AI was set difficult enough.

And Thief and Thief 2. Can't forget them. Life of the Party from Thief 2 counts as my all time favorite, that level had so much goodness in it and it had large non-linear sections to boot.

Several Predator and Marine levels from Aliens vs Predator 2 were also great.

Edi

weemadando wrote:
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.

Okay, that cracks me up every time I read it. May I sig it?

Edi wrote:The original unreal had some pretty nice missions. I liked the water temple in the early game and the Sunspire and Bluff Eversmoking later.

Unreal was great for awesome levels; even the first level on the Vortex Rikers was pretty good (though nothing actually happened). In addition to the ones you mentioned, I liked the happening on the ISV-Kran.

Yeah, the ISV-Kran levels were great. The only ones in Unreal that I didn't much like were the Terraniux levels and industrial complexes with greenhouses.

Edi

Edi wrote:Yeah, the ISV-Kran levels were great.

It was the lab with the blob in it. I spent a long time circling around it, asking myself whether I wanted to go in or not. I went in.

The only ones in Unreal that I didn't much like were the Terraniux levels and industrial complexes with greenhouses.

Bah, I hated that level with the greenhouses. I spent so damn long wandering about, trying to find the way to go.

While Thief 3 wasn't everything I'd hoped for, I did love The Cradle. It's probably one of the most frightening missions I've ever played. Just the way it played with my expectations by presenting this creepy, burnt-out husk of an orphanage-slash-asylum. So I creep through the gloom, freezing at every sound. The ambient noises... the lighting... and then the pounding of fists on wood emanating from the attic, as if someone's being buried alive. Honestly, that part scared the crap out of me, and I'm not even getting into the weirdness that comes later...

Another great level was A Dance With the Devil from Hitman: Blood Money. Very inventive visual design, lots of ways to sneak in and off the targets, but you can't relax, cause there are two assassins in there waiting for you. Plus, you get to push the hostess into the shark tank, a part that always cracks me up. It's as fun as the level in Silent Assassin where you sneak in to slice up the Yakuza boss' fugu fish.

Hitman Contracts has another favourite, the slaughter house level. Mostly because you really don't feel bad for venting your frustrations on some real world issue by indiscriminately killing everyone in there. It just feels justified.

Then there's the tomb level in the later parts of Jedi Academy. Beautiful design, and a lot of platforms provides convenient opportunities to chuck enemies with the Force.

Eleas wrote:While Thief 3 wasn't everything I'd hoped for, I did love The Cradle. It's probably one of the most frightening missions I've ever played. Just the way it played with my expectations by presenting this creepy, burnt-out husk of an orphanage-slash-asylum. So I creep through the gloom, freezing at every sound. The ambient noises... the lighting... and then the pounding of fists on wood emanating from the attic, as if someone's being buried alive. Honestly, that part scared the crap out of me, and I'm not even getting into the weirdness that comes later...

Seconded. The Shalebridge Cradle scared me far more than any horror movie ever has. The geometry (often no way to advance into a room without exposing your flank) and ambient sounds (pounding, distant footsteps, doors opening) were used to such great effect that the outer level is still frightening even though it has no enemies at all, and the inner level is even more so with only about nine zombies.

I played that level with my younger brother (who played it first) mocking me every time I jumped, but he was surprised that I took the time to scour the level and systematically eliminate each and every zombie before even thinking about the main objectives. I was reminded of the professor from The Man Who Was Thursday, who said that "no man should leave anything in the world of which he is afraid..."

Since there haven't been any puzzle/adventure games mentioned in this thread yet, let me bring up Ahnonay from the "Path of the Shell" expansion to Uru. It could earn a place both in this thread and in the "worst level" thread -- the initial tedium of pushing crabs into the water and swimming against the current is one of the most hideously boring and frustrating chores I've ever had to endure in any game, but after that Ahnonay is the perfect example of a place where your surroundings themselves are the puzzle, and where you must induce the workings of an unseen machine from observation. Your advances in knowledge of and power over your surroundings are wonderful, and there are a few mindfuck moments reminiscent of The Truman Show. Also, Sphere 4 and its music create one of the most melancholy and beautiful places I've ever seen in a computer game.

Homeworld, Mission 1.

If only for the opening cutscene.

Got to love the Gardens, too. Especially the Cathedral, with the Khar-Toba sister ship.

FreeSpace 2.
Can't remember the misson name, but you're escorting the Lysander and Actium through the Pink Fog of Doom. Effortlessly waste two Shivan cruisers, everyone's utterly pumped and then *wham* Goodbye Lysander.
Fuckfuckfuuuuck.

Missions like that, the Dive and most of the rest make up for sodding Bearbaiting. I despise that mission.

Oh, we can't forget the last mission of Freespace 2. Fighting off flight after of flight of Shivan fighters and bombers, hauling ass from end of the convey to other and back again, repeatedly, trying to save countless civilians from death, only to have to run for your life to the jump point while half of the civilians and the warships guarding them die in the supernova. Now that is drama, that is emersion, that is probably the best damn mission ever. [/Thulsa Doom]

Oh fuck it, FS2 is the best game ever.

There are a lot of moments in games where I've just gone 'aww yeeehhhh'. Whenever that happens, that part of the game becomes an instant classic for me. Water Hazard from HL2 falls under that category, for sheer insane speed and enjoyment, its even better if you play it with Substance mod installed.
Same reasons for the mission in GTA:SA where you're shotgun on a bike with twin uzi's.

Many a moment from Freelancer goes under that heading too. I think the 'involved' feeling is what I need, when the storyline is good enough to make you care about the outcome, and you don't keep dying to ruin it. The Warthog drive from the last mission on Halo fits that description, as the music really added to the atmosphere. I played Halo on Easy, perhaps a mistake with hindsight, as I completed it in 9 hours in one 24 hour period. The thing is though, those 9 hours are undoubtedly some of the best, if not the best, hours I've ever had in gaming. I didn't die repeatedly to take the fun out of it, so the movie-quality was preserved. I didn't run into the problems in the Library like many of you seem to have, so that didn't ruin it for me. When I was riding that hog along that impossibly long 'maintenance accessway' at the end, I really didn't want the Chief to get blowed up.

The Opera Scene in FFVI. Hands down. Another good runner up, at least in terms of RPGs, is the entire section of Chrono Trigger where you're in the Kingdom of Zeal and need to take down the Queen, Dalton and the Prophet (Magus).

Arrow wrote:Oh, we can't forget the last mission of Freespace 2. Fighting off flight after of flight of Shivan fighters and bombers, hauling ass from end of the convey to other and back again, repeatedly, trying to save countless civilians from death, only to have to run for your life to the jump point while half of the civilians and the warships guarding them die in the supernova. Now that is drama, that is emersion, that is probably the best damn mission ever. [/Thulsa Doom]

Oh fuck it, FS2 is the best game ever.

Even better, when I first finished FS2 I ignored calls to head to the jump node to escape. A heroes death! Fighting to the last! Saving civilian lives etc etc

Arrow wrote:Oh, we can't forget the last mission of Freespace 2. Fighting off flight after of flight of Shivan fighters and bombers, hauling ass from end of the convey to other and back again, repeatedly, trying to save countless civilians from death, only to have to run for your life to the jump point while half of the civilians and the warships guarding them die in the supernova. Now that is drama, that is emersion, that is probably the best damn mission ever. [/Thulsa Doom]

Oh fuck it, FS2 is the best game ever.

Finnaly, someone else who understands the perfection of FS2.

Of course, it all gets better with semi-HDR, high poly models, DX8 shaders.

FS2 had one of my favorite "oh shit" moments when the second Sathanas came out of the subspace portal in the nebula and just wasted the Psamtik. I also liked the payoff from the frustrating "Bearbaiting" mission with "High Noon", watching the Colossus and Sathanas blast away at each other. That game hooked me from the very first mission when I watched the Psamtik open up on the Belesarius (sp?) with its beam cannon. I was like "fuck yeah". One of things I liked best about it was that there wasn't some magic "reset switch" ending where the GTVA found some magic way to crush the Shivans; they were on the run the whole time, and were pulling one last-ditch effort after another to try to just create a buffer between them and their antagonists.

Similer to FS1, and the less said about FS1s expansions last mission, the better.

LOLLERCOASTER let's spend half an hour killing the ubership! ALL THE BOMBERS ARE GONE and you have to put a rock on your fire button and go have dinner!

Darth Quorthon wrote:FS2 had one of my favorite "oh shit" moments when the second Sathanas came out of the subspace portal in the nebula and just wasted the Psamtik. I also liked the payoff from the frustrating "Bearbaiting" mission with "High Noon", watching the Colossus and Sathanas blast away at each other. That game hooked me from the very first mission when I watched the Psamtik open up on the Belesarius (sp?) with its beam cannon. I was like "fuck yeah". One of things I liked best about it was that there wasn't some magic "reset switch" ending where the GTVA found some magic way to crush the Shivans; they were on the run the whole time, and were pulling one last-ditch effort after another to try to just create a buffer between them and their antagonists.

I admired the game's bravery at pulling missions where you DO lose, or that you do something totally right and something unexpected changes things. Like how you jump-in early chasing the Iceni and so on.

Although quite why GTVA command let Bosch through to the node is anyones guess, since it's never addressed.

If I recall correctly, DaveB says they have some ideas about that, while saying that the fans are kinda on the right track. I can't recall when that was said or on what subject, but it might be that Bosch was some sort of needed person? Black job doer?

Yeah, GTVA allowed Bosch to run a rebellion that killed millions, tied up the military, strained race relations, and eventually brought the human and vasudan races to the brink to total extinction. I'm buying that like a sunday roast. Anyway, enough hijack.

Stark wrote:Yeah, GTVA allowed Bosch to run a rebellion that killed millions, tied up the military, strained race relations, and eventually brought the human and vasudan races to the brink to total extinction. I'm buying that like a sunday roast. Anyway, enough hijack.

As I said, I can't recall offhand what the theory was. Personally, so far the FS2 mods are good enough as expansion packs. With the best among them being Homecoming.

I really need to get lastest opensource version and download some of these mods. I bet FS2 will kick all sorts of ass with the Saitek X52 now in my possession...

Arrow wrote:I really need to get lastest opensource version and download some of these mods. I bet FS2 will kick all sorts of ass with the Saitek X52 now in my possession...

I really need to put together a guide for people wanting to DL the SCP.

Okay, short version today: Someone put together a massive(1.92GB) pack of FS2,FS1, most of the advance effects and major mods.

This download file is housed Here, and it's a torrent. Now this file needs a patch, housed here, at Oxyshare. It's importent to note I can't figure out how to DL the patch so if someone can explain it'll help me.

I'm currently Joystickless, which is a shame.