One you learn that you just have to stay a certain distance rather than trying to race it. It's fine. You just find that sweet spot where smoke is constantly shooting and you're good
Excellent horror level, with great resource starvation that forces you to use the gravity gun. Also introduces the poison headcrabs I think? Either way, uses them really really well. Like that part at the end where they're all creeping around an abandoned mine? 👨🍳
Man, fuck those levels. I literally could not progress in the game because I was stuck on one of those. That experience lowered my opinion of the entire game, and I've never gone back because of it.
I was playing Mafia, and it’s a pretty cool game, then suddenly they drop in an F1 racing level where you need to grab first place against a bunch of AIs that never make a mistake.
The worst bit is, in the previous mission you did a lot of work to sabotage the rival’s car ahead of the race. So you shouldn’t even need to drive all that well to win against him, but it just forgets that.
I just never beat the race, so the game came to a halt for me.
That's like game design 101 -- if you're introducing a new gameplay paradigm that isn't part of the core experience, make it really really easy.
Maybe I'm misremembering, but I recall the Warthog escape sequence at the end of Halo getting this right. It felt epic, but was actually very doable based on the limited driving skills required by rest of the game.
That's why many of us are so fond of the warthog. Many games at the time introduced a vehicle and suddenly the game is ludicrously hard (... That fucking BattleToad battle bike...). But the Warthog is introduced as a helpful aid, and then it actually does it's job with minimal fuss.
shouldn’t even need to drive all that well to win against him, but it just forgets that.
His car breaks down right at the start, which ironically makes the mission harder as you have to dodge the car as everyone passes it.
That said, the hard part was not tipping over, you could get quite a few places by just not giving a shit and flying over the chicane after the first turn.
There's a level in one of the Battlefield: Bad Company games where you're ambushed by two attack helicopters in the desert and the only cover is a small building. Did I mention Bad Company has fully destructible environments and you've already fought in said building so it's full of holes before the helicopters start blowing it apart? Or that a third helicopter shows up mid-battle?
It's not too bad if you know what's coming and preserve some cover, but if the building is in bad shape when they show up then you're not going to have a fun time.
I had an opposite situation with Death Stranding. Was enjoying the "stealth" till suddenly had to fight Mads Mikkelsen guns blazing. The forced change in approach made me drop the game.
I've heard the same issue with one of the possible endings in Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty, where you're forced to kill dozens of enemies (if you didn't pick the narrative choice that forces you into a forced stealth section à la Alien Isolation). Both choices can derail from the rest of the gameplay (100+ hours)
After MGS blew up EVERY GAME had to have a stealth section all of the sudden, even if it made no sense in the narrative and clashed with the existing game mechanics.
I know what everybody is thinking: 50 Cent Blood on the Sand, but that's a misconception, you actually mean 50 Cent Bulletproof--the one other, and less perfect, of the 2 games that exist
Every once in a while I decide to replay StarCraft. I always breeze through the Terran and Zerg campaigns and the first few Protoss levels. Homeland is a struggle but I can get through it. I can never seem to beat The Trial of Tassadar though. I always get destroyed before I can even venture out of my base.
Just go catch a Pikachu. Won't take 4 hours. A pickachu from viridian leveled against Mt Moon zubats for 10-30 minutes would wipe the floor with the whole gym.
Company Heroes 2 in Hard difficulty. The AI in RTS single player games tend to simply swarm you. I have to tone down the difficulty but there is little sense of satisfaction in playing easier modes.
„I wonder why I havent played Elite in a while“, then proceed to find myself in the outer rim of the galaxy in enemy powerplay territory with a sidewinder
Maybe I'm an idiot, but I can't get the stupid mini game in Astral Chain where I have to balance a bunch of boxes and take them to someone without dropping them all. It adds nothing to the story afaik and it pissed me off to a point I just stopped playing altogether.
The fucking asteroids in the original Dead Space, fuck those things. Though knowing my luck they were locked to frame rate or some shit which made it difficult on PC.
Helicopter level is nowhere near as bad as everyone says it is.
I remembered it as being hard from being a kid. But every time I've played it since as an adult I've been very surprised that i was able to do it either my first try for that playthrough or at the second or third at most.
Kingdom Come Deliverance is the most notable example of this. The monastery mission is absolutely brutal both by how difficult it's intended to be, and by how broke it is, on a technical level.
It's definitely interesting, but it's so difficult.