Most controversial videogame levels - from beautiful to cringey

[Scarlett Johansson]

That scene in China from Kane and Lynch. They bust a guy and he has a young naked girl with him. She ends up getting killed. It just was really bothersome that they felt to include that.

The Water Temple lol jk

Everything about Catherine. Everything.

 

[Wish I knew]

The entire Plant chapter in Metal Gear Solid 2 for the sheer fact it introduced people to Raiden and caused quite an uproar in the MGS fanbase because they saw it as Kojima trying to replace Snake who in the previous chapter was mostly assumed to be dead. There's also the fact the plot had to be changed due to 9/11 due to a cutscene they had to remove where late in the game Arsenal Gear crashes into New York

 

[Violence Jack]

Everything about Catherine. Everything.

Dude for real though those ice levels were bullshit.

For actual content I hate that Fromsoft games are mandated to have a shitty poison swamp that makes your movement slow.

But most controversial? The frozen wastes from the Dark Souls 2 DLC Crown of the?.. Ivory King is probably the worse video game level ever committed to bytes. It has everything shitty going for it. Low visibility, bullshit respawning enemies that'll knock your shit in, no notable loot, and copy-pasted palette swap bosses. It's a microcosm of bad ideas they should've cut. And given the prevalence of cut content in Souls games im shocked why anyone thought it was fine.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Blood & Wine is a great expansion but my god those are some frustrating levels

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

The Arbiter levels in Halo 2

 

[Intelligent Calcium]

Along those lines, how about the last fucking level of Black & White 2? Yeah Peter Molyneux, I'm calling you the fuck out again. Why the fuck did you encourage me to play your entire fucking game as a good god, painstakingly winning every map via cultural victory which takes FOR FUCKING EVER, and then when I get to the last mission the good adviser says: "Well shit, this guy is really really evil. Raise an army and wipe them out!!"

Fuck you, Peter. Fuck you to purgatory.

In a similar vein, the entire endgame of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is padded out with long, drawn-out combat sections and boss battles, so if you made a social/sneaky vampire, which was entirely viable until that point, you're basically fucked.

And then there's that sewer level...

 

[Stoneheart]

that stupid castle from lost levels that goes on for ever if you dont know the trick...

 

[Nobunaga]

that stupid castle from lost levels that goes on for ever if you dont know the trick...

Lost levels is just artificial difficulty: fuck you

 

[Absolute Brainlet]

Deconstruction from GTA SA.
I mean, you fuck up a construction site, probably killing a few workers in the process, then bury the foreman in concrete. All because some of the workers were catcalling your sister.
Kinda makes it hard to root for your character.

 

[Monika H.]

Deconstruction from GTA SA.
I mean, you fuck up a construction site, probably killing a few workers in the process, then bury the foreman in concrete. All because some of the workers were catcalling your sister.
Kinda makes it hard to root for your character.

But that'll never be controversial nd would probably be praised by the SJW crowd today because it's about a stunningly brave POC (and also trans just because) who stands up to evil white men who sexually harassed his sister

 

[Stoneheart]

Lost levels is just artificial difficulty: fuck you

I dont know, its not harder than 3.

 

[The Last Stand]

Duke Nukem Forever's Hive Level. Basically you're inside an alien's stomach or whatever and there are boobs all over the place. Not only that, but the Holsen Twins are implied to be raped and Duke well... has a one liner moment.

Never mind that it's a rip off of Halo 3's Cortana level

 

[Midlife Sperglord]

I remember the controversy over Subzero’s fatality in the original Mortal Kombat. Hearing about it made my kid self want to play that forbidden game even more.

 

[Oskar Dirlewanger]

The frozen wastes from the Dark Souls 2 DLC Crown of the?.. Ivory King is probably the worse video game level ever committed to bytes. It has everything shitty going for it. Low visibility, bullshit respawning enemies that'll knock your shit in, no notable loot, and copy-pasted palette swap bosses. It's a microcosm of bad ideas they should've cut. And given the prevalence of cut content in Souls games im shocked why anyone thought it was fine.

That level was created with one thing in mind. You could invade and use the camouflage item to hide discretely about 3/4 into the map. Host and his summons would at first look for you but then give up and go to boss. A narrow bridge leads to the boss fight, and all you need is a one perfectly timed shot from a greatbow (like the twin headed greatbow - conveniently from the same DLC) to throw the host off the bridge while being unseen on the other side of the map, forcing the noob to replay the entire area. Exquisite game design.

 

[Strange Looking Dog]

For actual content I hate that Fromsoft games are mandated to have a shitty poison swamp that makes your movement slow.

Just put on the Rusted Iron Ring. The swamp honestly wasn't that bad if you kept a supply of moss on you and you can totally do it without, but with the ring it becomes pretty trivial. Of note, once you have the Rusted Iron and the Gold Serpent Rings, the swamp becomes a great place to farm large shards.

The worst part of DS1 was probably the Bed of Chaos fight. The fight is a tedious mess, made worse by the jump you have to make at the end being hidden in a place where the boss can instakill you if you take the time to look. Once you know it's there it's still a pain as your character can slip off even if you make the jump, but just figuring out that you're supposed to jump into the death pit at a specific point really adds to the frustration for new players.

 

[Cornelius the Centurion]

On A Rail from Half-Life is pretty shitty. I abandon the tram as soon as I can.

 

[Timaeus Testified]

MAH NEGRO
I'm guilty of jacking off to Custer's revenge at least once.

I'd give you a deviant rating if I could.

For a good memorable level, no Sonic level holds a candle to City Escape. To me it's even more memorable than Green Hill, and it's one of the main reasons I still fondly remember Sonic Adventure 2.

For a bad one I recently revisited one of Runescape's most notorious dungeons, the Underground Pass. It plays like a Dungeons and Dragon map made by an absolute psychopath. It's a series of narrow caverns filled with floor spikes, wall spikes, bottomless pits and pits of spikes constantly picking away at your health and depleting your supplies, and they save the longest and most dangerous obstacles for the very end. The cruelest joke of all is if you die, you have to walk all the way back, as there are no shortcuts.

 

[Violence Jack]

That level was created with one thing in mind. You could invade and use the camouflage item to hide discretely about 3/4 into the map. Host and his summons would at first look for you but then give up and go to boss. A narrow bridge leads to the boss fight, and all you need is a one perfectly timed shot from a greatbow (like the twin headed greatbow - conveniently from the same DLC) to throw the host off the bridge while being unseen on the other side of the map, forcing the noob to replay the entire area. Exquisite game design.

Yo i remember seeing something like that. Im gonna try and find that video again because that's really the only redeeming factor. It's a great gank spank spot.

Just put on the Rusted Iron Ring. The swamp honestly wasn't that bad if you kept a supply of moss on you and you can totally do it without, but with the ring it becomes pretty trivial. Of note, once you have the Rusted Iron and the Gold Serpent Rings, the swamp becomes a great place to farm large shards.

Im gonna be honest DkS1's Blighttown is probably the least awful because of the fact that it connects to so many cool places and you can mitigate it if you know what you're doing. The zone itself being defanged because your knowledge is something that i respect. But while rusted iron ring does make it more bareable I was more generally speaking about the other games that decided not to have that option. Like Nightmare Frontier, Valley of Defilement, and the three different flavors of swamps in DkS3. I would've liked a ring or anything for that shit.

But you right Bed of Chaos is basically RNG the fight. That shit takes away every previously established lesson of the game design (preparation, positioning, character building) and essentially makes it moot forcing the fight to become a crapshoot.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Sonic 06. Every. Single. Level.

Carnival Night in Sonic 2 with the infamous barrel.

Atlantica...Kingdom Hearts...Ursula...............

 

[Tahoma]

The Arbiter levels in Halo 2

The Oracle is the worst level in the trilogy. Worse than Library and Sacred Icon combined. Everyone else is wrong.