Games with That One Exceptional Level?

[Jasede]

I'm trying to find out what makes great levels extraordinary, so I'm looking for some good games that have a level in them that just completely stands out from all the others- it's either completely different, or it's extreme, or it's just very, for lack of a better word, "artistic". Maybe it's just particularly difficult or atmospheric.

Here's some examples of what I am looking for:

Thief 3: Robbing the Cradle
No enemies in the first map, ghost story elements out of nowhere, pitch black, usual good Thief atmosphere distilled, only nine enemies or so total, yet frightening. Feels like it's from a different game.

Serious Sam: 2nd Encounter: The Grand Cathedral
Imagine a normal Serious Sam level; now take out all the garnish and multiply the enemy count by fifty. It's a straight hellish corridor of death that ends in a majestic, enormous green field under a pretty, sunny sky. There, the last wave of enemies attacks for what goes on for like fifteen minutes while the sky darkens, meteors fall from the sky, rain and lightning start and end and it becomes day again. Awesome. Also the sheer number of enemies is second to none.

Majora's Mask: The Moon, the tree room
The best room in the entire game. Completely different from what you expect; very unsettling especially at the age I played this. A very nice culmination of everything that was strange in the game into something even stranger, turning something genuinely positive into something frightening and alien.

Godhand: 1-1
Has there ever been a better first stage in any video game, ever made? This stage isn't unusual or even different, but everything in it just clicks from the get go. When you play this stage it feels as if every single enemy has been placed in exactly the right spot- everything has been measured and carefully crafted, including the weapons and powerups. It's the perfect introduction to a great game. When I first saw this level on some Let's Play the immediate reaction was: "Wow, that is the most awesome game I have ever seen; how can a level look like so much fun?"

Timesplitters 2: Siberia
This level feels like it was designed with a ruler and a compass. Just like in the first Godhand stage, every enemy feels like he was placed there for a reason and couldn't possibly be in a different location. The callbacks to Golden Eye are beautiful and the difficulty of the whole thing is just extreme on Hard - and this is only the first stage. It really sets the tone for the game: this is going to bust your balls, son. That the music is really nice doesn't hurt, either. Just a well crafted bundle, this map.



If you can mention some more great levels in some games, that'd be great. I love playing those. I especially have a soft spot for levels that break the conventions of what the game established up to that point. I also like the idea of a level where the music completely stops, or the mood does a 180 degree turn, or the graphical style changes. If you know examples of that, that'd be great!

 

[Esquilax]

Vault 11: Fallout New Vegas

Open-world game but this was truly an incredible location. The place was oozing with atmosphere and is pretty much the best example of environmental storytelling that I've ever seen in a game. It's got some of the blackest humor I've ever seen in Fallout (the election posters) and one hell of an ending. Great stuff.

Thief: The Dark Project - The Sword

A bizarre, creepy map featuring some of the most innovative level design I've ever seen in a game. The environment is totally demented; you'll find yourself going through a posh, Victorian-style dining hall, only to stumble into a labyrinthine hedge maze that leads to a giant tree. The further into the map you go, the more surreal and unnerving the map becomes. The echoing sound of laughter (is someone laughing at you?) as you walk through those trap-infested, maddeningly constructed rooms still gives me shivers. I'd say it's almost as frightening as "Return to the Cathedral".

Thief 2: (tie!) - Life of the Party / Trail of Blood

The Life of the Party is the largest, most ambitiously designed mission in the Thief series. Looking up at Angelwatch after having robbed a bank, getting a nasty surprise at a necromancer's tower, running into a deadly (and hilarious) argument between two groups of guards defending their Lord's honor, and broken into an armory with a powerful explosive I'd found and then realizing "Holy shit, I've only just begun?! This map is fucking awesome" is still one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.

Trail of Blood really covers the "exceptional" factor mentioned in the OP. While I didn't like the abundance of monsters in some of the maps in Thief 1, I feel like the devs went a little too far in curbing the supernatural elements (though, given the plot, I suppose it made sense - but I'd rather have seen more) so Trail of Blood is really the only thing around in Thief II when it comes to the more bizarre, supernatural elements present in the series.

And fuck, does it ever deliver. It manages to create a brilliant juxtaposition of relative mundanity (the pagan village) and bizarre other-worldliness (The Maw) that the Thief series was so fucking good at.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[TripJack]

The last hitman game has several fantastically designed levels.

I think the mardi gras one takes the cake though. A great level idea exceptionally implemented.

 

[Renegen]

Cool thread.

Deus Ex - Versalife building (slightly cheating)
The Versalife building is the latest destination to uncover the conspiracy and it delivers. At first it only looks like any normal office building, this part feels like you are sleuthing grabbing any leads that might show up and asking anyone for help. You find an unauthorized floor and naturally there are many ways to reach it. Once you open the elevator door, you're confronted with this amazing view of a giant hand around a globe, massive open space, you can feel the conspiracy becoming real. You can still be diplomatic but there are MJ12 guards everywhere. Going even deeper into the labs, you discover all of the diabolical research that takes place there. You go even deeper and you find... the universal constructor. This simple building just takes you in and never lets go, level by level you dive deeper into the conspiracy. And the best part about all of it is that you feel like you're infiltrating this place, like maybe you shouldn't be there and see anything.

bonus game - No One Lives Forever - the last level.
Admitedly I don't remember very much, but here an FPS deep on story and RPG-like elementals that just kept going and going. You visit every continent it seems, you get betrayed, you go into space, the game never ends and is consistently high quality. Then comes yet another assignment to some ski mountain resort. You may think it's the end of the game, but you're had that feeling before and been wrong. This level is just as high quality as the first, complete with the same humor and same everything, except it's the last level. Once it's over, you almost didn't expect it. One of the very few FPS that doesn't feel rushed at the end and as a result you never lose the suspension of disbelief.

 

[Gragt]

Hong Kong from Deus Ex. Not only are the visuals very catchy and exotic compared to New York, it's full of little things to discover here and there, whether it is by exploring buildings or by diving inside the canals. The way it starts is also memorable: after landing in a MJ12 base, you escape by taking an elevator that drops you right in the busy and colourful streets of Hong Kong, enhanced by the fun music theme. And then there are other nice moments like getting in the club (including 2 moochers who want you to pay for them; the game would be the same without them but it's the kind of gratuitous details that allows it to grow), chatting about global politics with a bartender, resolving a feud between the triads, have a social call turn into the exploration of an MJ12 base, and of course VersaLife where the conspiracy starts to really reveal itself in its entirety, with the very nice touch that you can immediately recognised the sinister globe with the end that you saw in the intro. Some people complain that the intro to DX gives away too much, but apart from showing that Bob Page and Walton Simmons are bad guys (which isn't too hard to infer based on their demeanors), and maybe Maggie Chow if you're observant, without giving their identity at this points, all it really tells you is that there is a conspiracy going on about the plague at this point, which is only a small aspect of the whole thing.

CTF-Face from Unreal Tournament: it takes the basic CTF design without deviating much (one map with 2 mirrored bases and one straight path to each) but it is also its simplicity that makes it so fun, because snipers from the towers can easily see attackers incoming or escaping with your flag, without any hidden path. Reaching the top of the slope in the middle is always a very special moment when you are carrying the flag, because you know that enemies from the enemy base won't be able to shoot you until they also reach it, snipers excluded, and you also know that you're halfway there. That it takes place on an asteroid orbiting around Earth with some ethereal music only makes it more memorable. It's probably the signature map of the UT serie, and the fact that Epic didn't remake it for UT3 shows that the game was cruelly lacking in content. Thankfully it's been rectified later but the game still suffers from a bad reputation.

Another favourite from UT is CTF-LavaGiant. This one is bigger and than CTF-Face and interestingly not symetrical. It's basically a big rock floating on lava, with two forts on each side many tunnels running through the rock. There is of course a direct route but any good sniper will be able to cover it, so it forces people to take the smaller tunnels inside, and some can even deliver you at the back of the forts. Maybe not as memorable as CTF-Face, but still very good.

 

[felipepepe]

Shinobi (PS2) - Tsunami Stage (can't recall exact name)
This one made me rage but also love the design. You are escaping a huge tsunami on a maze of flooded buidings, holding the sword that keeps draining your life unless you kill enemies. You have to run so the tsunami doesn't catch you, kill enemies so your sword doesn't kill you, all while on a stage that has almost nowhere to stand, you have to keep running on the walls and jumping from building to building because there's no floor, only water bellow!

 

[Infinitron]

The Overlook Manor level in Thief 3.

Rain and thunder. Melancholy. A deranged, babbling widow, pining for her beloved pirate husband who will never return. Their relatives, furtively stealing whatever they can from the dead man's manor. The few remaining loyal crew keeping vigil. And that music.



That warm feeling you got when you listened to the husband's last message for his wife...and the guilt you felt when you stole her inheritance.

I think it's an...overlooked level.

 

[Morgoth]

I'll never forget the first level of Thief: The Dark Project. It was also the Demo level and I think I played that one 100x to total perfection before advancing to the next level.

Also the Cradle in Thief 3. Fucking sick, mang.

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

Metal Slug 3 Mission 5



Starts at 27:40 in this longplay.

Seriously, half the game's length is this final mission. It just keeps going and getting harder and harder as it goes. One of my favorite games, one of my favorite missions. You feel like a total badass after beating it. I can't even imagine the rage that would foment from playing this in an arcade.

 

[Gragt]

Haha, yeah! I remember when I got to there, saw the mention "Final Mission!" on screen, and thought "Wow, already? That's rather short". And then the level goes on foreveeeeeeer!

 

[TheEntitledOne]

Dark ForcesII:Jedi Knight. A particular level were you get stuck in a big cargo ship, while the ship slowly falls into a deep canon, gravity in the ship is fucked up, turning the floor into the ceiling and viceversa. Limited time to escape, and the interiors were quite difficult to navigate. Hell of a claustrofobic level, and one of the most dangerous.

The Glow. No much to tell, a good examples that dungeons don't need filler mobs to be great.

 

[Infinitron]

Any time you're on the pirate ship in Alone in the Dark 2.
Underrated game, IMO. It wasn't bad just because it wasn't as non-linear and Lovecraftian as its predecessor. AITD3 wasn't as interesting, though.

 

[Serious_Business]

Almost every Thief level qualifies. The Cradle in T3 gets a lot of prep, but that's mainly because it stood out next to merely okay-to-good levels, as far as I'm concerned. Thief has some crazy ass level design that ties in with how much originality the devs poored in their game. I mean just start with Bafford's, which is cool as hell - then what do you get? Cragscleft. Then what? The Bonehoard. 3 missions, you just went through all that. I mean if that's not memorable, I don't know what is. The Sword is probably the best mission, but I prefer Return to the Cathedral - Haunts are the best enemies ever, I mean holy shit
T2 gets a bit rusty and boring in places though (the submarine mission, geez), but Life of the Party kind of makes up for it.

Thief definitively had great level design, but when I think about it, it must also be because of the gameplay that the design stands out in the first place. You can have great design for action games in general - which severely lacks in modern games, as they use cell-based areas which severly limits the scope of what can be done - but actions games are limited in their essence so it's not going to matter that much. The environment doesn't really matter if all you're doing is shooting enemies down. In Thief what matters the most is guard patterns, so by definition environment is going to make a big difference.

The same thing could be said for SS and DX, that gameplay and design are tied in, but then DXHR has decent potential for gameplay, but terrible level design. In fact, it pretty much broke the game for me. It's really something of a lost art - I assume FPS fans could tell you more, but I don't like these kind of games. At any rate, there's not a lot of games made post 2000 that have huge, intricate environments to play in. You can mention open world sanbox games, but they all feel so empty and plain, I don't think sandbox design is the same as proper level design.

 

[jcd]

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[Infinitron]

Playing as a Little Sister in Bioshock 2.

my heart belongs to Daddy

 

[The Boring Incarnation]

http://deckers.die is pretty much the high-point of Saints Row: The Third. You just can't beat a text-based adventure segment and fake latency while in Tron.

Also, Xen from Half-Life

 

[Rhalle]

Max Payne 2's construction site level.

 

[DraQ]

STALKER:SoC - x18.
No game has ever came this close to driving me insane, not Penumbra, not Amnesia, not System Shock 2.

Spoiler

What good is a modified AK with underslung GL and enough ammo to commit a minor genocide if you have nothing to shoot at?

I'd mention Unreal, but it's largely built of exceptional levels.

Karos Graveyard blew me away in Homeworld.

Xen in HL1 - yes, I know, shitty jumping puzzles, but I really enjoyed the change of scenery and Xen was really alien.

The Glow. No much to tell, a good examples that dungeons don't need filler mobs to be great.

 

[octavius]

The Sword in Thief 1 was an exceptional level in a game with exceptional level design.
I loved all the "exotic" levels, like Clagscreft, Bonehoard (moaning zombies and the haunting sound of the Horn of Quintus was fantastic) and The Lost City. Too bad the most vocal Thief fans disagreed and got what they wanted in Thief 2.

Life of the Party in Thief 2 was an exceptional level in a game with too many mediocre (compared to Thief 1) levels.
Playing Life of the Party was also the first time a computer game gave me motion sickness.
The Bank was another really great level in that game.

Bluff Eversmoking was my favourite Unreal level. It was big, unlinear and with some epic sights.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

STALKER:SoC - x18.
No game has ever came this close to driving me insane, not Penumbra, not Amnesia, not System Shock 2.

Spoiler

What good is a modified AK with underslung GL and enough ammo to commit a minor genocide if you have nothing to shoot at?

I'd mention Unreal, but it's largely built of exceptional levels.

Karos Graveyard blew me away in Homeworld.

Xen in HL1 - yes, I know, shitty jumping puzzles, but I really enjoyed the change of scenery and Xen was really alien.

The Glow. No much to tell, a good examples that dungeons don't need filler mobs to be great.

I actually think X18 is the anti-example to this. The level itself is not that good, and not that scary overall. If you put it in, say, Doom 3, it would be relatively unremarkable, as you shotgun your way through everything.

The thing that made X18 awesome, was the context provided by the rest of SoC. The whole first part of the game built up to it, with all the weirdness of the Zone, none of which was explained at that point, and the entire oppressive-but-miraculous atmosphere, it all laid the groundwork for X18, where you literally had no idea what you'd find down there, but were imagining all sorts of bad shit. Then the first floor had like no enemies except one snork, and just a shitload of anomalies. And then you would descend the stairs to level 2...

I once saw a person arguing that SoC was a survival-horror game at heart, and there is some merit to that I think.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Silent Storm - defending the factory. I usually hate defence missions, but this one was simply great, and was where the real potential of the destructible environment really shone through for me. Group of enemies trying to enter through the garage? Blow out the floor beneath them, sending them plummeting to deaths, severe wounds and a mazelike basement to desperately crawl out of. Through the front? Climb onto the roof, destroying the way up behind you, raining death upon them from above. So many options, and by the third or fourth wave of soldiers and Panzerkleins, you'll need every one of them. Simply great design that made the absolute best of the game's underrated engine.

Baldur's Gate 2 - the Planar Sphere. Whenever I try to remember what I actually liked about BG2, this is the quest/dungeon/area that comes to mind. A great mage duel, a decent story to follow that tread the line between wacky, serious and excuse plot perfectly, a whole host of strange and unique creatures to kill, avoid, negotiate or all three, topped off with the pretty excellent apprentice quests.

Hitman 2 - the Russian party. For sheer amount of things going on, potential solutions, potential fuckups, attention to detail and level of challenge, this is probably my favourite level from a series in which level design is a consistent strength. I'll never forget my first nearly-successful playthrough; having gone in blind, managed to luck out and retrieve the briefcase with no fuss, circumventing the enemy agent and disposing of my target, I made my way for the front door. As I approached it, heart in my mouth... the guest I had drugged at the start of the mission for his invitation burst in the door, naked, screaming and pointing at the man wearing his clothes. Cue a madcap chase to the docks with fifteen men shooting at me and a significantly worse rating than expected. Bliss.

Wasteland - Finster's Brain. Insane. Inexplicable. Indescribable.

Might and Magic 6 - the Fire Lord's Keep. Odd choice? Probably. This game was full of fucking great dungeons, but for some reason, this one came together and stuck with me like no other. Some erred on the side of too many enemies, sacrificing genuinely good design and atmosphere for simply throwing mobs at the player. This one managed the perfect balance. Descending deep into this strange and unknown area, the hellish howls of its denizens echoing from passages near, far, adjacent, inaccessible, nonexistent... who's to say? A claustrophobic, confusing maze full of delicious secrets, tense moments and surprisingly good music, this was the point where M&M6 really clicked with me.

I feel like there are some I'm definitely forgetting. Might update later.

 

[laclongquan]

Sigil of Planescape Torment. It's truly worthy of the cutscene after escaping Morgue: "A city full of wonder" and it delivers. I ran around carefully talked at any even remotely interesting NPCs standing around because who know where might lead. Especially after a conversation with a prostitute leaving Morte happier but filthy-mouth than ever. merchants in the bazaar, art salon, bars, slumhouses...

 

[dextermorgan]

Not a "level" per se, but the section of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of The Earth starting with arrival at Innsmouth and ending with the hotel chase sequence was a whole lot of awesome.

 

[Infinitron]

Not a "level" per se, but the section of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of The Earth starting with arrival at Innsmouth and ending with the hotel chase sequence was a whole lot of awesome.

The USS Urania level, if only because it's the last time in the game you're among friendly humans. And then it goes all to hell...