Good list, fun to read! I'd say the worst part of any game from around 2000 are the mandatory stealth sections they always put in there. The worst offender being Jedi Outcast, where Kyle Katarn randomly decided that the number of stormtroopers in one particular level is too much for him to handle and you have to sneak to get through. Of course it's an insta fail if anyone sees you, and there's no way of knowing when or how anyone can spot you. Hate this forever!
I really wanted to include a bad mandatory stealth section but off the top of my head I couldn't remember one that clearly other than Metroid Zero Mission and I already had Super on the list.
I almost included Jedi Outcast where the 'bad' part was going to be everything before you get a lightsaber... but I decided that was unfair since the shooting in those games is really good. Thanks for reading!
I’ll give the number one slot to the Zen level in Half-Life.
That game was so, so great when it came out. As terrific as games are now, you don’t really get to have that “whoa” feeling any more now that you know pretty much everything about it before you sit down. But Half-Life was intense and original and an absolute blast from the first moment.
But Zen? Wow. I actually hadn’t realized how mediocre the shooting was in the game until the last level when I was doing those lazy jumps and realizing that there was no way to dodge or duck or hide from the snipers(?) shooting at me from the ground.
And 100% agree that Half-Life was vastly superior to its overrated sequel. You are not alone. Fuck the gravity gun!
I liked HL2 but it was obvs not near as intense as the original. It was kindof a tech demo with all the physics advancements. Tossing grenades back at baddies was cool.
Xen the Border World was weird and mystrious and also annoying,yea. But it was a cool end to the game, Black Mesa had been torn apart by the military so it was only shredded concrete and bug soldiers teleporting in constantly…
You are the only person I've ever met who has played The Urbz, glad there are others haha, really fun game, I still have my disc for OG Xbox but the box has somehow been lost to time.
I couldn't think of any specifics but ice levels are a pain in the ass staple too.
Yeah, either base the game around stealth mechanics or dont do stealth at all! Its really hard to do stealth play well, even for games built around it, like NoLF can be extremely frustrating.
I played an obscene amount of The Urbz with my siblings as a kid. It was the most 2000s game ever, and it rocked. Back then, at least. Don't feel like revisiting it now. I remember you could moonbathe naked, and my mom walked in while that was happening and wasn't too happy about it. Got the game banned in the house for a bit.
On the subject of Jak 2, that was another game I played as a kid. Didn't know it was supposed to be hard. The Jak game that had "THAT PART" in spades was Jak 3. You fight the final boss in a car. I don't know whose idea that was. I don't remember anything about Jak 3, other than getting legitimately mad at the final boss and having an unironic AVGN "WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THEEEEENKING?!" moment.
I actually first played The Urbz on a hospital ward with appendicitis when I was 8 lol They had an OG Xbox set up at the end of the ward with a handful of games and I think The Urbz was the only one that still worked; I already had Bustin' Out at home so I slipped into it quite easily and my mum bought it for me while I was recovering. Violently 2000's and very nostalgic for me, though I've not played it since 2009 at least.
Oh Jak 3 was great but full of those moments too, definitely.
Idk how much of it is childhood nostalgia for me, GoW3 never stuck around long in my memory but I played GoW2 front to back maybe 10-15 times, always couch co-op with a friend, and we'd finish it over a weekend or throughout a sleepover. It's better than the first one!
I agree!!! In comparing similar modes, I am a fan of CoD MW3s survival. Better than the convoluted mess of later zombie modes for sure. It's been too long since playing any of them to work out which is best of its contemporaries
Unpopular opinion but Black Ops 2's TranZit might be my favourite version of zombies: no wacky, bloated mechanics, no storyline or gimmicks, just you, your friends (or cousins, split-screen in my case) and trying to survive and taking that bus when the position you were in became untenable.
Shit! I had no idea, they all sort of blend into one and I've never played Blops2. One of my mates has an old PS3 so I'll suggest it! Thanks for the recc and for the article :)))
Oh Blops 2 gets a big star of approval from me, it's the favourite of many CoD players... I prefer the original but the zombies is better. TranZit is hated but I've never understood why, hope you enjoy it :)
In more recent gaming history, Returnal’s bosses. Returnal has some of the best, most satisfying dungeons with amazing progression then boom, a terrible bullet storm boss. Why do roguelikes do that!? Why do we need bullet storm sequences!? Returnal will always be the best game I never played :(
Oh yeah I feel this one too. I enjoyed what I played of Returnal but this was one of the reasons I put it down: great gameplay, awesome art style but almost everything around that stuff was botched in some way or another.
As a massive Half Life fan I totally agree with Zen being terrible. However, I think I need an entire article for this quote: "I’m in the minority of people who prefers Half Life to the -dare I say it- obscenely overrated sequel but Zen is indefensible." Did you play Half Life 2 when it released? I was blown away by it back in 2004. Would love to read your thoughts on this.
I also got a good chuckle out of the last entry in your list. I love fighting games but I tend to burn out trying to climb the competitive ladder.
I was born in 2000 so my first encounter with Half Life 2 was on the Orange Box, I remember the internet culture of the late-2000's being obsessed with the game (as was a close friend) I played it around 2010 and just felt very indifferent to it; I've since replayed it 2-3 times and went from indifferent to actively disliking the game somewhat. On the contrary, I played Half Life 1 for the first time around 2019 and thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure! If that's something that you'd be interested in I could give them another play some time in the future or maybe do a smaller article where I go into more depth.
It's a mammoth task, especially in Tekken where it's all so poorly done.
That makes sense actually. By 2010 you probably already saw all the games that were inspired by HL2. The physics that made it special was old news by then. Do you think HL2 relied too much on physics for its special sauce, whereas HL1 thrived on great storytelling and gameplay?
To some extent for sure but I will add that I didn't move on from the PS2/Xbox/GCN until 2009 and so I wouldn't say I'd played many technological equivalents to Half Life 2 before then, unless you count Halo 3 which was itself a technical marvel, just not quite in the same way.
It's a mixture of things: I agree with those points to a certain extent but I also find HL2 to feel too disconnected from part 1; when they talk about the 7 hour war and all that stuff it can feel as if the interesting main event has already happened. I prefer the grounded-ness of the original as well. It does rely too much on physics but in general I also feel the level design isn't particularly interesting and the set-pieces aren't all that enjoyable. I also dislike the vehicle missions.
Just so I'm not ripping the game to shreds I will say that the opening of Half Life 2 is one of the most well-crafted sequences in any video game and Ravenholm is one of the best FPS levels ever created.
Those are fair critiques of the game for sure. No worries about shredding it I was genuinely curious since I'm a mega fan of both games. Thanks for sharing.
Have you read my mind Lawrence? You listed all the ones I can think of. Labyrinth Zone, The Library, it's all here.
I can also think of the beginning of Jedi Outcast, the few levels where you don't have a lightsaber and just biding time until you do get the fricking lightsaber. Plus the end of KOTOR where you fight endlessly regenerating enemies with a turn based combat system not designed for it.
For some of your examples, I'm hoping that there are some future improvements. For example, I own but yet to play Black Mesa, which I hear has significantly improved Xen. And maybe the upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved have improved The Library - at least they couldn't make it worse!
I almost put that in but I did think it would be unfair since the shooting is really fun in that game. KOTOR I've featured in a few lately so I decided to leave it off for the sake of variety.
That'll be a fascinating one to see. I think they should still try to recapture the grinding war of attrition in that level but more variety is an absolute must.
I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game. Is it worth getting into? It feels like whenever I hear about them it's either someone saying they're awful or someone saying they're masterpieces.
KH is honestly hard to describe 😅 it definitely has its silly moments and the story can get complicated, but it is extremely charming and fun, especially if you grew up on Disney movies. I feel the same joy playing it at 22 years old that I did at 11 if that makes sense. It’s not for everyone, but a lot of people love it for a reason!
Great article by the way!! You nailed the descriptions, I could feel the frustration through my phone lol
Can't believe you included the Flood and didn't mention Far Cry and Crysis, whose own dive from 'intelligent and interesting enemies' to 'dumb crap that isn't fun to fight' are even steeper. Also claiming that the Depths entrance to Blighttown is preferable to running straight to an elevator that takes you down to the swamp. That's the whole point of taking the Master Key - it lets you skip like half the worst parts of the game!
Oh, and no room from MGS1 is worse than the two hour long unskipable intro to MGS5, which they then had the audacity to reuse as the ending.
For Far Cry? I've never played Far Cry 1, unfortunately, so while I've heard the legends (and really should get to it) I'm not going to include games I haven't played.
For Crysis? I don't consider it a great game and I think if it hadn't have been so hard to run and so graphically impressive, nobody would remember it today. The second half makes it a 5/10 but it was already at 7/10 levels up to that point.
Only cowards grab the Master Key and skip The Depths, I didn't take you for a coward, Jim.
Black Mesa, The Half Life fan remake, will forever be legendary for not only being great and a wonderful homage to the original, but it desuckified zen to the point I keep playing past the portal. Just a great experience throughout. Except interloper which was a tedious slog, but 75% less suck is a massive accomplishment.
They managed it, did they? I've not played Black Mesa yet, I've been saving it for when I revisit the game, not played Half Life 1 for quite a long time
Why does everyone hate the big levels? I loved those 😂 admittedly, I was super annal about swapping back and forth between characters where I think a most people did one character and then the other, so I always found playing big a nice change of pace rather than one big slog. I spent ages catching the different types of fish and getting massive high scores. But I seem to be a very tiny minority 😅
I liked them when I was a kid but when I came back to Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast a couple of years ago I also joined the anti-Big brigade lol for the exact reasons you listed; I left Big for last and it was an unpleasant change of pace before the bombastic ending, still, his campaign is short and Sonic Adventure is such a mood.
Good list, fun to read! I'd say the worst part of any game from around 2000 are the mandatory stealth sections they always put in there. The worst offender being Jedi Outcast, where Kyle Katarn randomly decided that the number of stormtroopers in one particular level is too much for him to handle and you have to sneak to get through. Of course it's an insta fail if anyone sees you, and there's no way of knowing when or how anyone can spot you. Hate this forever!
Stealth is always so hot and miss. It’s hard to do right when the whole game isn’t based around those mechanics.
Not just the early 2000’s! Spider-Man for the PS4 had those godawful Mary Jane stealth missions too.
I played a little bit of that one but didn't make it very far, just didn't grab me at all
I really wanted to include a bad mandatory stealth section but off the top of my head I couldn't remember one that clearly other than Metroid Zero Mission and I already had Super on the list.
I almost included Jedi Outcast where the 'bad' part was going to be everything before you get a lightsaber... but I decided that was unfair since the shooting in those games is really good. Thanks for reading!
The Jedi Outcast level with the Rodians that one-shot you with sniper rifles was more annoying to me.
I’ll give the number one slot to the Zen level in Half-Life.
That game was so, so great when it came out. As terrific as games are now, you don’t really get to have that “whoa” feeling any more now that you know pretty much everything about it before you sit down. But Half-Life was intense and original and an absolute blast from the first moment.
But Zen? Wow. I actually hadn’t realized how mediocre the shooting was in the game until the last level when I was doing those lazy jumps and realizing that there was no way to dodge or duck or hide from the snipers(?) shooting at me from the ground.
And 100% agree that Half-Life was vastly superior to its overrated sequel. You are not alone. Fuck the gravity gun!
Fuck the gravity gun, fuck the stupid physics puzzles, fuck the shitty vehicle sections and fuck fighting the same 4 enemies for the whole game.
I liked HL2 but it was obvs not near as intense as the original. It was kindof a tech demo with all the physics advancements. Tossing grenades back at baddies was cool.
Xen the Border World was weird and mystrious and also annoying,yea. But it was a cool end to the game, Black Mesa had been torn apart by the military so it was only shredded concrete and bug soldiers teleporting in constantly…
There’s always a theme with these painful levels, and it’s either water, fire, mazes, one hit KO’s or vehicles. 🤣
PS I owned and played The Urbz. I too did not know if anyone else knew it existed 🤣
You are the only person I've ever met who has played The Urbz, glad there are others haha, really fun game, I still have my disc for OG Xbox but the box has somehow been lost to time.
I couldn't think of any specifics but ice levels are a pain in the ass staple too.
Yeah, either base the game around stealth mechanics or dont do stealth at all! Its really hard to do stealth play well, even for games built around it, like NoLF can be extremely frustrating.
I wonder if you could make a cinematic sequence showing the frustrating that these stealth sections caused us😂😂
I love this as a story idea!
Weirdly: Hated the minecart levels in DKC, loved the rollercoaster levels in DKC 2?
I remember liking them more too but also eating through my lives like mad. Such a tough game DKC2, really good though
I played an obscene amount of The Urbz with my siblings as a kid. It was the most 2000s game ever, and it rocked. Back then, at least. Don't feel like revisiting it now. I remember you could moonbathe naked, and my mom walked in while that was happening and wasn't too happy about it. Got the game banned in the house for a bit.
On the subject of Jak 2, that was another game I played as a kid. Didn't know it was supposed to be hard. The Jak game that had "THAT PART" in spades was Jak 3. You fight the final boss in a car. I don't know whose idea that was. I don't remember anything about Jak 3, other than getting legitimately mad at the final boss and having an unironic AVGN "WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THEEEEENKING?!" moment.
I actually first played The Urbz on a hospital ward with appendicitis when I was 8 lol They had an OG Xbox set up at the end of the ward with a handful of games and I think The Urbz was the only one that still worked; I already had Bustin' Out at home so I slipped into it quite easily and my mum bought it for me while I was recovering. Violently 2000's and very nostalgic for me, though I've not played it since 2009 at least.
Oh Jak 3 was great but full of those moments too, definitely.
Idk how much of it is childhood nostalgia for me, GoW3 never stuck around long in my memory but I played GoW2 front to back maybe 10-15 times, always couch co-op with a friend, and we'd finish it over a weekend or throughout a sleepover. It's better than the first one!
I did play Horde on GoW 3 once around a friend's house, now that was definitely fun, better than Halo's firefight mode imo
I agree!!! In comparing similar modes, I am a fan of CoD MW3s survival. Better than the convoluted mess of later zombie modes for sure. It's been too long since playing any of them to work out which is best of its contemporaries
Unpopular opinion but Black Ops 2's TranZit might be my favourite version of zombies: no wacky, bloated mechanics, no storyline or gimmicks, just you, your friends (or cousins, split-screen in my case) and trying to survive and taking that bus when the position you were in became untenable.
Shit! I had no idea, they all sort of blend into one and I've never played Blops2. One of my mates has an old PS3 so I'll suggest it! Thanks for the recc and for the article :)))
Oh Blops 2 gets a big star of approval from me, it's the favourite of many CoD players... I prefer the original but the zombies is better. TranZit is hated but I've never understood why, hope you enjoy it :)
I only liked this because I want to see more gaming stuff on here not because I agree with the author in any way
In more recent gaming history, Returnal’s bosses. Returnal has some of the best, most satisfying dungeons with amazing progression then boom, a terrible bullet storm boss. Why do roguelikes do that!? Why do we need bullet storm sequences!? Returnal will always be the best game I never played :(
Oh yeah I feel this one too. I enjoyed what I played of Returnal but this was one of the reasons I put it down: great gameplay, awesome art style but almost everything around that stuff was botched in some way or another.
As a massive Half Life fan I totally agree with Zen being terrible. However, I think I need an entire article for this quote: "I’m in the minority of people who prefers Half Life to the -dare I say it- obscenely overrated sequel but Zen is indefensible." Did you play Half Life 2 when it released? I was blown away by it back in 2004. Would love to read your thoughts on this.
I also got a good chuckle out of the last entry in your list. I love fighting games but I tend to burn out trying to climb the competitive ladder.
I was born in 2000 so my first encounter with Half Life 2 was on the Orange Box, I remember the internet culture of the late-2000's being obsessed with the game (as was a close friend) I played it around 2010 and just felt very indifferent to it; I've since replayed it 2-3 times and went from indifferent to actively disliking the game somewhat. On the contrary, I played Half Life 1 for the first time around 2019 and thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure! If that's something that you'd be interested in I could give them another play some time in the future or maybe do a smaller article where I go into more depth.
It's a mammoth task, especially in Tekken where it's all so poorly done.
That makes sense actually. By 2010 you probably already saw all the games that were inspired by HL2. The physics that made it special was old news by then. Do you think HL2 relied too much on physics for its special sauce, whereas HL1 thrived on great storytelling and gameplay?
To some extent for sure but I will add that I didn't move on from the PS2/Xbox/GCN until 2009 and so I wouldn't say I'd played many technological equivalents to Half Life 2 before then, unless you count Halo 3 which was itself a technical marvel, just not quite in the same way.
It's a mixture of things: I agree with those points to a certain extent but I also find HL2 to feel too disconnected from part 1; when they talk about the 7 hour war and all that stuff it can feel as if the interesting main event has already happened. I prefer the grounded-ness of the original as well. It does rely too much on physics but in general I also feel the level design isn't particularly interesting and the set-pieces aren't all that enjoyable. I also dislike the vehicle missions.
Just so I'm not ripping the game to shreds I will say that the opening of Half Life 2 is one of the most well-crafted sequences in any video game and Ravenholm is one of the best FPS levels ever created.
Those are fair critiques of the game for sure. No worries about shredding it I was genuinely curious since I'm a mega fan of both games. Thanks for sharing.
Have you read my mind Lawrence? You listed all the ones I can think of. Labyrinth Zone, The Library, it's all here.
I can also think of the beginning of Jedi Outcast, the few levels where you don't have a lightsaber and just biding time until you do get the fricking lightsaber. Plus the end of KOTOR where you fight endlessly regenerating enemies with a turn based combat system not designed for it.
For some of your examples, I'm hoping that there are some future improvements. For example, I own but yet to play Black Mesa, which I hear has significantly improved Xen. And maybe the upcoming Halo: Campaign Evolved have improved The Library - at least they couldn't make it worse!
A sign I've played too many games haha
I almost put that in but I did think it would be unfair since the shooting is really fun in that game. KOTOR I've featured in a few lately so I decided to leave it off for the sake of variety.
That'll be a fascinating one to see. I think they should still try to recapture the grinding war of attrition in that level but more variety is an absolute must.
I’ve been replaying Kingdom Hearts after they announced KH IV. It’s one of my fav games but the Tarzan world and gummi ship sections are such a bitch.
I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game. Is it worth getting into? It feels like whenever I hear about them it's either someone saying they're awful or someone saying they're masterpieces.
KH is honestly hard to describe 😅 it definitely has its silly moments and the story can get complicated, but it is extremely charming and fun, especially if you grew up on Disney movies. I feel the same joy playing it at 22 years old that I did at 11 if that makes sense. It’s not for everyone, but a lot of people love it for a reason!
Great article by the way!! You nailed the descriptions, I could feel the frustration through my phone lol
Can't believe you included the Flood and didn't mention Far Cry and Crysis, whose own dive from 'intelligent and interesting enemies' to 'dumb crap that isn't fun to fight' are even steeper. Also claiming that the Depths entrance to Blighttown is preferable to running straight to an elevator that takes you down to the swamp. That's the whole point of taking the Master Key - it lets you skip like half the worst parts of the game!
Oh, and no room from MGS1 is worse than the two hour long unskipable intro to MGS5, which they then had the audacity to reuse as the ending.
For Far Cry? I've never played Far Cry 1, unfortunately, so while I've heard the legends (and really should get to it) I'm not going to include games I haven't played.
For Crysis? I don't consider it a great game and I think if it hadn't have been so hard to run and so graphically impressive, nobody would remember it today. The second half makes it a 5/10 but it was already at 7/10 levels up to that point.
Only cowards grab the Master Key and skip The Depths, I didn't take you for a coward, Jim.
I'm not a coward, I'm an expert!
Black Mesa, The Half Life fan remake, will forever be legendary for not only being great and a wonderful homage to the original, but it desuckified zen to the point I keep playing past the portal. Just a great experience throughout. Except interloper which was a tedious slog, but 75% less suck is a massive accomplishment.
They managed it, did they? I've not played Black Mesa yet, I've been saving it for when I revisit the game, not played Half Life 1 for quite a long time
Why does everyone hate the big levels? I loved those 😂 admittedly, I was super annal about swapping back and forth between characters where I think a most people did one character and then the other, so I always found playing big a nice change of pace rather than one big slog. I spent ages catching the different types of fish and getting massive high scores. But I seem to be a very tiny minority 😅
I liked them when I was a kid but when I came back to Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast a couple of years ago I also joined the anti-Big brigade lol for the exact reasons you listed; I left Big for last and it was an unpleasant change of pace before the bombastic ending, still, his campaign is short and Sonic Adventure is such a mood.
Hollywood sewers. In fact, any sewer level. I can't remember a good sewer level. Always a drab labyrinth.
The only good sewer level I can think of is the Killer Croc fight in Arkham Asylum.