10 Video Games That Wasted Their Ludicrous Budgets On Terrible Levels

Those irritating levels that ruin an otherwise perfect experience.

Money isn't everything, is it? We all love the theatrics and cinematic experiences of an AAA quality, multi-million dollar game but it's often the smaller, independent games which excite us most with unique gameplay experiences and interesting stories and art styles. Sure, a game like Grand Theft Auto V proves that a big budget game can go on to live up to the immense hype (GTA V is actually the most expensive game ever made, costing Rockstar a cool £170 million) but so often, we're let down by the big-spending studios. Even more common is a great game from those companies that features one awful level or section. Did the designers suddenly go on strike? How did these levels get past testing? It might be a sudden immense difficulty spike or just a tedious level design, but these ten games feature levels which should have been better given the money spent on them.

10. Half-Life 2 €“ Sandtraps

Is it possible to dislike Valve? Their catalogue of games is pretty impressive and Half-Life 2 is up there as one of the best. It features some incredibly dull sections though, especially the middle section of the game which drags on and on. Sandtraps is the final level in this tedious period but it's also probably the worst. Half-Life 2 loves a good physics puzzle and Sandtraps (for a good portion of it) plays like a massive one. Touching the sand at certain points will spawn antlion enemies (very annoying) so to traverse these sections, you need to climb on boxes and use them as a bridge to cross. It becomes a big game of 'the floor is lava'. It'll seem interesting at first but it's such a time consuming effort that you'll just want to throw yourself to the antlions eventually.
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I have an addiction to achievements, a craving for new bands and a dream to become Captain America. I once finished second in a Mario Kart 7 tournament so I'm kind of a big deal.