10 Terrible Levels That Haunt Otherwise Perfect Video Games
The shinier the surface, the more obvious the scratch.
Sometimes, it's easy to forgive a developer for a bad game when the whole thing falls apart anyway. Maybe it was an idea that didn't translate well into the form of a game, or perhaps a meagre budget didn't match the team's lofty ambitions. Video games can, after all, be bad for so many different reasons.
However, it's much more difficult to look past a stage of a game that's so jarringly poor when viewed alongside the rest of a full product. It's really tough to accept when something is close to perfection, only to be ruined by one particularly awful mission, moment or level.
Sadly, even games that are considered to be true greats have suffered these moments of sheer frustration against an otherwise perfect execution. While we may not wish to acknowledge their existence, let's take a look back at where some games lost their near 100% score to an awful stage.
Here are ten terrible levels that haunt otherwise perfect games...
--
10. Sandtraps - Half-Life 2
While Half-Life 2 has left thousands of players desperately wishing for a third instalment to the immensely popular series, the game was never quite considered perfect. Certain players have different gripes, but the largest frustration definitely comes from one particular stage.
Sandtraps is the eighth level of Half-Life 2 and it is by far the worst. Despite an innocuous start, things quickly take a desperate turn when you suddenly find you have to navigate your way along large expanses of sand without falling on them. Doing so will alert hordes of antlions to attack and they'll keep coming until you're back off the sand again.
The path to success here is a combination of completing intricate jumps and constructing paths of debris with the Gravity Gun. It sounds simple enough, but this type of thing is virtually impossible to control in an FPS and thus mistakes will occur. When one antlion knocks you off your perch and subsequently summons an army of reinforcements you'll suddenly start to wonder why anyone really wants a Half-Life 3.