1. Rescuing Lance Vance In GTA: Vice City
Thus after such a list of increasingly loud groans and sighs, we arrive at the top spot. This mission, titled Death Row from the legendary Vice City, always jumps straight to the top of my list whenever any conversations about how annoying games can be crops up. Initially this top spot was tied with another mission from that game in which you race a bolted-to-the-road Hillary in a bid to prove yourself. Attempts to side-swipe him were futile as his AI meant he had to stick to a certain path, and god help you if you happened to pull ahead and get in front before a corner. Anyway, all of that pales in comparison to the checkpoint-lacking fury of having to rescue GTA-favourite Lance Vance from a junkyard filled with antagonist Diaz men. Not only are you forced to repeat the cross-city drive to begin the firefight should you fail, but the sheer amount of guys that the game chucks at you with nowhere to hide only served to point out how limited the combat in Vice City was when it came to crowd-control. Oh and did I mention youre on a timer masked as a health bar for Lance that kicks in as soon as you leave the mission point? Youre now trying to be a one-man army in an enclosed space, battling the lock-on targeting controls just as much as the people trying to blown your head off, all within a window of a few minutes. Great stuff. So lets say you manage to make all of Diaz goons meet the business end of your rifle, you then have to get him back across the city to safety whilst being pursued by yet more angry blokes with guns. Speeding back across the city can lead to either your already faltering, tire-popped saloon car getting fully ventilated, or inevitably youll tip the thing yourself and burst into flames, throwing all progress down the toilet and putting you right back to before youd even activated the mission. It was agony. If any of you guys can think of anything worse, please whack it in the comments below and lets all be glad that with newer technology and fully-realised game worlds comes more robust mechanics and deft control for most of the scenarios in this list. That is, of course, until youre boarding a pirate ship as Edward Kenway in Assassins Creed 4, and accidentally fling yourself into the sea instead of landing on the opposing platform.