10 Terrible Video Game First Levels That Made Us Rage Quit

The first level in any video game is incredibly important in establishing what kind of game it is and letting the player know the sort of experience they can expect for the remainder.

As such, many video games opt to make their opening section something exciting and memorable to get players talking - perhaps a cinematic introduction to the core gameplay mechanics which serves as a glorified tutorial.

Yet sometimes games bungle their very first level enough that it might even persuade players to sack off the entire rest of the game, or at least not return to it for a long time.

That's certainly true of these 10 games, all of which kicked off with chapters designed to push away all but the most committed of players.

Whether through their infuriating difficulty or sheer mechanical tedium, these games lacked the motivating, thrilling intro players surely expected.

And while most of these games improved significantly after this point, for many these brutally difficult or painfully dull levels were proof enough that the game just wasn't for them.

If you can't even give players some basic enjoyment right from the jump, what are you even doing?...

Given that we've talked Driver's opening tutorial mission to death at this point, here's something different from the same developer that's almost as annoying.

Reflections Interactive's Stuntman puts players in the shoes of a Hollywood stunt driver, and the game's career mode sees them attempting to execute a series of stunt sequences with a high degree of accuracy within a brutally strict time limit.

And right from its first chapter, "Toothless in Wapping," Stuntman demonstrates a disc-snapping level of unforgiving difficulty.

In the opening level, "Hiccup with the Pickup," you're required to perform a number of nimble maneuvers - hairpin turns and split-second action beats - with a meagre margin of error while a timer counts down until you hit the next mark.

And it only gets trickier from there, especially as some levels will fail you for missing just a single objective.

A successful run of a level will generally only take around a minute, and yet from the start you'll surely fail a lot before you get through any of them in one piece.

If not as iconic as Driver, Stuntman similarly left players raging right out of the gate.