10 Video Game Level Types That Must Die Next Generation
7. Hold The Line
"Don't worry fellas the back up is on the way... or a chopper...or we're powering some generator... or some other plot device to advance the story... but oh no, a colossal amount of cannon fodder's right at the gates. We have to hold them back until the plot device gets here. Most likely three waves of them... or maybe four in case the developer decided they wanted to fly in the face of the sacred rule of threes."
Hold the Line missions are kind of like the other side of the Timed Mission coin: they're both based around an arbitrary number, time is of the essence and they are both SO goddamn boring. The set up is always thus: there are three doors - north, east, west - enemies will storm one door and you'll stay behind one bit of cover until they come through another door and you switch to that one. You'll repeat this a few times, enemies will increase in toughness with each wave and on the final one they'll probably come through all three doors or something.
This a level of slack-jawed, dead-eyed dullness that cannot be overestimated. The only thing worse is if you accidentally let an enemy get to the reactor or... generator or... folk you're trying to save and then you have to do the whole damn thing over again.