10 Video Games With The Tightest Timed Sections

There are a number of valid contenders for the crown of Grand Theft Auto's toughest mission, and though San Andreas' "Supply Lines" is mercifully only optional, it takes the cake for imposing such an unfair time limit.

The mission requires players to fly an RC plane through San Fierro, destroying five of Zero's rival courier vehicles and then returning to his roof.

Though Supply Lines doesn't have a time limit in the traditional sense, players are given an infuriatingly stingy amount of fuel to get the job done.

In the original PS2 release of the game the fuel would continue to dwindle away even if you took your hand off the throttle and opted to glide instead, meaning the resource you were battling was actually time.

This was thankfully fixed in later releases of San Andreas, and because players still complained, Rockstar even expanded the plane's fuel capacity for the Xbox 360 and mobile ports.

In its earlier iterations, Supply Lines is nevertheless a maddeningly unforgiving challenge - downing all five couriers and getting back to the roof in time requires players to waste not a single degree of the plane's movement.

This is unaided by both the plane's horrendous handling and the fact you can be shot out of the sky by the understandably irate couriers. As fun a game as San Andreas is, this mission in its original form is nothing short of self-flagellation.