8 Worst Video Game Mission Types Done RIGHT

"Watch out fellow meat bag, there are enemies converging on our position, better stay put and shoot wave after wave of increasingly tougher enemies until help arrives!"

Jeepers H. Creepers does that sound like a laugh riot, right? Because who'd want to go and explore alien worlds or experience new and different styles of gameplay when we can just stand around in a fixed area and shoot things coming over the horizon? The "Hold The Line" mission is one that is so very easy to get wrong, and often smacks of lazy level design in which developers are blatantly padding out an area under the guise of it adding tension, especially when enemies present their lemming-like brains and enter single file from the same spawn points over and over again.

Something tells me if I saw a mountain of my former colleagues' bodies by a doorway I'd not exactly be keen to enter that room in a hurry.

And yet if given the right setting, the right motivations and delivered in a way that actually feels earned, a Hold The Line mission can be something truly special. Just take the closing moments of Halo: Reach which managed to destil every shred of emotion from it's closing moments and give the player one kick-ass sendoff. Here the final Spartan on Reach is left to fend off the Covenant horde and your only goal as highlighted on your HUD is to "survive".

Using every shred of combat knowledge you've gained and ever scrap and bullet you can find, all you can do is take as many of these invaders down before you bite the big one. As your helmet cracks and the waves of enemies become overwhelming, you realize your fate is sealed, and yet you'll never give up dammit because this is what you do best.

Though you and Reach may have fallen, the memory of your defiant stand will live on in the minds of gamers for years after.