9 Oddly Terrible Levels In Otherwise Great Video Games

7. Halo 3 - Cortana

The Halo 3 Cortana level has to be one of the most hated levels ever created, and for good reason. Despite serving its valid storytelling purpose, it's annoying as hell. For the course of the entire game, it is always clear what needs to be done and where the player has to go. Not always by artificial means, but by fast and fluid action. This is Halo, for God's sake; you go where your rifle is needed. And in this mission, it is all lost due to very bad level design. If it wasn't for the constant and aggravating telepathic messages from the Gravekeeper and Cortana, there would be no sense of progression at all. The enemies spawn from out of nowhere, and there is a seemingly infinite amount of them creeping down on the player. The textures and geometry are recycled all over the place, making it even harder to navigate the already confusing layout of the map. Sure, I agree that it needs to feel chaotic and desperate, but in this case it's for all the wrong reasons. Instead of charging into the nigh-infinite Flood and doing what the Spartans are known to do (kill things), the player is forced to run for the hills - quite literary, since the best tactic in this level is to run away as fast as possible, ignoring most of the resistance. Since when is ignoring an enemy a viable tactic in Halo? Reaching the end of the level has never been as annoying as it was in this instance. Even more so when you remember that the end is pretty much where you started, since you're going to have to backtrack the entire level with even more infected alien resistance this time around. If that doesn't scream "FUN!", I don't know what does.