Octopus Overlords

Duke Nukem 3D - 2nd map Red Light District. Its small but not too small. Has some verticality in it and lots of secrets and hidden areas to find. The adult book store and bar will pool table are well set up and look and play great. Just a fun and cool beginning map.

DOOM - E1M1. The first map and you hear that cool music track for the first time. Has a couple secret areas to discover and gets you ready for the whole DOOM experience.

DOOM 2 - Again E1M1. First map with some hidden stuff and the shotgun and rocket launcher. You know you're in for a ride from here on out.

System Shock 2 - The turtorial area where you actually create a character type. Lots of interesting stuff that teaches you how to play along with character setup. Has a very cool secret thats not really hidden but will miss the robot dancing the macarena dance if you dont look closely.

EDIT: Im adding more as they come to me.

Thief: Deadly Shadows - Shalebridge Cradle. Totally eerie and slightly frightening. The entire tone of the map is dreary scary. Loved it all. Made a memory for sure.

Dishonored 2 - The Clockwork Mansion

Kind of difficult to talk about without spoilers. Definitely one of the coolest and most interesting levels I've ever played.

what are

*What're

Did you just call me a What’re ?!

It's all what're under the bridge.

All of ya drink your what're and shut up I fixed it

This will skew toward older games, as many modern games don't use 'levels' quite the same way. I mean, how do I list a level from No Man's Sky where there are billions of 'levels', or from Void Bastards where they're generated every time? How do you post something from a Total War game?

Spoiler tags contain videos. Assume actual spoilers for those levels.

Thief 2, The Haunted Library Not my favorite level, but one of the best-remembered levels. It was the first level in a game that I've played that scared the crap out of me - the video is set to that segment.

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Morrowind, Ald'Ruhn
An area rather than a 'level.' Something about it just clicked with me. I don't particularly like the place, but they did such a great job of presenting a fictional culture there and showing how they fit into their environment that it has always stuck with me. Too bad they didn't put that kind of effort into anything since.

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Everquest, Kelethin/Greater Faydark
I'm so happy that I don't have any record of how many hours I spent here. It was amazingly atmospheric at the time, and it was so massive that it was easy to get turned around in.

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Metro Exodus, The Caspian
This one just clicked. It really took the 'open level' concept they used and made it sing better than any of the levels before or after.

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Subnautca, Inactive Lava Zone
More specifically, the experience of navigating the Cyclops (the sub) around in the Inactive Lava Zone.

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System Shock 2, the UNN Rickenbacker
This whole segment was just so fun and atmospheric.

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Unreal, Nali Castle
Unreal was my first shooter, and it was one of the first games I played that was fully 3d accelerated (probably on my Voodoo 3 3000 AGP - I didn't start playing shooters until I'd been PC gaming for a while) and took full advantage of the fact. It being the first game that looked that good, and my first shooter, it made an impression on me, and Nali Castle, while a forgettable level within the game, was also the level used for the main-menu flyby, which is what is shown in the video.

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The Unfinished Swan, The Garden
You're in a level where everything is white with no shadows, but you have the ability to throw black paint. It's such a simple concept, and the gameplay is so straightforward, but it's so relaxing and elegant, and so artistic that I just can't help but love the experience.

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A couple of special mentions.

~Deus Ex. I couldn't for the life of me figure out which level to point to. The HQ? Paris? Hong Kong? The VersaLife Building? I vote for the whole game.
~Vietcong. I remember some amazing fragments, but can't nail down individual levels from my memory.
~Void Bastards - Wow, I had some great levels in there, but they're procedurally generated so I can't really point to them.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Sun Jun 04, 2023 6:42 pm All of ya drink your what're and shut up I fixed it

Needs more ellipses.

Shalebridge Cradle in Thief: Deadly Shadows

Ocean House Hotel in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

The hotel was a great one (although I never finished the game.)

There are about 3 mid-level and one at the end of Defense Grid.

Literally no recollection of an individual mission, level or map from any game that does not have xcom in the name. No, not x-com, just xcom. The levels I remember from xcom 2 are mostly remembered with a high level of annoyance rather than nostalgia.

There are flashes of things from Jagged Alliance 2 I can pull up in the memory banks but not enough to share.

This may be part of why nostalgia doesn't really play into my gaming much.

I guess I could mention the first two challenge levels in Galaga... also the early level where you can double up your ship.

The Facility in Goldeneye (N64). Replayed that mission over and over and over when I was 15 or so. Roleplayed it as a stealth mission etc.

The elven zones in classic WoW. With the music and dark sky/thick forest above they just felt magical. I'll never have another gaming experience like the beta/early release of WoW. I took my dwarf all the way to Darkshore to quest on Kalimdor. Hated Desolace the quests were so far apart and the environment was so dark and dreary. But I'd still give anything to experience it for the first time again. Etc.

Anywhere in Final Fantasy Tactics. Road Rash on my Game Gear.

Man, there are just these strong feelings attached to the games of youth and early adulthood. I don't know if I'll ever get absorbed in a game like that again. I can feel what playing those SNES, N64, and Playstation titles was like. The same for PC games in the 1998-2003 range. The wonder of my first MMORPG, Anarchy Online. How little I understood its ridiculously complex systems even ever being tutored/mentored by random other players. Many areas in Fallout 2. I miss having the new experiences of childhood and early adulthood so much, in their places and times.

Wow, so many from Thief: Deadly Shadows.

Do I need to go back and try to play that again? I never made it very far for some reason. ADD gaming brain I guess.

Really, almost every mission in Thief 1 and 2. And yes, Shalebridge in Thief 3 is awesome too.

If I had to pick one favorite from Thief 1-3, I would pick Life of the Party. So much fun. So many different paths, etc.

The hidden 'easter egg' room in Atari's Adventure


The phonebooth screen in Atari's Superman


Ultima IV: The Ruins of Magincia


Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (1981): The final room with Hitler in it.


Dark Castle: the torture guy's room

Mmmmm…Dark Castle.

Not sure why the screen shot is b&w though, wasn’t that game all purple and black for some reason?

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Mon Jun 05, 2023 10:55 am Mmmmm…Dark Castle.

Not sure why the screen shot is b&w though, wasn’t that game all purple and black for some reason?

Well, I played in on my Macintosh, which was only b&w.

And, while I've (just now) seen screenshots like you describe, the vast majority of the ones you will get in a google search appear the way I recall it.

There were also a few follow-ups and then 'remakes' later too I think.

Titanfall 2 - Effect and Cause

Such a fun level with great mechanics. I'm surprised nobody had really embraced it for an entire game yet.

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Pyperkub wrote: ↑Mon Jun 05, 2023 12:27 pm Titanfall 2 - Effect and Cause

Such a fun level with great mechanics. I'm surprised nobody had really embraced it for an entire game yet.

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Is that the one where you went back in time or could back and forth? There was a full game based on that if so called Singularity. Ive completed it twice.

Pyperkub wrote:Titanfall 2 - Effect and Cause

Such a fun level with great mechanics. I'm surprised nobody had really embraced it for an entire game yet.

Sent from my SM-S908U1 using Tapatalk

There was a lot of great level design in Titanfall 2, but that is definitely one of the best parts of a great game.

disarm wrote: ↑Mon Jun 05, 2023 1:27 pm

Pyperkub wrote:Titanfall 2 - Effect and Cause

Such a fun level with great mechanics. I'm surprised nobody had really embraced it for an entire game yet.

Sent from my SM-S908U1 using Tapatalk

There was a lot of great level design in Titanfall 2, but that is definitely one of the best parts of a great game.

Yeah, I loved the assembly plant levels too - the whole SP campaign was a lot of fun, with some really cool levels.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Mon Jun 05, 2023 1:11 pm

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Mon Jun 05, 2023 12:27 pm Titanfall 2 - Effect and Cause

Such a fun level with great mechanics. I'm surprised nobody had really embraced it for an entire game yet.

Sent from my SM-S908U1 using Tapatalk

Is that the one where you went back in time or could back and forth? There was a full game based on that if so called Singularity. Ive completed it twice.

Yeah, that's the level. If you ever read the developer diary on that level, what they did was have 2! levels, with one approximately 50-100 feet above the other, and when you swapped times, you bounced to the other level.

Unagi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 05, 2023 11:35 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Mon Jun 05, 2023 10:55 am Mmmmm…Dark Castle.

Not sure why the screen shot is b&w though, wasn’t that game all purple and black for some reason?

Well, I played in on my Macintosh, which was only b&w.

And, while I've (just now) seen screenshots like you describe, the vast majority of the ones you will get in a google search appear the way I recall it.

There were also a few follow-ups and then 'remakes' later too I think.

I played on C64, so that could explain the color difference.

FreeSpace 2 — DIVE DIVE DIVE! I loved the unexpected thrill of having to immediately react to avoid getting crushed. It brought home the massive weight of your enemy.

Bio shock Infinite — Finding out the meaning of “Would You Kindly…” and the showdown. I use the phrase in demand letters to remind myself when I’m annoyed.

Portal — GLaDOS battle. That robot had to be scrapped…for science.

Stick of Truth — Canada. Of course Canada is nothing more than one dimension…

Saints Row IV — Opening Sequence and gaining superpowers with the matrix simulation

I enjoy when games surprise and give you an emotional reaction.

FreeSpace 2 — DIVE DIVE DIVE! I loved the unexpected thrill of having to immediately react to avoid getting crushed. It brought home the massive weight of your enemy.

Heh I was just running this through my head a day or so ago. Great mission. Even better was the escort of the two destroyers in the draconis nebula.

DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOT!

And then the nebula mission is a stress inducing Jaws like mission in a area you cant see 50 feet in front of you and the music ramps it up. Theres something big coming through a jump and its hunting the hunters.

"A maze of twisty little passages, all alike."

"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

1). Hong King in Deus Ex
2). The Mall between Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol in Fallout 3, which was a huge entrenched war zone, which featured an assault by Talon Company against a super mutant army
3). Far Harbour in Fallout 4, very unique and different environment
4). New Reno in Fallout 2, lots of skullduggery there

1). Hong King in Deus Ex

A few have mentioned this. That map is the one I always think of when I remember that game.

1-2 and 4-1

Wrigley Field and the Polo Grounds.

In no particular order, some stuff I clearly remember:

Duke Nukem 3D - E1M2 (Red Light District). Duke 3D broke ground in terms of atmospheric/realistic level design, and this one really stood out. The fact that they made the levels connect with one another and the levels kind of made sense from a real-world standpoint. You got to demolish a building, crawl through the sewers, play pool, visit a strip club... and yes, I was a teenager when I played it.

Star Fox - Corneria. The music still gives me goose bumps.

Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries - Clan challenge. I forget the name of the level, but you basically challenge some clan commander to a duel on a beach. Major goosebumps.

Halo - Level 2. You first land on the Halo, and now you have to drive around in a warthog, gathering up survivors and trying to evacuate them. I sure died a lot tried to keep those marines alive.

Fallout 3 - basically all of it. Just exploring DC, recognizing landmarks. Honorable mention goes to Fallout 4.

Dawn of War - the very first mission. Space marines dropping in to save the imperial guard scrubs.

Diablo II: The Cow Level.