Usually when we fall in love with a work of art, we’re really falling in love with smaller pieces within the whole. A full movie or book or album or game is a little big to get our arms around, so we focus our affection on scenes, chapters, songs, and levels. Sometimes the focus is smaller still, like a single shot, sentence, lyric, or room.
I love The Great Gatsby, for example, but when I think about why I love it, I’m not thinking about the whole book. I’m thinking about Gatsby’s green light, Nick telling him he’s “worth the whole damn bunch put together,” the image of nostalgia driving people like boats beating against the current.
This is how we tend to engage with art, latching on to smaller pieces that serve as stand-ins for the whole. For that reason, the thing that drives me to keep playing new games is the desire to discover those small things that will stick with me. Sometimes it’s a mechanic or a character or a cutscene. But, most often, I’m looking for one really great level.
Looking At Levels Is The Easiest Way To Analyze A Game
Levels are laboratories where developers get to experiment, and there are a few that I always return to if I want to see the chemistry of game design bubble into vibrant life.Titanfall 2’s Effect and CauseandWhat Remains of Edith Finch’s Lewis chapter(which you may remember as the cannery-set sequence that requires you chop fish with one thumb and navigate an imaginary kingdom with the other) are two of the best of the past decade.
If I go back further,Half-Life 2has multiple that I would posit are among the best ever made, levels like the brilliant City 17 introduction Point Insertion, the eerie Gravity Gun tutorial We Don’t Go To Ravenholm…, and the lonely Highway 17.
Few series have levels as consistently great as Half-Life. The first game’sBlack Mesa Inboundand Alyx’sJeffwould also be worthy inclusions.
If I go back even further, I get into the murky territory of nostalgia (I first played the Half-Life series as an adult, so that’s exempt). Still,Bob-omb Battlefieldwould have to make my list, and so wouldForsaken Fortress from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I know that City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2 isn’t actually one of the best of all time, but it’s seared into my brain more than many better stages.
The Search For The Perfect Level Keeps Me Invested In Gaming
Despite always being on the lookout, It’s been a while since I encountered a level that really knocked my socks off. There are multiple maps in theHitman: World of Assassinationtrilogy that could qualify.Miamifrom 2, with its bifurcated racetrack, split between the race grounds and the beachside skyscraper nearby, is worthy of canonization, as areDartmoorandBerlinfrom Hitman 3. Sapienza, from Hitman (2016), would be a contender if not for its requirement that you sneak out of the sun-drenched city down to the less inspired lab below.
Though I rarely play new levels that I would inaugurate into the GOAT conversation, searching for new all-time great missions is a big part of what drives me to keep engaging with the medium. I was an English major in college, and so was trained to do ‘close readings’ of passages in books, carefully poring over the text and attempting to explicate its meaning in short essays. Learning that method of study informed how I interact with games, and levels provide the easiest route in for that kind of analysis. It’s tough to examine a game as a whole (though I try in my reviews). It’s easier to zero in on what the game designers are attempting to do in one level, what their intended effect on the player is, and whether or not they’re achieving.
I find that process exciting, and it’s why I was so excited to discover theWater Under the Bridge mission in Fallen Aces, the Zoo map from XDefiant, andSonic Superstars' Press Factory Zone. I don’t know if any of those levels will end up being all-time favorites, but playing something new with a cool idea, or smart design, or an exciting one-off mechanic is a jolt of electricity. When you cover the medium for a living like I do, or if you just play a lot of games and want to see something new, finding those fresh, innovative levels are a shot of adrenaline.
