Interesting Level Designs...

[Lesd3vil]

To look at it on paper, the very last level of Painkiller doesn't sound all that impressive; a quick summation of all wars, moving from medieval to modern technology by way of world wars 1 and 2? I'm sure it's been done. It's only when you realise that the environment has been frozen in time that it becomes really interesting.

Rocks hang in the air, thrown up from explosions that never fade; flames stand still, burning without burning; a catapult is stopped at the end of it's arc, the stone it throws has demolished an enormous wall and bricks are caught dead raining down on the ground. The trenches are in a state of constant activity with nothing happening. A warship, with it's bow raised to the sky, hangs in the water like a dying behemoth. Houses are torn apart while keeping their integrity intact, a missile is crumpled in the ground, and in the background, looming above everything, is a vast nuclear mushroom cloud, completely still and eerily silent.

I can't capture all of what made that level stand out for me in words... The surreal quality of seeing pieces of debris hang unsupported in the air perhaps, the explosions with no start or beginning; perhaps the fact that it's completely unpopulated except by shades of the enemies you've killed over the course of the game. At any rate, it really struck me and sent a chill or two up my spine.

Any other escapists want to share levels of games they felt were incredibly well designed or realised?

 

[Phlakes]

Super Mario Galaxy always wins at this.

 

[Pandaman1911]

I liked the little opening bit of Fallout 3, where you just take a step out, get the creepy music, and after the sunlight stops scorching your retinas, you see the torn, tattered wasteland of Washington DC unfold before you, the monument a decayed wreck in the distance. It was kind of chilling. Plus, the little sign five feet in front of you that read "Scenic Outlook" just made me giggle.

 

[ChupathingyX]

I've always been a big fan of the levels from the original Spyro series on PS1.

They were all so colourful and full of charm and just had such a great fantasy feel to them. Actually to be honest pretty much every environment Insomniac Games makes looks good from the fantasy Dragon Realms, to the vast planets of Ratchet and Clank and the destroyed cities and looming Chimeran architecture in the Resistance series.

Also I felt that Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior captured the aesthetic design of the 40K universe really well. The trenches of Dolumar IV, the interior of the Tau Emmissary ship and the grand, gothic architecture of the Imperial ships and buildings. Then it finally ends with everything being tainted by chaos with chaotic taint oozing from the walls and dead corpes riddled everywhere.

 

[EHKOS]

Condemned was good at this. They made the levels how the real world would. The mall actually felt like a mall and the last level with the house was amazing.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Also I felt that Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior captured the aesthetic design of the 40K universe really well. The trenches of Dolumar IV, the interior of the Tau Emmissary ship and the grand, gothic architecture of the Imperial ships and buildings. Then it finally ends with everything being tainted by chaos with chaotic taint oozing from the walls and dead corpes riddled everywhere.

I loved the Chaos pit designs, Fire Warrior is really underrated.

 

[Brandon237]

The level in the alien ship in Crysis was... something else.
There is also a Labyrinth in the Matrix Path of Neo game, that tilts and turns and is essentially many separate pieces of a mansion hanging in space at all different multiples of 90 degrees. And it has giant ant-men in it.