What's the worst escort mission you've played through?

[RobfromtheGulag]

Natalia comes to mind for difficulty.

A number of the WoW escorts were just inordinately long and superficial like the goblin who fainted every 3 seconds in Un'goro crater.

 

[Nexxis]

I count every escort mission I've ever done in World of Warcraft as the worst. Aside from the NPCs running headlong into enemies, you also have scripted groups of enemies that appear at certain points along the escort. That means that you couldn't clear out enemies ahead of time. Even if you did manage to clear them out, they usually managed to respawn by the time the escort got going since they tended to move really frickin slow.

 

[Squilookle]

For me, it has to be on Goldeneye 64, Bunker 2 level. Natalya would always stand in the same doorway as loads of enemies, so she would get hit by them AND you. In the end I'd always leave her locked up until I'd cleared most of the threats.

That annoyed me no end at first too, and I would almost always take the merciful option of leaving her in her cell until the end too. Then I noticed that she always tries to stop walking a certain distance from you, so if you stop about 2.5-3 metres past a door she'll come through, allowing you to close it quickly behind her.

Not only that, but Natalya is completely impervious to Russian bullets in this level. You can use her as a portable bullet proof shield. As long as you don't shoot her yourself, she can be quite useful, as long as she doesn't decide to check the security console before you're ready.

Bunker 2 was the hardest mission in the game for me, but it's now become my favourite to replay- sneaking around with just the throwing knives and such. These days I almost always bring Natalya along.

 

[D-Soul]

Ashley in RE4 wasn't much of a problem for me especially if you have the ps2 version where she can wear knight armor and make the cult dudes topple over trying to pick her up.

for me.
1. Any Survivor in Dead Rising 2
2. the bloodtox truck escort mission in Prototype 1 that truck had to be made to made of wet paper towels
3. That one mission in Oblivion where a town's prince wanted to take down a Oblivion gate like a badass and get stuck, so you go a save him and some body guards and close the gate as well, but his dumbass went to ATTACK!, ATTACK!, ATTACK! fighting school making being a stealthy and trying to keep him alive since the game got more difficult as you leveled up a major pain in the ass.

 

[KiramidHead]

It has to be Eileen in Silent Hill 4 for me. She can't actually die until the final boss battle, but you get one of the bad endings if she takes too much damage. And that's not even mentioning that she's slooooooowwwwwwwww, can't follow you through doors if she's more than ten inches away from you, and likes to whine if run ahead of her. The devs wear obviously trying to counteract a lot of this by giving her weapons, but they take up space in your inventory, and if you equip her weapons, she'll stop and fight every single enemy in the room. This of course leads to her taking damage, leading to that bad ending I mentioned earlier. Oh, and I forgot to mention that this goes on for the entire second half of the game. I rest my case.

 

[BrotherRool]

Knights of the Old Republic 2. In a military base you can optionally escort this Twilek to the end. He gets stuck on geometry, is unable to follow you if you go more than a couple of metres from him and every time you work a few metres you have to madly run around in circles hoping that he will get the picture and walk the 2-3 metres towards you and the exit.

I don't think you even have to fight anything, it's just trying to get the guy to walk from A to B.

I also found the escort mission at the end of Metal Gear Solid 3 pretty obnoxious, it spoiled what was a pretty awesome section of game.

...but I haven't played Amy

 

[tigermilk]

Resident Evil 5 in its fucking entirety!

 

[Slenn]

Psychonaughts:

Escorting Little Oleander through the Meat Circus. That little kid would not shut the f**k up. And those bunny mutants were not only horrifying but also tough to kill and everywhere. The kid would also have the 'smart' idea of jumping into a pack of them whenever he got higher.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

ANY escort quest from the original fable

Oh god, a million times THIS.

Most notably the quest where you have to rescue the boy from the Hobbe caves and the one where you have to escort the traders across the totally evil marshes. Balverines are NOT your friend when NPC A.I. is dumb as fuck and they have next to no health to begin with.

Many, many brain aneurysms were had that day.

 

[Creator002]

Escort missions from the original Fable, most notably the third story quest in. The enemies literally avoid you to attack your followers for no reason other than to make it harder. If I was a bandit, I'd take out the guy that has a sword and bow before I killed and robbed innocent traders rather than killing the traders and ignoring the armed guy slicing my legs off.

EDIT - Oh, God. The post above reminded me off the Hobbe cave quest. Oh, how much of a pain in the ass that was. And another where you have to save the mayor of Knothole Glade's son. In that mission, enemies spawn in the area that the good God's temple is located. The only time enemies EVER spawn there.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

fuckthisguy.jpg

Honestly, I think the Alchemist is the best escort mission I've ever had to play through. It was awful when I was a kid, but it's fairly easy now.

I absolutely hated Ico, though. I feel like it's just as bad as any other escort mission, made worse by the odd controls and unrelenting waves of enemies. (It should be noted I didn't get very far before ragequitting to eternity.)

That's a shame, it's the one game where escorting really blends in nicely as a core mechanic. I don't remember anything odd about the controls. I agree the enemies had an annoying tendency to spawn beyond their welcome, though.

Not the controls, really, but the way it controlled. It's not exactly Super Meat Boy precision and tightness we're working with, here. Shadow of the Colossus worked similarly, but I think that game managed to pull it off far better.

I really don't think the escorting blended well at all. Running with Yorda is jerky and weird, and her utter lack of capability to do much of anything by herself really stands out as a negative for me. I feel like it's necessary to bring her with me every step of the way, or else she'll get caught and I won't be fast enough to get to her in time. So that jerky movement is a constant thing. There was a bit in a courtyard that took me several tries to clear because of how big the room was and where the enemy spawns were.

It kind of feels like they took a pure-exploration game and stuck unwieldy combat and a stupid-AI partner in for no clear reason.

It's interesting you should bring up words like "jerky" and "unwieldy". I agree 100% on their use, they describe the feel of the game perfectly. It's also one of the reasons I like it so much (so obviously we're splitting opinions here). Essentially it's about one helpless, weak character helping out a character who is even weaker and more helpless than he is. And yet Yorda proves essential to the game by opening up the Idol Gates (and instantly killing anything before that) and saving the game, which I always thought it was a cute touch. Just because a game isn't empowering doesn't make it bad or difficult. I'm not saying it makes it interesting per se, but to me it worked beautifully in an escort-based game.

 

[Cookiegerard]

Any of them in Dragon's Dogma. You are forced to take them waaay too far, basically one side of the continent to another, they are useless in combat, but will charge at anything, and their health is tiny!

 

[Grumpy Ginger]

For me it was trying to protect the priest who was the only one who could read an ancient book in god of war 2. Annoying normally it was downright infuriating in Titan mode it was satisfying that you got to kill him at after protecting him for so long though.

 

[kyogen]

Any of them in Dragon's Dogma. You are forced to take them waaay too far, basically one side of the continent to another, they are useless in combat, but will charge at anything, and their health is tiny!

I kind of agree. I only occasionally do the ones that get me points with whatever romance option I want my character to pursue because they're just too much of a chore.

But Dragon's Dogma also has my favorite (and entirely optional) escort quest: depending on your choices, you may find yourself in the position of rescuing a classic damsel in distress who is a very traditional/fairy tale romance option. If you do, there are moments when you will have to carry her slow, delicate, helpless self over obstacles while protecting her from combat. It's really aggravating until you realize that you should be laughing because you totally brought it down on yourself, and the game is deliberately rubbing your face in it. Which is fantastic!

 

[The_Echo]

snip

I don't think that jerky, unwieldy controls are the best way to give a sense of weakness. Part of me feels the control happened the way it did not through intention, but poor implementation. I can see what they were really going for in Shadow, which has a similar control scheme and gamefeel, though that game pulled it off much better in my opinion.

If they re-did Ico with smoother controls (at least let me run upstairs with Yorda without it looking like we're going to fall down every step) and a smaller amount of enemies, I'm sure I'd wind up loving it.

 

[uzo]

Goin' back a ways here ... taking 'escort' a bit literally too ...

... Had a mission in Aces of the Pacific (circa 1991). Me in my A6M-2 Zero, with 2 wingmen, escorting a few Jill torpedo bombers, to attack some troop transports in the Solomons. Flight plan consisted of (WP1) rendezvous, (WP2) attack target, (WP3) back at carrier.

Went to autopilot after take off ... intercepted by 4 F4F-3 Wildcats. Dogfight develops, my wingmen and I prevail with no losses. Proceed to meet bombers - hook up and proceed. Intercept again by 4 F4F-3 Wildcats ... prevail again, losing 2 bombers however. Proceed. Attack transports, only two bombers left so sink a transport and a destroyer escort. Proceed. Intercepted again by 4 F4F-3 Wildcats. Lost one more bomber, and a wingman (who seemed to kamikaze into one of the wildcats). Proceed.

Arrive back at carrier - in the middle of an attack. 4 SBD-Dauntless are diving on the carrier, and 4 Wildcats are screaming to intercept me, my wingman, and a solitary torpedo bomber. As I see massive explosions rock my home carrier as the dive bombers hit their target, the .50 cal machine guns of the Wildcats rip a the beejeezus out of what is left of my flight, our broken wreckage spiraling to splash down in the South Pacific off Rabaul.

*I freakin HATE escort missions!!!!*

 

[Gregory McMillan]

So instead let's make this about the WORST escort mission you've played through, and throw in a pic for fun. This guy from Spyro 2 inscribed itself in my childhood as my eternal woe:

I have not played Spyro 2 in over 10 years. I took one look at your picture without reading the text and experienced instant infuriation. I hate that guy

 

[Zio_IV]

Final Fantasy Tactics.

Trying to protect Rafa while she charges headlong at the enemy 1st turn only to get killed the second was borderline-unachievable. If your characters didn't have sufficient Speed to start their turn before the enemy, you were pretty much eff'ed. Even if you did, and were capable of killing one of the enemies with one character's turn, you still had to deal with another opponent that can instant kill anyone 100% of the time, and aims for Rafa. Your victory was pretty much at the mercy of the AI, and whether or not they would use that attack or not.

As for the whole Dragon's Dogma thing, once you get portcrystals, escort quests are the easiest thing ever. If you put a portcrystal at every place where there's a riftstone and one at the northern-most healing spring, the only escort destination that's hard to reach is Bloodwater Beach, so just put one there and you're done. Instant quest completion. Plus, the best thing is, if you do that, then every place you ever want to go to is within reach of one another, so it works very well.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

For me it was trying to protect the priest who was the only one who could read an ancient book in god of war 2. Annoying normally it was downright infuriating in Titan mode it was satisfying that you got to kill him at after protecting him for so long though.

Actually I was all the more outraged that Kratos would kill the guy after putting *me* through all that hell to save him.

 

[mechashiva77]

Resident Evil 4. It's the main reason why I refuse to play the game. I'll shoot some zombies up any day, but dealing with Miss Ashley. Nope.

Captcha: Vegetarian. Fuck you Captcha! I will never give up the flesh of lesser creatures!