History ThatOneLevel / SpaceSimulator

ThatOneLevel...''[[RecycledInSPACE IN SPAAAACE!]]''

** Oh dear lord, Chapter 4 of ''Terran Conflict'''s A New Home plot, the part where you have to help #efaa save #cafe from the Xenon virus. Not only is it hideously unintuitive (you have to get within maximum comm range, any closer and you trigger a script that spawns in hundreds of fighters and damages your shields until you die, in a game where triggering special events usually requires you to be right on top of them), but a potential ThatOnePuzzle where you have to brute-force a four-digit code, ''solve a Sudoku board'', and then make a ridiculous leap of logic to get the password for the final mainframe. And, even after multiple patches, this is still a really buggy part of the game.

* Anything dealing with flying through a mine cluster in a ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' game. You have to maneuver ''painfully slowly'' through these if you want to make it through. At least you can shoot [[AsteroidThicket asteroids]] out of your way. [[DontTryThisAtHome Try the same with a space mine]] and...''[[ExplosiveStupidity BOOM!]]'' [[FinalDeath Twenty-one gun salute city for you]].

** ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/XWing'' has such an infamous scrappy level, the one where you had to keep TIE bombers away from the frigate ''Redemption'' and the corvette ''Korolev'', that it ended up as a MythologyGag, referred to in the ''ComicBook/XWingSeries'' as [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Redemption_scenario a scrappy level for a training simulator]] called the [[UnwinnableTrainingSimulation "Redemption Scenario"]] (known to the pilots as the '''Requiem''' Scenario).

*** Even worse is [[MostAnnoyingSound the constant annoyance]] of being warned that the medical frigate is being attacked, or the people on that frigate asking you to help them. On top of that - the frigate in question was ''destroyed'' at Endor in the movie. Why the hell do you need to save it in the game, if it just gets destroyed later?

* ''X-Wing Alliance'': This game had a level in which you need to escort a shuttle from its base to the hyperspace point. Said shuttle becomes the primary target for every single TIE fighter and bomber on patrol, which frequently shred it.
** Also, the level where the Star Cruiser Liberty falls under attack by robotic controlled TIE Fighters. Half of which are suicide ships. And that fighter wing you're a part of? They either can't be bothered to help, or are no help at all. Only level I used the "Take Leave" button and skipped.
** The level where you have to hijack the shuttle Tydirium. Once it's captured, the TIE Fighters will be over you like hornets. Heck, I stayed in the base, and it would've been destroyed if it wasn't invincible at 1% Hull. It was so bad it had to be patched up to be passable.
** ''StarWars X-Wing'' has such an infamous scrappy level, the one where you had to keep TIE bombers away from the ''Redemption'' and the corvette ''Korolev'', that the level ended up as a MythologyGag, entering the ''ComicBook/XWingSeries'' [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Redemption_scenario in an expanded universe book]] as a scrappy level for a training simulator called the [[UnwinnableTrainingSimulation "Redemption Scenario"]] (known to the pilots as the '''Requiem''' Scenario).

* ''Star Wars: VideoGame/RogueSquadron II: Rogue Leader''. Razor Rendezvous. You have to fight [=TIEs=] off of the Redemption, your Nebulon-B carrier, disable a Star Destroyer, while evading it's massive ion cannons and turbolasers, AND the swarms of [=TIEs=] the SD has with it. With ZERO help from the dozen or so other Rebel fighters in the battle. And with the slow-firing, slow-moving B-Wing. Several other levels in the game are also Scrappy, most are Scrappy if you're trying to get Gold or * shudder* Best Ever medals.
** Ironically, it's the shortest stage in the game, with players doing speedruns as fast as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF-dtgbIU58 35 seconds]].

*** I think we're forgetting the worst part of Battle of Endor. I don't know how many hours of my life I spent hearing the god awful "They're heading for the medical frigate!" "PLEASE HELP US." WHO CARES ABOUT THE GOD DAMNED MEDICAL FRIGATE? WHY IS IT EVEN THERE?
*** Even worse: The Medical Frigate was CANONICALLY DESTROYED at Endor. Why the hell do you need to save it in the game, if it just gets destroyed later?

* Both Y-Wing levels in ''VideoGame/RogueSquadron'', especially Raid on Sullust. If you can get a gold medal (or even beat the level without dying) without using the Naboo Starfighter, you deserve... well, a medal.

*** ''Strike at the Core'' is a particularly interesting example as right the way through, it is incredibly dificult. First you have to protect Lando while dodging turbo lasers, then you have to protect/keep up with Lando, while making extremely tight turns inside the Death Star, and then you have to outrun the explosion, again while making all those tight turns...and yet if you pull it off, it becomes the most [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome AWESOME PART OF THE ENTIRE GAME!!]]

* The eighth mission of ''{{Starlancer}}''. Your capital ship (the ''Reliant'') is under attack, your wingmen are inept, ''you'' have to kill several waves of fighters, twelve torpedoes, and everything else that the mission throws at you. Your reward for failing in what basically is a superheroic effort? Relocation to a new base followed by execution.

** ''Any'' of {{Starlancer}}'s missions could qualify if the ArtificialStupidity was being worse than usual.

** Any ''X-Wing'' level featuring the [[EscortMission Gallofree Yards Medium Transport]] (i.e. the Rebel Transports [[TheEmpireStrikesBack from Hoth]]).

* ''Star Wars: RogueSquadron II: Rogue Leader''. Razor Rendezvous. You have to fight [=TIEs=] off of the Redemption, your Nebulon-B carrier, disable a Star Destroyer, while evading it's massive ion cannons and turbolasers, AND the swarms of [=TIEs=] the SD has with it. With ZERO help from the dozen or so other Rebel fighters in the battle. And with the slow-firing, slow-moving B-Wing. Several other levels in the game are also Scrappy, most are Scrappy if you're trying to get Gold or * shudder* Best Ever medals.

** Building a SpacePlane is very difficult. The (stock) aerodynamic system is a barely-functional placeholder, and arranging the engines is a difficult task no matter what you try to do:

** Both spaceplanes and Eve can be made even more difficult using [[GameMod Ferram Aerospace Research]], which adds a more realistic aerodynamic model.

* Battlestar Galactica game for the PS2 (the series "hydrid" one), the 13th stage- it was near the end, but insanely more difficult. First, you are on an escort mission for one of your wingmen who is scanning an enemy capital ship with large amounts of high-class interceptors attacking. While doing this, dozens of enemy frigates are on an intercept course for your flagship, and apparently you're the only one around to help stop the nerve-gas carrying ramming frigates. While STILL escorting your wingman, you have to destroy five weakpoints around a large capital ship in under a minute... Now, you're done escorting and have 2 minutes to kill the ''AcePilot'' who killed your sheep, return to the Enemy Capital Ship, take down the shielded core in under 1 minutes- to get the message from Galactica Actual giving you 5 seconds to get clear.

** A similar situation appears in ''Wing Commander Saga'', a WC3-era total conversion for the ''{{Freespace}}'' engine. Bonus irritation points, because prior to the Cats deploying cloaking torpedoes at you, [[spoiler:you have to spend several minutes flying towards a doomed fleet in what amounts to an unskippable cutscene, and helplessly watch all but one of them die.]]

* The level 'Playing Judas' from the original ''{{Freespace}}'': The player's ship is a captured junkpile with the resilience of wet tissue paper, the enemy fighter patrols consists of [[GoddamnedBats Dragon-class fighters]], and there's no backup. Despite this, however, the level's true crime is being so spirit-crushingly ''boring'' without any real payoff.

** And 'A Game of TAG' from ''Freespace 2''. Your armament consists of some missiles that "tag" the enemy ships so a friendly corvette can shoot them down. The problem is that the TAG is un-guided, your primary weapons are an inefficient combination you can't change, your fighter is outdated and outclassed by everything the enemy has, and the corvette, in rigging itself up for the test, has become incapable of shooting at targets that aren't tagged. While the TAG works as advertised, you must often fly out of the corvette's firing range, and trying to hug the corvette won't work; too many enemy fighters and bombers will swarm the ships you're trying to defend, and you can't tag them all before they destroy everything. You ''have'' to break off and start engaging them before they get too close, and you have to do this with your terrible primary weapons.

* ''VideoGame/StarFox64'' gives us Area 6, the second-to-last stage on the "Hard" path. Besides wave after wave of extremely durable enemies, there's very little in the way of recovery items, [[ThatOneBoss a very hard boss]] that's going to take up a lot of your time, and it also contains an InterfaceScrew where Andross calls you instead of [=ROB=] [[IShallTauntYou to taunt you]].
** From the same game, Solar. You're literally flying your ship in the Lylat System's star, which is covered in intense flames. Your ship's health constantly decreases, with it going down faster the closer you are to the flames. Even if you stay as far away from the flames as possible, it won't help; jets of fire shoot up from the star towards your ship, so you need to keep moving. Even your wingmen constantly take damage whenever they talk, until they decide to bail, leaving you to face the boss alone. The only way to make it out of this level in one piece is to keep grabbing the Silver Rings that drop from the enemies.
** Also from ''Star Fox 64'', Sector Z. This level isn't hard to just clear, but it is, by far, the most difficult to [[OneHundredPercentCompletion earn a medal on]]. The only way to have a prayer of getting the medal is to shoot down all the missiles that are being fired at the Great Fox. Your wingmen will constantly be shooting at the missiles to damage them, but this actually works against you; if your wingman destroys a missile instead of you, you don't earn the points towards the medal! On top of that, if you went to Zoness beforehand, Katt will show up to also shoot at the missiles, which makes it even more difficult to get in that final shot. And don't think you can just take out your wingmen, or ignore their cries for help when they're set upon by the enemies; all three of your wingmen have to be alive to earn the medal. Couple that with smaller enemies that constantly swarm you with some of the best [=AI=] in the game, and it's an exercise in frustration.

** Also from ''Star Fox 64'', Sector Z. This one isn't as hard to just clear as the other two, but it is, by far, the most difficult to [[OneHundredPercentCompletion earn a medal on]]. The only way to have a prayer of getting the medal is to shoot down all the missiles that are being fired at the Great Fox. Your wingmen will constantly be shooting at the missiles to damage them, but this actually works against you; if your wingman destroys a missile instead of you, you don't earn the points towards the medal! On top of that, if you went to Zoness beforehand, Katt will show up to also shoot at the missiles, which makes it even more difficult to get in that final shot. And don't think you can just take out your wingmen, or ignore their cries for help when they're set upon by the enemies; all three of your wingmen to be alive to earn the medal. Couple that with smaller enemies that constantly swarm you with some of the best [=AI=] in the game, and it's an exercise in frustration.

** Also from ''Star Fox 64'', Sector Z. This one isn't as hard to just clear as the other two, but it is, by far, the most difficult to [[OneHundredPercentCompletion earn a medal on]]. The only way to have a prayer of getting the medal is to shoot down all the missiles that are being fired at the Great Fox. Your wingmen will constantly be shooting at the missiles to damage them, but this actually works against you; if your wingman destroys a missile instead of you, you don't earn the points towards the medal! On top of that, if you went to Zoness beforehand, Katt will show up to also shoot at the missiles, which makes it even more difficult to get in that final shot. And don't think you can just take out your wingmen, either; all three have to be alive to earn the medal. Couple that with smaller enemies that constantly swarm you, and it's an exercise in frustration.

** ''StarWars X-Wing'' has such an infamous scrappy level that the level [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Redemption_scenario appears in an expanded universe book]] as a scrappy level for a training simulator.
** Any ''X-Wing'' level featuring the [[EscortMission Gallofree Yards Medium Transport]].

** Then of course there was the one level where you had to keep TIE bombers away from the ''Redemption'' and the corvette ''Korolev''. This one ended up as a MythologyGag, entering the ''ComicBook/XWingSeries'' as the [[UnwinnableTrainingSimulation "Redemption Scenario"]] (known to the pilots as the '''Requiem''' Scenario).

** A similar situation appears in ''Wing Commander Saga'', a WC3-era total conversion for the ''{{Freespace}}'' engine. Bonus irritation points, because prior to this, [[spoiler:you have to spend several minutes flying towards a doomed fleet in what amounts to an unskippable cutscene, and helplessly watch all but one of them die.]]

** The mine clusters? Sheesh! They are NOTHING compared to infamous Kurasawa-2 mission in ''[=WC1=]''. Yes, the one with Ralari defense (you have about ten seconds to destroy 4 heavy cat fighters, or else the craft you're supposed to be protecting goes boom). Even players knowing the developers intentionally made it hard still spend many hours and much SaveScumming to beat the level.

* Trying a reentry in Orbiter with the Space Shuttle is impossible to do correctly, because the hypersonic aerodynamics for the shuttle model are inaccurate. Considering that Orbiter is meant to be a serious simulator, it's a very frustrating predicament for many users.

* In SpaceStation13, the changeling gamemode is widely considered to be this. Let's give some context: Unlike all other gamemodes, the changeling HAS to be stealthy, or you WILL be swarmed by other players, knocked out before you can pull off enough paralysis stings, and then burned. The changeling also has to be actively killing people, because it usually has the objective to assassinate a certain target, as well as get a certain number of genomes (amount of people absorbed), ranging from 2 to upwards of 8 other players to kill. These genomes are also used to buy new abilities, though thankfully using them doesn't count against having them. You also need to dispose of the body somehow, with only two ways to do it permanently, and only four jobs that can from game start. From the other perspective, good changelings are a bitch to find, and there's a good chance you're standing right in front of him. If all that wasn't enough, you then have a gamemode which COMBINES Changeling and Traitor.

** 'Enter the Dragon', the mission right before 'Playing Judas'. As the name implies, you have to capture a [[DemonicSpiders Dragon-class fighter.]] The opening is fairly easy, with just some weak fighters. However, it's likely that your wingmates will ''destroy'' the fighter instead of disabling it, and doing it yourself requires you to use a slow-firing disruptor cannon on a highly-maneuverable, razor-thin target. Thankfully, it becomes a lot easier if you order your wingmen to join you in disabling it. [[ArtificialStupidity For all their other faults]], AI wingmen seem to have [[ImprobableAimingSkills a much easier time]] when it comes to hitting Dragons.

** 'Enter the Dragon', the mission right before 'Playing Judas'. As the name implies, you have to capture a [[DemonicSpiders Dragon-class fighter.]] The opening is fairly easy, with just some weak fighters. However, it's likely that your wingmates will ''destroy'' the fighter instead of disabling it, and doing it yourself requires you to use a slow-firing disruptor cannon on a highly-maneuverable, razor-thin target.

** In ''X3: Terran Conflict's'' Operation Final Fury plot, the last mission has you attack and destroy the last [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Kha'ak hive]] in known space. Well and good, except there's multiple Kha'ak capital ships and defense platforms, not to mention endlessly respawning fighters, which requires most players to fly an M2 destroyer to survive. And the sector's jump-in point is about 250 kilometers from the objective, and [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale an M2 can't even top 100 meters per second]]. So after the initial fight with a defense platform at the jump point, you're left crawling laboriously across the sector with nothing breaking the monotony except occasional raids by fighters that can't even dent your shields and are promptly splattered by your flak mounts. Most players use this time to do admin work on their trade empire and/or grab a sandwich.

** Terran Conflict's penultimate Goner mission. You have to follow a sluggish Pirate Blastclaw across several ''big'' sectors back to Gaian Star to find the headquarters for the pirates that have been attacking the Goner supply lines. Meanwhile, the game will throw large numbers of hostile pirates at you, which you have to either defeat or evade while staying at the correct distance from the Blastclaw you're following. Even with a low combat rank, chances are good you'll run into a hostile Carrack or Brigantine at least once, and generally by the time you get the warning that you're losing the Blastclaw/making him suspicious, it's too late to correct your course.