History ThatOneLevel / WideOpenSandbox

[[folder:GrandTheftAuto]]
* Series wide:
** From '''III'' and on, the ambulance optional mission is ridiculously difficult. You have to collect all 78 patients necessary in one go. You cannot fail after so many patients and build up to a total, as you can with the fire truck, police car or taxi optional missions. The ambulance is also one of the crappiest vehicles in the game: it handles like a brick, can take very little damage, and tips if you so much as turn a corner at half-speed. Accidentally running over any patient forces you to restart, and the cops refuse to give you even this much free reign--ding a cop car and you are still fair game, humanitarian mission or not. Sure, it is optional, but that infinite run (or double health in San Andreas) is very, ''very'' useful, even if you are not after HundredPercentCompletion. Expect to spend lots of time on it. ''Vice City'' introduced beach driving to make it even worse, and ''San Andreas'' has elderly patients which walk as slow as possible to the doors.
** Any rampage side mission that forces you to use a melee weapon against armed opponents. The slow swinging speed of most weapons mean that the gangsters can easily chip down your health as you try to chase and kill them.

** Rescuing Dana, specifically the part where you have to escort the [[BigFreakingGun thermobaric tank]] around the infected part of the city. You'd think the military would be glad to have a NighInvulnerable unstoppable BadAss that is clearing everything in their path for them... But no. There can be hunters, runners, even a leader hunter tearing up their armour and they STILL go out of their way to attack you.

** The race against Hilary, on so many different levels it is utterly infuriating. This one little mission has spawned ''countless'' pages of text on {{GameFAQs}} explaining every theory and method in this world to beat it. It's ''technically'' optional, but everyone suffers through it anyway because you get $50,000 for the bank robbery, and $10,000 a day for completing the night club asset missions. Money that provides for powerful weapons and a comfortable cushion in the final mission where [[spoiler:Sonny Forelli's men start robbing you blind while you chase after Lance to kill him.]] To give some background, you're setting up a back heist and you need a good driver. No doubt you are one, but for the purpose of the story it needs to be someone other than you. That someone is Hillary, a very effeminate man with abandonment issues who insists that the only way he'll work for you is if you beat him in a race. Sounds fair, right? Let us count the ways it screws you over.

*** Oh, and on PC even the first two missions are damn near impossible due to the fact that the missions were built around an analouge stick.

** And the worst one of all, the PLAV mission "Paint the Town". You have to liberate Merida from a heavy VZ occupation. First you have to destroy several buildings to get the VZ's attention. To do so, you have to go through a gauntlet of tanks and RPG's. When you are done doing that, you have to defend a church, which is easily one of the the biggest buildings in the town. Making matters worse is that you are [[StopHelpingMe "helped"]] by PLAV troops with explosives. If one of them runs in front of a cannon you are using as you fire it, they will ''all'' turn hostile against you the moment you hit the ground, and try to kill you with said explosives. [[SplashDamage While you are standing in front of the church]]. Then reinforcements show up, in a helicopter which can blow up on the church's roof. Then you have to capture or kill the VZ commander after about five or so minutes of this madness. When you get there, if you want the full cash bonus for capturing him alive, you have to make sure to not only not kill the commander yourself, but make sure he does not kill himself, his "allies" don't accidentally blow him up and to blow up the stands in the stadium he is using as a base so that the guys with the Stingers and rocket launchers don't blow up the helicopter you have to throw him onto. And to rub salt in the wound, the bonus objective? "Don't Kill Civilians". [[TooDumbToLive The same civilians who casually walk about a battlefield. The same ones who think the safest place to stand to avoid a tank is in front of it]].

** First, let's talk about High Wire. You're basically pulling an EscortMission with cocaine crates using a huge magnet on the bottom of a helicopter for the first two thirds, and it seems like everything's normal, but then you hear this: "HELP! THE BIKERS ARE ON ME, I CAN'T GET THEM OFF!" and you must go after a moving car that has bikers constantly shooting at it with SMGs, making it move around erratically, in turn causing FakeDifficulty as you're attempting to drive down and collect the car. The [[SarcasmMode BEST PART of this]], you may ask? The car has an HP meter of sorts, and if the bikers hit it enough times(read:about 15 or so streams of bullets), it'll blow up and you'll have to start over from THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE MISSION. Have fun.

** Most of the missions actually. Boomshine Blowout, High Wire, the ATV race... it's maddening, man!

*** The ending is what really clinches it. We find out that [[spoiler: Michelle, Niko's first girlfriend, is working for the government and was the undercover cop the entire time and takes the coke from Niko and thus dumps him]]. Not only you go through a lot of trouble to get the coke, but [[spoiler: the first girlfriend in the game flat-out tells that she was undercover]]. That's right: [[ShaggyDogStory all that effort put into the mission and every bit of it was completely pointless.]]
** "Holland Nights", which is annoying for the exact same reasons "Snow Storm" is. You have to make your way through a project building to get to a target on the roof, all while fighting off enemies. This part isn't that bad if you have good weapons, plenty of ammo and full health and armor on Niko, and they do give you a few health packs throughout the mission. But after finding your target (and either killing him or letting him go), guess what? You've got a 3-star wanted rating to shake, and have to escape the building while fighting off cops. And then, you have to lose the wanted rating while those damn pigs just torment you to no end. And if you die, you have to do the whole long mission again. RAGE.
** Who could forget the mission "A Revenger's Tragedy"? The mission is full of bottleneck moments. Most notably the part were you have to chase Dimitri's helicopter in a speed boat. Jacob will appear in an Annihilator to pick you up. You have a very limited window to board the Annihilator before Jacob hits the water. You're always so close to catching the helicopter but Jacob always hits the water, Dimitri escapes, and it you fail the mission. Can't that pothead Jacob fly?

** There are the occasional assassination missions where just trying to get the target to show himself is more effort than it's worth. Standout examples in ''The Third'' are the pimp whose hos you have to beat up to lure him out (your success relies entirely on whether the game will actually bother to spawn hos at all, let alone the specific [read: fat] ones that work for him) and the gas station owner that likes muscle cars (even if you have an eye for cars, there's no indication anywhere of what the game actually ''counts'' as a muscle car[[note]]Hint: The Hammerhead counts. The Mayor's Phoenix counts, too, so if you've put the assassination missions off until at least after you have him as a contact, you can call him in as support and use his car.[[/note]].

*** Pffft, Burn and Lap is cake compared to City Slicking. What makes City Slicking so damn difficult, you ask? Having to drive from the driving school to the car showroom across town and back. ''In just two minutes''. Made all the more frustrating by the fact you'll have to dodge endless bouts of traffic on your way there, along with cars making turns at intersections. And that's not all! The car you're using has notoriously bad handling, which means you'll have to slow down a lot before making a turn or you'll fishtail out of control. And if that wasn't bad enough, this mission becomes a goddamn nightmare if you're going for [[HundredPercentCompletion 100% Completion]], because you'll have to make it there and back ''in 1 minute and 40 seconds'', '''''without any damage on your car'''''. Needless to say, this mission will cause a lot of [[RageQuit broken controllers]].

*** Hillary gets a ''supercharged muscle car''. You get with a puny little family sedan. No, you don't have a say in the matter. You are driving the sedan. Period. There is no way in hell you can win a straight race, because your car is in every way inferior. You have to cheat, i.e. knock Hillary off the road, to win.

*** The worst thing about this mission is that it doesn't even make sense. Hillary is supposed to be the best driver around; that's why you want him. So why would you have to race him first? If he only works for people that can beat him, he's obviously NOT the best driver. If you hire a plumber, you also don't have to prove to him that you're better at plumbing than he is, because if you were, you wouldn't need him. Abandonment issues are no excuse. This guy has effectively locked himself out of his own profession by personally ensuring that he will look incompetent to anyone that hires him.
*** The real insult to that mission is that, despite the effort you go through trying to recruit him, [[spoiler: Hillary ultimately proves to be completely useless for the heist. He's there to drive your getaway car, but all he ends up doing is getting shot and killed, so you have to make the escape yourself.]]

** "Unhealthy Competition" is a MAJOR DifficultySpike comapred to missions before it, it's not too hard until you get to the swimming pool, which is absolutely crawling with enemies and has very little cover, making it insanely hard to kill all the enemies without getting killed yourself, and if you somehow survive you have to chase down and kill the last two guys using a quad-bike, which is very akward to control and it's hard to drive and aim at the enemies at the same time.

*** Pffft, Burn and Lap is cake compared to City Slicking. What makes City Slicking so damn difficult, you ask? Having to drive from the driving school to Pier 69 and back. ''In just two minutes''. Made all the more frustrating by the fact you'll have to dodge endless bouts of traffic on your way there, along with cars making turns at intersections. And that's not all! The car you're using has notoriously bad handling, which means you'll have to slow down a lot before making a turn or you'll fishtail out of control. And if that wasn't bad enough, this mission becomes a goddamn nightmare if you're going for [[HundredPercentCompletion 100% Completion]], because you'll have to make it there and back ''in 1 minute and 40 seconds'', '''''without any damage on your car'''''. Needless to say, this mission will cause a lot of [[RageQuit broken controllers]].

*** Pffft, Burn and Lap is cake compared to City Slicking. What makes City Slicking so damn difficult, you ask? Having to drive from the driving school to Pier 69 and back. ''In just two minutes''. Made all the more frustrating by the fact you'll have to dodge endless bouts of traffic on your way there, along with cars making turns at intersections. And that's not all! The car you're using has notoriously bad handling, which means you'll have to slow down a lot before making a turn or you'll fishtail out of control. And this mission is at least 10 times harder if you're going for [[HundredPercentCompletion 100% Completion]], because you'll have to make it there and back ''in 1 minute and 40 seconds'', '''''without any damage on your car'''''. Needless to say, this mission will cause a lot of [[RageQuit broken controllers]].

*** Pffft, Burn and Lap is cake compared to City Slicking. What makes City Slicking so damn difficult, you ask? Having to drive from the driving school to Pier 69 and back. ''In just two minutes''. Made all the more frustrating by the fact you'll have to dodge endless bouts of traffic on your way there, along with cars making turns at intersections. And that's not all! The car you're using has notoriously bad handling, which means you'll have to slow down a lot before making a turn or you'll fishtail out of control. And this mission is at least 10 times harder if you're going for [[HundredPercentCompletion]], because you'll have to make it there and back ''in 1 minute and 40 seconds'', '''''without any damage on your car'''''. Needless to say, this mission will cause a lot of [[RageQuit broken controllers]].

*** Pffft, Burn and Lap is cake compared to City Slicking. What makes City Slicking so damn difficult, you ask? Having to drive from the driving school to Pier 69 and back. ''In just two minutes''. Made all the more frustrating by the fact you'll have to dodge endless bouts of traffic on your way there, along with cars making turns at intersections. And that's not all! The car you're using has notoriously bad handling, which means you'll have to slow down a lot before making a turn or you'll fishtail out of control. And this mission is at least 10 times harder if you're going for [[100% Completion]], because you'll have to make it there and back ''in 1 minute and 40 seconds'', '''''without any damage on your car'''''. Needless to say, this mission will cause a lot of [[RageQuit broken controllers]].

*** Pffft, Burn and Lap is cake compared to City Slicking. What makes City Slicking so damn difficult, you ask? Having to drive from the driving school to Pier 69 and back. ''In two minutes''. '''''Without any damage on your car'''''. Made all the more frustrating by the fact you'll have to dodge endless bouts of traffic on your way there. And if a car across the street from you decides to make a turn? Mission over, and you'll have to start all over again. And that's not all! The car you're using has notoriously bad handling, which means you'll have to slow down before making a turn or you'll fishtail out of control. Needless to say, this mission will cause a lot of [[RageQuit broken controllers]].

** Heli Assault in ''Saints Row 2'' is generally terrible, simply because of Stilwater's design - every time an enemy manages to close in on your ally, s/he will ''[[ArtificialStupidity immediately drive under a bridge or railway]] [[SpitefulAI just to prevent you from defending them]]''. Trying to get low enough to shoot under the bridge will generally result in crashing into a tree or the cramped buildings to the sides, because the helicopter controls are already overly-sensitive in its element, but somehow get even moreso when you're low to the ground, as if there's some sort of helicopter-attractant that every building and bridge in the city is partly built out of. And let us not forget that there are helicopters that chase you while you're doing the mission and escaping from their missiles is not only impossible, but they cause a shitload of damage that might turn everything into shit really quickly. And then your escort has the balls to yell at you as if you're not even trying to defend them. This activity is so terrible, that most consider Level 6 to be absolutely ''impossible'' to complete. ''The Third'' generally makes the entire activity much more fun, solely because Steelport has far fewer roads that can't be seen from a helicopter; the trade-off of less cover from police or Morningstar snipers when you have them after you is very acceptable when the option to ''actually defend yourself'' is almost never denied to you anymore.
** The final mission, specifically the bit where you have to pilot a helicopter (sensing a pattern here?) and use it to take out targets on the side of a building while avoiding being shot down by other helicopters (which pack missiles that will take you down in two hits). The targets are very small and recessed into the building, the helicopter controls are, as always, so clunky as to demand a better descriptor, and the helicopters coming for you can fly so fast that they'll usually be able to lock onto you and hit you with at least one missile before you even orient yourself toward them. Oh, and your helicopter will crash if you bang into the building a few too many times. ''Not'' a fun experience.

** There's a mission in which you're given the crappiest, slowest, worst handling car in the entire game and told to go to another island and shoot up dozens of members of an enemy faction. Anyone who's ever played a ''GTA'' game can tell you it's hard to even '''get to your destination''' without wrecking the car you're currently driving; now imagine having to get there, deal with a good amount of armed gang members and get back to where you started, all with a car that's ridiculously easy to flip over (flipping over a car in ''GTA'' irretrievably destroys it) and with the police relentlessly chasing you all the time. Oh, did I mention you cannot under any circumstance leave the car? And to top it all off, when (not if) you wreck the car, the goon that's traveling with you is revealed to be its owner, and he and his pal get pissed and proceed to shoot you full of holes.
** 'A Ride In The Park' requires you to drive around Belleville Park, grabbing checkpoints under a time limit. This would be manageable if you weren't required to use the [[HummerDinger Landstalker]], a car that is slow and has a tendency to slide around and flip over a lot. Thankfully the mission is a side mission not required unless you're going for 100% Completion, [[GuideDangIt but actually finding the car needed to start the mission with no help can be a challenge in itself]].
** "Big 'N' Veiny". Picking up magazines while using a none-too-good and rather unstable van, over a long and timed route. You start with 20 seconds on the timer and each magazine adds only two seconds. It does not help that you can lose the trail briefly and waste valuable time trying to pick it up again. Sure, there's a "shortcut" method involving pushing the van all the way to the end so you can kill the eventual target and spare yourself the trouble, but it is real time-consuming.

** "Tune pn, Tune in, Bug out." You have to destroy 6 police antennas, and with each one you destroy your wanted level goes up and using the Pay'N'Spray trick will only fix your car but ''not'' reduce your wanted level for this mission... that is until ''after'' you destroy all the antenna, which by then you have a nearly maxed out wanted level with the FBI on your tail as you try to get to the nearest spray shop. By the way, reducing your wanted level after the antennas are destroyed is mandatory, or else you fail the mission. And then to top it all off, you get a paltry $300 reward for all the ridiculously hard work.

** The side mission "Car Salesman" is very repetitive and painful to complete. It seems pretty straightforward at first, requiring you to "test-drive" with certain customers in different ways which may involve driving recklessly, fast, slow or off-road. A meter will determine how satisfied the customers are. However, if you so much as screw up even once then your meter will decrease and eventually fail the ENTIRE mission, forcing you to start all over again. That's not even the biggest insult considering there's 6 levels of this (with 4 customers to impress each) which get harder as you progress, all while a timer is set. You will often end up shooting dead your customers in anger. While it is optional, it is required for 100% and to gain protection money from the auto shop. It can only be hoped that this disaster of a side-mission never makes it into another GTA game again.

** "Tune on, Tune in, Bug out." You have to destroy 6 police antennas, and with each one you destroy your wanted level goes up and using the Pay'N'Spray trick will only fix your car but ''not'' reduce your wanted level for this mission... that is until ''after'' you destroy all the antenna, which by then you have a nearly maxed out wanted level with the FBI on your tail as you try to get to the nearest spray shop. By the way, reducing your wanted level after the antennas are destroyed is mandatory, or else you fail the mission. And then to top it all off, you get a paltry $300 reward for all the ridiculously hard work.

** The penultimate mission. It involves fighting through three separate hordes of STAG and Luchadores, while making sure to keep Pierce and Oleg alive. Pierce is by far the harder of the two because it takes a lot to bring Oleg down. In addition, at the end of each horde is a boss of sorts; the first is two Brutes, the second is a STAG laser tank, and the final is a VTOL. At this point the Brutes are not much of a challenge, but the tank and VTOL can destroy you. After taking care of the VTOL, you reach the PointOfNoReturn, and which path you pick influences how the rest of the mission unfolds.\\

*** The ground team has to navigate corridors while the lights are out. Despite the whole facility being pitch black, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard the enemy guards have no problem pelting you and your partner with bullets from the first moment they can]]. Normally this wouldn't be so bad except the game pressures you and your partner to hurry to avoid the chopper team from having to put up so much resistance. The game also [[FajeDifficulty reduces the ammo count of assault rifles and pistols to 120 for the duration of the heist]], two weapon types that would be much for useful in the hallways they keep throwing you and your partner into than [=SMGs=] and shotguns, two other weapon types that you will most likely resort to due to you bringing your own ammo.

*** The ground team has to navigate corridors while the lights are out. Despite the whole facility being pitch black, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard the enemy guards have no problem pelting you and your partner with bullets from the first moment they can]]. Normally this wouldn't be so bad except the game pressures you and your partner to hurry to avoid the chopper team from having to put up so much resistance. The game also [[ArtificialDifficulty reduces the ammo count of assault rifles and pistols to 120 for the duration of the heist]], two weapon types that would be much for useful in the hallways they keep throwing you and your partner into than [=SMGs=] and shotguns, two other weapon types that you will most likely resort to due to you bringing your own ammo.

** Heli Assault in ''Saints Row 2'' is generally terrible, simply because of Stilwater's design - every time an enemy manages to close in on your ally, s/he will ''[[ArtificialStupidity immediately drive under a bridge or railway]] [[SpitefulAI just to prevent you from defending them]]''. Trying to get low enough to shoot under the bridge will generally result in crashing into a tree or the cramped buildings to the sides, because the helicopter controls are already overly-sensitive in its element, but somehow get even moreso when you're low to the ground, as if there's some sort of mild helicopter-magnet material that every building and bridge in the city is built out of. And let us not forget that there are helicopters that chase you while you're doing the mission and escaping from their missiles is not only impossible, but they cause a shitload of damage that might turn everything into shit really quickly. And then your escort has the balls to yell at you as if you're not even trying to defend them. This activity is so terrible, that most consider Level 6 to be absolutely ''impossible'' to complete. ''The Third'' generally makes the entire activity much more fun, solely because Steelport has far fewer roads that can't be seen from a helicopter; the trade-off of less cover from police or Morningstar snipers when you have them after you is very acceptable when the option to ''actually defend yourself'' is almost never denied to you anymore.

* The final mission on ''Driver: Parallel Lines'' It's pretty reasonable until you have to chase down Corrigan, first you have a strict time limit to escape from a tunnel after Corrigan blows it up, not only do you go very fast while narrowly avoiding falling debris, but seemingly every single car is actively trying to drive right into your path to slow you down. Then you have to chase after and shoot down Corrigan's helicopter, which isn't a problem if you have plenty of SMG ammo(it also helps if you max RPG ammo, but it's pretty tricky to time it just right so that the rockets hit him) but the heavy traffic can really slow you down, and you'll fail if you take too long to catch up, and later on Corrigan flies over areas with lots of bumps and hills where it's real easy to accidentally flip your car over and fail the mission, so you basically have to fire {{RPG}}s and [=SMGs=] at him nonstop, hoping that you'll get lucky and be able to finish him off quickly before he flies over the rough terrain areas.

** Delivering cocaine once you have a good number of fronts can be a harrowing experience. The first few aren't so bad, but every delivery ratchets up your Gang Meter by a goodly amount until your car is under constant fire by Max Mad-style street rovers and every front you try to deliver to will be under attack by a small army. All the money you make is kept in a tally until the delivery sequence is complete. If you die, not only is all that money gone, but so is the supply of cocaine you tried to deliver, which cost a small fortune or tedious sidequest to get in the first place.

*** The ground team has to navigate corridors while the lights are out. Despite the whole facility being pitch black, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard the enemy guards have no problem pelting you and your partner with bullets from the first moment they can]]. Normally this wouldn't be so bad except the game pressures you and your partner to hurry to avoid the chopper team from having to put up so much resistance. The game also [[ArtificialDifficulty reduces the ammo count of assault rifles and pistols to 120 for the duration of the heist]], two weapon types that would be much for useful in the hallways they keep throwing you and your partner into than SMGs and shotguns, two other weapon types that you will most likely resort to due to you bringing your own ammo.

** Heli Assault in ''Saints Row 2'' is generally terrible, simply because of Stilwater's design - every time an enemy manages to close in on your ally, s/he will ''[[ArtificialStupidity immediately drive under a bridge or railway]] [[SpitefulAI just to prevent you from defending them]]''. Trying to get low enough to shoot under the bridge will generally result in crashing into a tree or the cramped buildings to the sides, because the helicopter controls are overly-sensitive. And then they have the balls to yell at you as if you're not even trying. ''The Third'' generally makes the entire activity much more fun, solely because Steelport has far fewer roads that can't be seen from a helicopter, even if the trade-off is less cover from police or Morningstar snipers when you have them after you.
** And let us not forget that there are helicopters that chase you while you're doing the mission and escaping from their missiles is not only impossible, but they cause a shitload of damage that might turn everything into shit really quickly. This activity is so terrible, that most consider Level 6 to be absolutely ''impossible'' to complete.

** There are the occasional assassination missions where just trying to get the target to show himself is more effort than it's worth. Standout examples in ''The Third'' are the pimp whose ho's you have to beat up to lure him out (your success relies entirely on whether the game will actually bother to spawn ho's at all, let alone the specific [read: fat] ones that work for him) and the gas station owner that likes muscle cars (even if you have an eye for cars, there's no indication anywhere of what the game actually ''counts'' as a muscle car[[note]]Hint: The Hammerhead counts. The Mayor's Phoenix counts, too, so if you've put the assassination missions off until at least after you have him as a contact, you can call him in as support and use his car.[[/note]].