The absolute WORST water levels

When great ideas are drowned by horrible game design

Words: GamesRadarBrettElston on October 7, 2009

Metroid Prime

The regular game: Luscious first-person adventure that finally made you feel like a lone bounty hunter marooned on a deadly planet. The whole world is your playground, which sadly must include some kind of water area.

The water level: Fugly, dark and downright troublesome. As with most Metroid games you eventually find gear that lets you move through water as if it doesn’t exist, but until then you have to trudge near-blindly through a submerged spaceship while enemies knock you off any platform you manage to find.

Above: Keep in mind this is WITH the suit that lets you move normally

Sonic the Hedgehog series

The regular games: Run right really fast.

The water levels: Bring Sonic to a screeching halt and force you to breathe scattered air bubbles to stay alive, completely ruining the breakneck pace of the entire series.

Above: The music more than makes up for it though

When you build a franchise around speed, you need to stick to it. We suppose the idea was to take speed away just long enough to make us miss it, but if that’s the case, it backfired horribly. Plunging us into dreary levels devoid of any sense of acceleration or the rush of a good loop de loop only makes want one thing – to stop playing. And that’s pretty much how we feel about water levels in general.

Oct 7, 2009

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Platforms:

Xbox 360, PS2, Wii, PSP, Dreamcast, GameCube, N64

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Chaoscoolperson - September 21, 2010 9:50 p.m.

The water levels have never been terrible to me. thats mostly because I haven't played a lot of them but every time I hear of ocarina's water level being the most difficult piece of crap in the world just think " I beat that in an Hour" The only part about it I didnt like was shadow link because he knew how to block all my moves, but I just kept the pressure on until I found out how to kill him. But the sonic levels? Yeah they are the bane of my existance.
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Dondada - October 14, 2009 4:46 a.m.

Wow a rush of bad memorys came to me after seeing that ninja turtle water level.
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RaIdEn - October 12, 2009 5:32 p.m.

its not the jet ski level you guys sowed that sucked, you could blind fire and still hit stuff. the first one with the grenade launcher, that one was hard
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majorsuave - October 12, 2009 3:40 p.m.

I liked the underwater parts in Dark Age of Camelot. Though it has nothing to do with most platformers named here.
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iluvmyDS - October 12, 2009 6:52 a.m.

Fucking Atlantis made me want to quit playing Ultimate Alliance.
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snothammer - October 11, 2009 7:01 a.m.

I've always hated the sonic water levels. I can make it a ways in sonic 2 on a good day because I'm able to outrun the water or whatever. But I ALWAYS disagree with someone who says that sonic 3 is the best in the series; you get to the water level so soon! And it's a bitch. I'm not sure I've ever worked up the patience to get past it, actually. Damnit sonic.
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reaperman22 - October 11, 2009 12:35 a.m.

i hate water levels and yet nearly every game insists on having 1. surely by now developers would of realised that water levels are crap so why do they still keep apearing. Uncharted was the best level on this list, i liked it for about 5 mins and thought it was a cool change of pace but after that first few minutes the constant stopping to shoot especialy on the rapids where u float back the second u let go of the exalerator got annoying
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trekkie2882 - October 9, 2009 10:17 p.m.

I love the donkey kong water level! Thanks for recognizing its awesomeness! The kingdom hearts water level was good if you dont iclude the god awful singing.
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hardcore_gamer1990 - October 9, 2009 9:17 p.m.

I think that slow-mo shitty water rising up actually strikes more fear into me than say... Insta-death boiling acid rising up. (R&C3 reference :D) ReCaptcha: Mass wounding :|
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HOUSTON420 - October 9, 2009 7 p.m.

yea that water temple was a bitch...
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oryandymackie - October 9, 2009 3:29 p.m.

To have my say......I deleted my saves in Fallout 3 as I was leaving the Rivet City Broken Bow, and predictably, I was left with the one "drowning" autosave, e.g, my breathless Fallout persona flopping like a fish and rising to the surface of the murky irradiated water.
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char0789 - October 9, 2009 4:48 a.m.

I couldn't agree more with the LoZ: OoT water temple one.
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pikachu2000 - October 9, 2009 4:11 a.m.

I was woundering. What do you expect when you go underwater in video games? Have you ever gone underwater in real life? All of that weight crushing your body and you try to swim through the water and you can't move as fast as you are in land. The human body is just not designed to move fast underwater and under a whole lot of weight. Same rule apply to games. Don't expect videogame characters to be Micheal Phelps and just run through the whole damn thing. We all know better than to expect to do the same time all through the game. They have to put something there to throw you off and to piss you off and water levels are the perfect place to do it, both in fanasty and real life.
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Friedrice - October 9, 2009 1:13 a.m.

The Earthworm Jim water level definitely made me cry sometimes. Water level AND you're timed? F**k that noise!
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EffinChrys - October 9, 2009 1:05 a.m.

Right around the time I bought Uncharted: Drake's Fortune I had always heard that the jet-ski section(s)sucked giraffe balls, but it came time to deal with them I found out that it wasn't that bad. Yeah I'll admit that stopping to shoot while getting pushed downstream was annoying after a bit, but i was more transfixed on the thought of how did these jet-skis get waaay out here in the jungle with the keys still in the ignition and plenty of gas... ... And why Elena had to wear those ugly-ass sandals?
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LOUDcarBOMB - October 9, 2009 12:13 a.m.

god i hated the level in ocarina. i felt like it was worse than going through Hell
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SuperStingray - October 9, 2009 12:10 a.m.

The Metroid Prime water levels aren't that bad. In fact, that's probably the only point that's even remotely irratating, at least after the gravity suit. In Metroid Prime 2, the underwater parts are actually better than the above water parts after the grav lift because you can actually float in it.
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THEBIGJ3 - October 8, 2009 10:18 p.m.

that'll teach me to write on here after necking a few beers, my Megaman comment is completely non-related to WORST underwater levels and therefore I would delete it if I could... :-P Another crappy water level, the water level in Captain Planet for the NES, so slow, so repetitive, so pointless...
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THEBIGJ3 - October 8, 2009 9:33 p.m.

Also I'm a little surprised the 'Bubbleman' level from Megaman 2 hasn't featured, I thought that was quite special, well, the whole game was! I remember when I first got my NES I was 4 years old and always BEGGING my dad to do the water section of TMNT, until I could do it myself (WHAT A DAY THAT WAS!!). Also in the level before it (the dam), the jump at the end to get to the door that led to the top of the dam was a btch!! :-P I'll probably regret saying this but I think the Mario series is one of the only series to persistantly provide great 'underwater gaming'...
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thomashalpenny - October 8, 2009 9:27 p.m.

what bout crash bandicoot?those stupid fish doing babck and forth and thosemines oh good lord they were annoying
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