What is the worst and best tutorial levels you have ever played?

[Ronald Nand]

I recently picked up Deus Ex: The Fall on PC for $3, I figured it couldn't be so bad it was worth less than $3. So anyway that game has the worst tutorial I've ever played, if there's anything a tutorial can do wrong that game does that.

First of all whenever it gives you a tutorial command it locks all the keys except the ones you need to do that command, so if it wants you to go to the menu and select an item, it will stop you from moving and only allow you to press the inventory button. This was absolutely awful, as soon as you start you can't move around until you've done the command for moving the mouse. Also there was this one bit where you are following a support character and there's an invisible wall behind him so you can't move ahead of him. I was surprised that you weren't required to take out every enemy in the level.

Secondly, when you actually want to find out more about the command, there's this dull robotic voice where the voice actress literally does not care (its that obvious) telling you about the command. Thirdly the whole level was completely linear, its just one room after another, after you actually beat the tutorial the levels after that open up, especially the hub areas. Finally, there is no way to skip it, or turn off the tutorial prompts, so if I decide to replay the game I have slog through this awful tutorial again.

It was absolutely awful, a good tutorial is supposed to tell you what to do but allow you to experiment with the mechanics of the game, not force the every tutorial command down your throat. This one just made me want to skip through everything and move on, with it treating me like a stupid kid with the attention span of a gnat.

Speaking of good tutorials, I think Thief 2 has the best tutorial level I've ever played, the beginning of the level was linear and taught you the basics of the game, but it opened up after that. Unlike other tutorial missions I've played it is actually a level I'd enjoy replaying if I were to replay the game.

So what are best and worst tutorial levels you've played?

 

[Evonisia]

I really love Halo 3: ODST's opening mission which is essentially a fifteen minute or so tutorial. Pretty much all the mechanics (besides shooting which is self explanatory) are explained through interaction from somebody or something.
You do the movement of sight by looking at the four opening points on your pod to open it.
You fall from your pod and take fall damage so you learn that the nearby med station will heal your health bar (which doesn't regenerate otherwise).
You wander into the main open area and encounter your first enemies so combat is swiftly established.
You then answer a phone ringing so the Superintendent can instruct you on turning on your VISR (which is needed in the dark missions) and downloads a map to your interface.

Then after that you go off and explore to reach the first mission, essentially. It's all very lovely, organic and the atmosphere was done well enough to establish the necessity of these things you're doing.

I don't know whether it made it to the full game, but I really disliked Titanfall's intro tutorial type thing. It was basically just a bunch of seperate rooms you teleport to while a character you never hear from again tells you what buttons to press. It's just ten or so minutes of tedium when most of the mechanics are easy to pick up by fucking about in the lobbies.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

You know a game is cool when you want to replay even the training level.
Dunno about bad ones, guess I've just forgotten 'em. Deus Ex has a pretty cool one, introduces you to all the important gameplay features and sets up the setting pretty well without dumping tons of exposition on you. My favourite would have to be the Red Army Training level from CoD2. Fresh off the truck you start off going through an improvised training course somewhere in war-torn Stalingrad, shooting plates and German helmets off of random furniture and throwing 'grenades' (potatoes, 'because real grenades are valuable') through windows, then moments later you and your group are rushed out to fight through a German attack ending with you blowing up their halftrack, all within the one level. Introduces you to the game mechanics, gives you a hectic mission to fight through and throughout gives you something of an idea just how flat-out insane the war must've been.
Aw nuts, now I have to replay it.

 

[leberkaese]

I liked the tutorial in Fallout 3 a lot, if you can call the beginning a tutorial. You learn how to play the game the same way a kid learns to do stuff. Pretty neat idea.

Worst? Driver. Nuff said.

 

[josemlopes]

Worst? Driver. Nuff said.

When the tutorial is the hardest level in the game someone fucked up bad.

 

[happyninja42]

Worst tutorial would have to be Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Not for a poor system, but for just being a terrible terrible introduction to the character and plot. It gutted everything fun and enjoyable about the first game, in order to give us something "Dark and Gritty and METAL", and it was just terrible. I didn't finish it, just gave up, fuck that game.


Favorite has to be Homeworld, and Homeworld: Cataclysm.

Both games had a great tutorial mission, and worked them seamlessly into the narrative tapestry. I didn't feel like I was playing a tutorial, even though I was. Atmospheric, engaging, fun, and easy to learn the rules as they were provided in digesteble bits.

 

[seris]

best tutorial ive ever seen was the tutorial in far cry 3 blood dragon "running is like walking, only faster"

 

[Guy_of_wonder]

the best tutorial I have done recently would be Wolfenstien: The New Order. It shows you the basics in a pop up window and does not force you to do anything you don't want to (you can stealth kill a commander or shoot him in the face). On repeat playthroughs, you can turn the tutorial hints off.

The worst would be Assassin's Creed 2. The game starts assuming you know how to do combat and free run, but then it starts then proper tutorial an hour into the game. It made me so mad that i quit playing the game entirely. It also didn't help that I hated Ezio as a character.

 

[snappydog]

I quite like the Mirror's Edge tutorial; it does do a pretty good job of introducing each move you'll need to get along later. Spiderman 2 had a decent one as well, what with Bruce Campbell telling you what to do.
As for the worst... No idea. There are some, I'm sure, but I can't remember any right now.

 

[Rayce Archer]

Deus Ex 1 actually has my favorite tutorial level, for several reasons:
-You can do it about 9 ways
-You don't even get sent to it by default
-I'm pretty sure you keep any junk left in your inventory at the end

My least favorite tutorial would be Bulletstorm, since the whole game is just one long tutorial for weapons you generally won't use and when the tutorial ends the game is more or less over. Bonus points to Morrowind for ten minutes of fucking around a census office that basically just teaches you about the game's census office mechanics. Sometimes being anal retentive works AGAINST Bethesda.

 

[Dominic Crossman]

Can't believe no ones said this this yet
The 20 hour tutorial that is Final Fantasy XIII is the worse one.

Can't think of a good one, I guess the best ones are the ones you don't even realise they are tutorials.

I like your thinking captcha - more chocolate.

 

[Wulfram77]

Portal was a really great tutorial that lasted the whole game

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

The tutorials in The Matrix: Path of Neo were actually the best part of the whole game, all built like old samurai and kung-fu movies, with tons of destructible environments and shit. The only one I didn't like was the gun tutorial because it took away all your melee combat abilities. I hate losing options.

The tutorial for Prison Architect is pretty good, too but mostly because of the weirdly brutal plot to it.

Strategy games in general tend to have mind-numbingly boring tutorials; they're more or less the main reason I don't pick up new ones as often as I'd like.

Final Fantasy XIII had a horrid one as well. Never mind that the combat system doesn't fully open up until the game's second half, the very foundation it's built on (paradigm shifting) isn't even introduced for an hour and a half and you get into a LOT of fights in that time.

 

[small]

best tutorial ive ever seen was the tutorial in far cry 3 blood dragon "running is like walking, only faster"

that was my choice as well "loading basic military tutorial for idiots"
for those who dont know you are put onto the tutorial just to annoy you. to quote your character when he finds out he has to do it "you fucking asshole" "press jump .. to jump.. oh for fucks sake"

 

[bug_of_war]

Can't think of a good one, but I can think of one terrible one.

Resident Evil 6.

When you first load the game it forces you to play the tutorial and there's pretty much no way of skipping it. It's slow, it's quite boring, and treats you like an idiot. I understand that the switching of weapons and health system have changed, but the main controls are all the same from RE5 and it's extremely frustrating to play.

 

[bificommander]

Nothing immediately springs to mind as best or worst. A memorable one was the one in Evil Genius, where you basically play a Bond Villain. After the tutorial, your avatar decides the woman giving the tutorial has outlived her usefullness and has her executed.

 

[sextus the crazy]

I liked the tutorial in Fallout 3 a lot, if you can call the beginning a tutorial. You learn how to play the game the same way a kid learns to do stuff. Pretty neat idea.

Seconded. It teaches you about the game mechanics while still letting the great wonder of exploring to take over. You know just enough for the game to be fun at the start.

OT: Hearts of Iron 3. It is heavily implied that the tutorial was writen by Adolf Hitler. It's Hitlerious, although still doesn't teach you enough to really understand the game.

Portal's one of the best. It's just one 3 hour fun tutorial.

Most 4X games in general seem to be really bad at teaching how to effectively play the game. Same goes for most fighting games.

 

[Batou667]

I generally think that the best tutorials are the ones that are so well-integrated that you don't realise you just played a tutorial.

Valve games are generally great at doing this. The first campaign of Left 4 Dead 2, for example, expertly escalates the action, introducing melee weapons, special infected, various hazards, crescendo events, showcases the new weapons and upgrade system at a gunstore, and even doubles as a tutorial for Scavenger mode. The opening cinematic alone establishes the protagonists, locations, and additions to the zombies and weapons better than any number of loading screen tips could have.

Portal likewise introduces new concepts subtly and cleverly. At the time you never feel as if you're being spoonfed.

Mind you, the Tutorialisation of games (making the game itself the tutorial, rather than offering a tutorial level) can be done a bit over-simplistically. For example, I've always felt that the very first Splinter Cell game was essentially just one big tutorial (despite it featuring a very prescriptive tutorial level itself) - by the time you're finally given a surplus of equipment and the ability to make your own decisions, the game's all but over. Subsequent games in the series were more open but it felt like the games expected the players to enter the game with a lot of knowledge about the game which is never really explained. A few months back I finally got around to playing Double Agent, having played the first three games back on original Xbox and skipping straight to Conviction on 360. The tutorial level in DA is a pile of shit! It demands you do things, but doesn't explain how. I literally had to work things out through trial and error.

Another game that's incredibly noob-unfriendly is Streetfighter 4. The game just flat-out doesn't give you the information needed to complete the Trial Modes, let alone be a high-level player. It's frustrating, because the new Killer Instinct has a very good tutorial system that explains the game mechanics from first principles, proving it can be done.

The tutorial level on Sniper: Ghost Warrior was also confusing as heck. I spent most of the level wondering whether I was meant to be hiding, moving somewhere or taking out enemies.