10 Video Game Levels You Didn't Know Can Be Beaten In SECONDS

The advent of speedrunners has been an incredible thing to behold. Most hardcore speedruns are a dedication to practice and mastery of a certain game, but that doesn't mean your average gamer can't have a bit of fun too. The levels on this list all have simple tricks and exploits that really any gamer can pull off, because I'm SciForWhatCulture.com, and these are 10 video game levels you didn't realise can be beaten in seconds. Number 10, Courier, The World Is Not Enough. Courier is the first mission of The World Is Not Enough, and it's not particularly challenging in the grand scheme of things, but if you simply can't be bothered with it, then you can get in and out in no time at all, specifically on the Nintendo 64 version. Set in a Swiss bank, the way this mission is supposed to go is that you collect Bond's equipment from a sneakily delivered safety deposit box, get past security, and then wind up in a shootout where you must escape the building without killing civilians. However, players discovered a neat trick that reduces this mission to a mere 20 seconds. If Bond activates the security alarm himself via a button on the wall, the game registers the mission as a failure and the player needs to get out. However, as long as they grab their equipment and don't kill any civilians on the way, then The World Is Not Enough simply doesn't know what's going on. You technically, upon exiting the level, fulfilled all of your objectives since the fail state stopped the game from giving you any more, thus you'll move straight on to the next stage. Mr Bond has places to be and martinis to drink and doesn't have time for this needless shootout, thank you. Number 9, Scrap Brain Zone, Act 3, Sonic the Hedgehog It's a pretty universally held opinion that Labyrinth Zone is the worst stage in the original Sonic the Hedgehog. Not only is it long, winding, and rather slow, because of the water the level is remembered for the deadly drowning music, which is nightmare fuel in itself. To make matters worse, almost like a sick joke, Act 3 of final stage Scrap Brain Zone is a recoloured return to Labyrinth due to time constraints during production. However, thankfully, there is a trick that makes it much, much easier. Whilst players might throw their hands into the sky in disbelief at being back in such a dreaded area, it's important to get moving right away when the level begins. In front of Sonic is a bridge descending down a slope. Move too slow and you'll simply skate across it and continue the stage. However, if you can get in front of it, then you can bypass almost the entire thing. At the bottom of this slope is basically the last 60 seconds of the level, a simple run past some enemies and a few obstacles to freedom, and the final boss of the game. It's almost like Sonic Team knew that people didn't want to go through another round of slow-motion hedgehog water torture and put in the shortcut as an apology. It also lets you keep enjoying your favourite content no matter where you are in the world, meaning you don't have to miss out on the new episode of That Show You Love when you're on holiday somewhere that isn't showing it yet. The UK, I'm talking about the UK. Everything gets here so late! Surfshark is currently running an incredible offer on their two-year subscriptions, where until the 1st of June, you can get an 87% discount on Surfshark's two-year subscriptions, three months extra for free, and an Amazon gift card worth up to $30. If you want to grab this for yourself before it expires, just follow the link in the description or scan the QR code on screen. I don't know where it is because I didn't edit this ad read, I just hosted it. Number 8, Mission 5, Alien Isolation Creative Assembly's Alien Isolation is quite rightfully lauded as a great survival horror game and a title that treats the Alien franchise with respect. Mission 5 sees the player trapped inside a medical bay, searching for a password so they can move on to the next area. The crucial moment comes when finding this code and leaving, which prompts the xenomorph to slump down in front of them. It's a memorable moment and causes a pretty unanimous reaction amongst players that rhymes with splitting your plants. At this stage, players know that they must move stealthily and very slowly throughout the war to get out, as being caught by the alien is insta-death. You can't necessarily skip the whole mission, but large parts of it can be made a lot quicker if you know what you're doing. Instead of staring in fear, simply race to the locked door whilst the scripted alien entrance is playing out, and you won't have to worry about trying to avoid it in this area. An added bonus, tossing a flare at the floor where the alien will come out of the vent grants you another 30 seconds of time to sprint like your life depends on it, because it does, to get you even closer to the end of the mission unharmed. Number 7, Test Chamber 14, Portal Portal is a game that, after blowing first-time players' minds with its physics-based brilliance, keeps people coming back for more to play with its toybox of ideas. After all, the game does have a series of challenges that ask players to beat certain chambers with the least number of portals, least steps and as quick as possible, and some fans figured out some pretty nifty ways to blitz through a lot of them. Test Chamber 14, which would usually take at least several minutes, can be beaten in a dozen seconds. The stage starts with the exit in sight. The most simple strategy involves shooting a portal directly under the exit and in front of you. Jumping between the two, you simply need to shoot a portal on a nearby wall or the ceiling and use momentum to guide you. This is a trick the game teaches you itself, but you can use it here to essentially skip this entire test chamber and avoid using the stage's gimmicks and hearing GLaDOS's sass. Naturally, a dozen seconds is too much for the most hardcore of speedrunners, and the current world record for the chamber sits at a head-spinning two seconds. That's not thinking with portals, that's making portals your bitch. Number 6, Kang and Kodo Strike Back, The Simpsons Hit and Run Hit and Run is a beloved title that sees the cast of The Simpsons trying their own take on the GTA-style open city. What fans didn't completely adore, however, was the final race of Mission 6, Kang and Kodo Strike Back. Here, you must beat the one-eyed aliens to the Duff Brewery, which is particularly hard since they've crammed themselves into a chase sedan, one of the best vehicles in the game. However, you can avoid the challenge to this as well as finish the race in about a minute when you realise that there is a second, quicker route to the brewery that Kang and Kodo aren't aware of. Instead of following your opponents who start in front of you, hang a left immediately and you can jump the broken bridge and follow the highway. Even if you aren't looking to beat the competition as fast as possible and simply want to clear this hard mission, then this is certainly the way. Furthermore, due to hardware limitations, the game will only load chunks of the map at a time, meaning when you get far enough away from Kang and Kodo, they'll fall into the void as parts of Springfield despawn. Eat my dust and my shorts. Number 5, A Long Day in Dunwall, Dishonored 2 This 2016 sequel takes the player choice of the first Dishonored and amps it up, allowing gamers to traverse its locations and fulfil its missions in a myriad of ways. Expert players can get through some stages in just a few minutes as is, but this neat little trick will drastically reduce the time it takes to beat Dishonored 2's A Long Day in Dunwall as well as its complexity. This first stage of the game kicks off in Dunwall Tower, but the real challenge comes as the player makes their escape. There is a series of streets between them and their goal littered with guards. If you're playing sneakily, getting past them is your first real test of patience. If you're being more aggressive, then it's a matter of eliminating them all before they can get you. As you leave the tower, you're invited to find your own way to the docks, with most players heading through some buildings through the ground below. However, there is an overhead rail line that runs across the area. It's really not that hard to climb on top of a moving carriage and ride it out to the end of the line, next to your destination, skipping the entire section. It's quite literally the fast train to victory. Number 4, We've Got Hostiles, Half-Life The Half-Life level We've Got Hostiles is a major difficulty jump in the game, and it's possible that players may want to give the whole level a miss, which they can absolutely do. The stage starts with a particularly panicked scientist who pleads with a soldier behind a security door to open the locked silo shutters. When the marine is murdered in front of him, he freaks out and runs down the corridor and is caught in an explosion. It might seem quaint now, but this was in-engine storytelling at its best at the time. The thing is though, the scientist shouldn't have panicked at all, as players will find out if they can stop him from his pre-planned fate. By either mashing the interact button, or even shooting him just once, you can stop him in his tracks. Leading him to the security door, it'll turn out he has clearance for it. Inside is the button for the silo shutter, saving you from doing a whole loop of the facility and letting you move right along. Panicking in the face of mortal danger will make a person do some crazy things, but you have to wonder how this scientist got his doctorate if he forgot he could open a simple door by himself. The first two Dead Rising games are set to a strict time limit, and it's up to players to do as much as they can before it ticks away completely. As such, knowing a few tricks is always a good idea. Case 5-2 of Dead Rising 2 takes place about two-thirds of the way into the game, and is essentially just a kind of boss fight. The gimmick here is that protagonist Chuck has struck antagonist TK's helicopter with a crane, and the player must carefully wince it in so that it's in range, and then pelt it with whatever objects are lying around. Any thrown item will do, as the general idea is to break the rotor blades. Herein lies the Oversight. The toy spitball gun is one of many joke weapons in the series designed to entertain rather than actually deal out damage. This brightly coloured plastic rifle is wholly ineffectual throughout the entire game, except this one moment, as its soft and useless bullets aren't coded as projectiles, but as thrown items. As such, with the range of the weapon, Chuck can stand back and just fire this toy gun at the helicopter to take it down in much shorter order. Not only does this make speeding through the game easier, it's also hilarious to embarrass TK in such a way. Number 2- Security Hall, Sonic Adventure 2 It's not just 2D Sonic games where you've gotta go fast. Sonic Adventure 2 has a variety of playstyles, but the need for speed is unshakable for Sonic fans, whether they admit it or not. As such, this entry concerns a level not for the traditionally super-fast Sonic and Shadow, but instead the treasure hunter Rouge the Bat. This debuting villain, like Sonic's pal Knuckles, uses a hot and cold mechanic to search small sandbox levels for randomly placed MacGuffins, grabbing three to complete each mission. However, they each have an ability that makes things easier. Spiral Upper and Screw Kick are offensive skills, but also draw in items that are close by, which can be used to great effect in Security Hall. Here, the three Chaos Emeralds you need can be in numerous locations, including in large safes. Locating the right safe, flying to the switches to open it, and then flying back is arduous, especially if you have to do this more than once. Simply using a screw kick next to the door will draw your objective out towards you, out through the safe. Some security. This was patched for the GameCube release onward, which sucks because Security Hall is one of the more needlessly long-winded stages otherwise. And Number 1- Tem's Wharf, Tomb Raider 3 Even the most casual players of Lara Croft's original PlayStation adventures should remember exploring her home Croft Manor. However, instead of cruelly locking Winston the butler in the freezer, you probably should have paid more attention to the jumping tutorials, as they really come into play if you want to get great at the games and maybe even abuse them a little. The fourth stage of Tomb Raider 3 takes Lara to London and starts with Tem's Wharf, which is well-known among fans for its glitches. Lara begins on a rooftop and, if played properly, this 30-plus minute level sees our heroine clamber down and across buildings However, if you know how to utilise Lara's acrobatics, you can skip the entire shebang, with speedrunners bringing the record for this level down to a mind-boggling 20 seconds. Simply ignore the intended direction, vault Lara from the rooftop onto a neighbouring crane, over to another roof and through a building's awnings, and hey presto. The guard who waits for you by the checkpoint definitely didn't see this coming, his shift only just started. One has to wager that the employee at Core Design, who was responsible for putting boundaries and invisible walls in, got a real chewing out after this.