Top 10 Lists: The Top 10 Greatest Elevator Sequences In Videogames

I am here to announce... "THE TEN GREATEST ELEVATOR SEQUENCES OF ALL TIME!!!". Elevators have always been an important part of gaming. For more than two decades our gaming heroes have been making use of these holy heightening hallows. How else would The Lost Vikings have returned home? Certainly not by walking up stairs! So then, let me elevate these games in your awareness...

Holy crap. The Carrington Institute not only developed what might have been the coolest weapon ever (I wish my laptop turned into a gun), but they also had the best rendered elevators ever to appear in an N64 game. Don't tell me you weren't thrilled to ride those babies up and down a few times, only to find more hot elevator on elevator action in level 1 and 2! BONUS! Don't even get me started on the alien elevators.

Ok, I admit this one if less of a sequence and more of a game. Let me stretch just this once. Elevator Action was NES gold. Spies, guns, trench coats, elevators. What more does a game need? I mean, elevators in videogames are important. Maybe even more important than breathing. But designing your entire game around elevators? That's greater than cheesecake. Greater than Jurassic Park! Greater than the size of my... shoes. No really. I'm only a 9.

Probably one of the funnest sections of the game is the AIM elevator ride. Basically you're riding this giant elevator up the outside of a flying tank and all of these AIM guys just keep raining out of the ceiling with bombs and crap. While you're AI lackeys try to brutally kick them in the nuts or something, you can just pick them up and toss them off the tank. 30 achievement points later, and I haven't even broken a sweat. I did break a nail though. Throwing people off elevators is so much work.

I know at least 3 other people out there played this, so this ones for you guys! Did anyone watch Bubble Gum Crisis? You know that giant and completely pointless space elevator? Remove the stupid and this is what you get. One gigantic octagonal lift flying into space where the final battle takes place. This is what videogames are all about! Completely ridiculous but awesome scenarios that always throw the world into peril. If you don't end something this ridiculous with a gigantic magic battle on a space elevator with no walls where you're not wearing space suits and you fight an alien with dreadlocks... then go play Dead or Alive Volleyball or something. Breasts obviously are soooooo much better than magic dreadlock aliens. Or even Dinosaurs. Pfft, yeah right.

Resident Evil 2's elevator battle against the tyrant was brilliant. And it was about damned time someone slapped that Ada woman. The whole game she's got a pole up her rear-end about this and that, pretending she'll have sex with Leon when we all know she just wants some umbrella chemical or something. Meanwhile Leon has his tongue out, panting over her every request, always telling her to "wait!" and taking bullets in the shoulder for her. It took an 8 foot tall genetically engineered monster and a huge train elevator to finally bring an end to it all, but god damn was it worth waiting for. Whether you're fighting the giant eyeball, crowbar variety, or the 4 armed pants wearing variety, this was one hell of a boss fight.

This one could really apply to all Silent Hill's. Normally I wouldn't associate elevators with anything scary. The only scary thing about an elevator is when you have a 10 floor ride somewhere and 3 other people are in the tiny little box with you, and all of you are trying to avoid direct eye contact while holding in your gas and trying your best not to scratch any unusual body parts. Silent Hill manages to take all that fear, raises it five levels, and adds decor from Martha Stewart's apartment in Hell. We've got flesh elevators, elevators with buttons that mysteriously appear and dis-appear, elevators that descend into hell, elevators that are demoniac carousels, elevators with crafty word puzzles in them... It just begs the question "Why make Silent Hill 4 about a house?". They should have dropped development and started over as "Silent Hill 4: Elevators". Silent Hill does it all. The only thing they were missing is a 60 minute mandatory elevator ride down to the final boss that plays every song ABBA ever wrote, over and over, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Get your act together Konami!

A few million people will remember this level dropping Shin-ra experience. This was one of the coolest boss battles in an RPG EVER. I mean, Barret takes out an entire helicopter with just his one hand! Well, his gun hand, but whatever. And did anyone else notice you never reach your floor until the boss dies? I mean, that thing must pass by a few thousand floors and then *BING!* here's your stop. It probably would have been cooler if after floor -188,932 you start to descend into hell or something, and the robot helicopter turns into a flaming skeleton bat. And when you reach the bottom, Satan joins you and gives you the White materia so you can revive Aeris! What? At least I didn't come up with something stupid like "Your father is a great big ball of people eating water and we're dreams made of fireflies"

Everyone remembers the giant flying monster trying to turn you into a vertically appetizing snack, right? Man there are a LOT of elevators in this game. If not for the fact elevators almost always mean crazy crap is gonna happen, this would have been a floor switching snore fest. The best scene absolutely is when the big flying pig faced monster guy is trying to tear you out of the elevator as it descends a gigantic robot tower thing. He almost gets you, and then SNAP! He accidentally cuts the elevator off the cable and you go flying down through several floors and crash land at the base of the building. And you're totally ok. I guess if you're half robot you have a harder ass than most people.

This one goes to Metal Gear Solid's invisible ninjas in an elevator. You know, I never could figure why Snake never took a stealth device from Otacon's office as soon as he meets him. Maybe he wanted to make saving the world more challenging for himself or something. Personally though I think he'll have a more challenging time of explaining to Campbell the whole "banging his niece in the snow to keep warm" thing. Then again, when choosing between stealth and Meryl, do you really need to think about it? As it is, this was one of the better "OHCRAP!!11!" moments in gaming. At first you might think the alarm has gone off because Snake gained weight from too many rations or something (or maybe because he has a few thousand pounds of weapons and ammo in his pockets), but it's actually a squad of lethal invisible soldier dudes. Pound for pound it was an awesome elevator action sequence.

The Elevator to Shredder. The ultimate elevator level. This took elevators in videogames to places Joanna Dark could only dream of. The climactic music, the appearance of liquid Foot Ninja, the awesome *WHOONG* sound the doors make when they open... Damn. The only thing that's missing is April O'Neil in a bikini serving you pizza once you defeat the Shredder once and for all. Cowabunga dude!

Has your curiosity climbed? Has this list taught you a valuable lesson in game design? I hope it has, because no videogame is complete without one hell of a good elevator sequence. I know one day mine will have at least 5. And perhaps an escalator. Escalators! Oh my... Now we're cooking with gas.

List by Chaotic_Fusion (02/12/2008)