Most Overused Game Locations

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The Sewer
C'mon, who here enjoys the sewer level in any video game, the person who raises their hand will be shot. Sewers are disgusting dank pits of filth and as Freakazoid puts it ''poo gas''. Why do we play video games? To escape from life's problems through gleeful violence, but here reality catches up to us through the stuck floater from thursday, ugh...

The Eastern United States
When you shot up one Eastern seaboard city, you've shot up them all, unless you count Vice City. Its all the same crime, the same poverty, the same sleaze, only in a different phony-baloney state.

The Middle East
Ever since 9/11, the number one area to go to war in is the cradle of civilization, what better way to pay tribute to the world's first civilization by destroying it! Problem is, that there some parts of the Middle East that I would love to play in (ie. Israel) but for PC reasons, we've gotta sit through another bore-fest in Jihadistan, or Americasucksistan.

Medieval England or the Middle Ages in general
My gripe against all thing middle continues. Seriously, the Middle ages were not a magical time of wizards, knights, and dragons. It was plague, doom, and slavery. Any mention of magic in those times got you burned at the stake, so what the heck? Why not Ancient Greece or Rome or Feudal Japan or China, that would be a good RPG.

The Secret Isolated Military Base
They're isolated for a reason, usually aliens, ghosts, or whatever s!@#t goes bump in the night. Wow, great to see that my tax dollars are going to creating fetuses that set people on fire or death rays that always backfire or installations that seem to follow Murphy's Law to the letter. Half-life did the best, no more, get over em' Send some other cannon-fodder SpecOps team in.

The Futuristic Version Of Outer Space
Wow never thought I'd be saying this, but I'm getting a bit tired of the final frontier, mostly the same staple planets that all have unique biomes that are present all throughout the planet, the same rocky environments that you clearly photoshopped from the Mars rover camera, the same aliens who only want to kill you because you're human or the kind that don't like you but won't kill you outright. The same superpower politics that you ripped straight from either Star Wars or Star Trek, the same lightspeed sequence, the same...I could go on for weeks.

The Big Dark Castle or Haunted Mansion
I always thought that only having one area in the game you could explore was lazy, guess that's why I don't like Castlevania. But of course, you have to go over the top with the bats, the gargoyles, and all sorts of staples of creepy architecture. And that old house on the hill has some stupid legend or something. Problem is, I've seen it all before on Scooby-Doo, thanks for not making me soil myself. All I can think of with these cheesy ghosts from the Monster Mash music video is how big a douche Fred is for wearing that ascot and thinking he can get anywhere with Daphne.

The Train Level
I'm ashamed because this could be so much better, a moving background and dynamic environment can make for some awesome gameplay, right? Not if you're always in cramped train cars or on the roof of the stupid things with a moving background that might as well be a canvas sheet on a set of rollers. It'd be nice if you could crawl on the underside right near the tracks for suspense, a few games did this, but I'm surprised no else did. And to top it all off, the boss is always at the engine, like he's the friggin' engineer or somethin'.

The Second World War
Why not the first, too bloody and static and no Nazis, Vietnam, not cool anymore, how about Iraq, FOX owns us, Korea, What?, Gulf War, liberating Kuwait is cool and it looked like a video game on the news, but it just isn't cool enough, fine, I give up.
Seriously, I'm tired of this... I'm tired of blasting Nazi after Nazi for the eighty-bazillionth time. I ain't charging up that dumb beach, I ain't gettin' sniped up the butt, I'm officially a draft dodger. I won't even accept games that include the Pacific War because they take out any racist references to the Japanese to the point where it isn't even realistic. No war crimes, no banzai charges, no kamikazes, no nothing, maybe just a cheap stand-in for the Nazis, but that's not why I bought this game. What are you worried about. When MoH Rising Sun came out in Japan, it topped sales, I guess the Japanese have no reservations about filling their countrymen full of holes, so why can't we have a game where we fight the US. No I don't mean some dumb corporation, I mean the government, the army. Why can't we be the bad guy here like everywhere else where we can be total bastards. I'm not saying we should be able to play as Nazis but one where the US isn't the noble protector of the world that we thought it was. How come movies, TV, and books can be anti-war but not games?

Ok I say the rocky cavans filled with lava, so many games have this it isn't very funny. A huge area where you verse a boss barells or something pop out of the ground, the area where the bad guys are made or go to sleep a place where you have to drive away and or shoot at the people following you.

You forgot, fire cave, ice cave, snowy level, oh and looky looky its the futuristic magical ruins of a long lost civilization (usually leading to the final boss who goes through 15 different variations before he finally kicks the bucket).
Oh and we forgot about the forests... can't have an RPG without moving through those.. and deserts.. and the obligatory haunted house part.
Do remember that Empire cities always look steam-punkish and ALWAYS have an homeless suffering underbelly. Now the sewers i can see but usually the sewers are that final passage way to freedom after you've broken out of the maximum security prison (and maybe trailing around a new found ally or two).
And for MMOs man... guys um PLEASE not ANOTHER Tolkin-like high fantasy world with elves and the like. Its starting to get old.

You also forgot the post-apocalyptic city where the rebel forces are fighting to stop the tyrannical corporate, alien, robot, or cyborg force...

good points

I'm gonna put a spin on the original question: What would we like to see in a level that is not overused?

I've seen enough "inside the belly of a huge monster" levels....

Caves and dungeons. I understand the need for dungeon-type levels in certain games, but more creative developers have been able to put dungeon-type levels in more visually interesting locations.

Also, any place with a monochrome colour scheme. My number one complaint with many games is their visual style. The number one offender for this in recent memory was Gears of War. The upcoming Fallout 3, which I have zero interest in, looks to use a similar visual style. There are so many interesting ways to use colours in a way that isn't gaudy, Mirror's Edge at this year's E3 is a fantastic example.

- the big empty black space, or conversely the big empty white space. you usually see this in RPG's for a particularly dramatic battle.
- the jungle. they've become an oddly popular location for first person shooters in recent years.
- any place with lava.
- any place with lots of ice (not snow, ice. preferably in palace shape).
- the "doom" fortress. how this differentiates from other types of fortress is beyond me.
- the air base. they even had one in the first Ninja Turtles game. what the crap?
- any form of castle.
- any form of mansion.
- any some kind of secret underground base or laboratory where you just know they were doing evil s**t.

Any element based areas , you know the FOREST, VOLCANO ,SNOWFIELDS, OCEAN , Mario games started that and now they are OVERUSED AHHHHHH.

Anything with exploding barrels.

so every town has sewers etc :p

Its the crates Im worried about

I just remembered on and wonder why no one said it yet. The oldest cliche in the book, a castle with a kidnaped princes at the top. Come on that is the biggest cliche in the book.

Why is it that, in a video game, it's always soooo easy to escape from a "high security" prison cell? (Thief: Deadly Shadows, Prince of Persia 3D, Call of the Cthulhu, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine...and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.)