Of all of the challenge-padding methods pre-32-bit era games contained, perhaps nothing threw up the level design surrender flag so much like the presence of an ice level.
Ice levels certainly weren't the worst ways of trying to place a challenge into game levels which were otherwise deprived of it. Chase levels, water levels, and the universally hated escort levels all occupy considerably higher spots of the "thou shalt not" list of game design commandments. (Really, who, from anywhere, ever has liked an escort level?) But it's the ice level which stands out as the standard-bearer of the let's-just-get-it-done-so-we-can-get-drunk line of thought in game design.
Although there have been exceptions - the Ice Cap Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 being a prime example - the ice level is the go-to example of a gratuitous level. This is because the level designs themselves frequently lack any challenge. The level's more aesthetic obstacles are, at that point, nothing you haven't run across and beaten before. Therefore, instead of truly using the ice theme of the level as inspiration to formulate tricky and tough new obstacles, the designers instead end up using the ice as a crutch. Most ice levels in vintage games consist of rather standard obstacles which are just slathered in a blue dye job. The gameplay is then given a slight tweak which sends the player sliding a bit of extra distance in one direction whenever he tries to stop.
That Citizen Kane of video games, Super Mario Bros. 3, couldn't even produce a decent ice level. It's very telling that much of Ice World is either suspended over a bottomless pit, in underground areas where ice isn't much of an obstacle, or even missing ice completely. Super Mario Bros. 3 was a template game; it was far beyond what video games were even thought to be capable of by that point, and a stunning example of level design. But while some of Ice World's levels had tricky solutions, they didn't really utilize any ideas which hadn't been seen by that point in the game.
The ice level is really nothing more than a shiny blue example of the same old stuff which happens to be slippery. As most of them didn't have tons of thought put into them, it's only appropriate that so many didn't require a lot of thought to get through, and this is what ultimately makes them such a waste of good memory space. If you saw a new obstacle in another level, you might be forced to change your gaming style in order to get through it, and you would feel rewarded upon doing that. But the greatest gameplay change in ice levels is simply to avoid going too fast. So not only are you being forced to repeat the same old stuff, you're forcing yourself to go through a tedious level very slowly so you don't waste a life which may be necessary later on.
Perhaps the greatest shame in ice levels is how much potential goes to waste. Ice levels are the crates of the vintage era - they're a form of hinderance placed at points where the game's enemy programming hasn't done the trick.
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