I think it was one of the Half-Life spin-offs that had some sort of obstacle course which was pretty lame. I remember just wanting to start the damn game. (It certainly wasn't Half-Life itself, the beginning of that game is "Hey, PhD dude, go push that cart into that crazy energy beam, I bet Barney $20 it blows up!")

Crackdown has some really REALLY annoying help messages which seem to restart every time I start the game up on a fresh boot. It's pretty annoying to still hear the guy say stuff like "Check out the tutorial videos to see what a REAL agent can do." I'm freakin' maxed out you prick, I am a real agent. Worse yet is when it just triggers the wrong statement, like hearing the help dude compliment the amazing view you have when all you are looking at is the ground.

MGS 1 had a great system, at least in the re-release, with the VR missions. There was always the codec beeping in your ear to give contextual advice, but the VR missions just worked so great because it actually made the tutorial canon to the story.

The MGS 2 came out and they replaced the fucking thing with some of the most annoying help coded messages ever! One part stupid main character ("Head to the Node" "The NERD!?"), one part annoying girlfriend, and no parts VR. Boo.

And in a similar vein to that of MGS 1, Psychonauts had the ubertastic Basic Braining stage. I really appreciate it when designers work the tutorial into the plot instead of forcing you through a totallyt vanilla, multi-step, mind-numbing, crap-tastic borathon (apparently) like the journal-inducing SSX Blur. No thanks.

And hey - how about License Tests in Gran Turismo! Difficult AND required!! Fucking International A License!