Rick Dakan

First let me say that I love Assassin's Creed 2. It's one of my favorite games of the year.

That said, like every game worth playing, it has a frustrating moment or two. Compared to many other great games, it actually has far fewer than is typical. To be perfectly honest, it's kind of an easy game, but also an amazingly fun and engaging one. There's one point though, during what is basically a dream sequence, where I had got totally stuck. Of course it happened in the one part where you play as in the city of Acre as Altair, the character from the first Assassin's Creed, a game I found dull and uninteresting. At the very end of the sequence there's a jump you have to make that I couldn't do. I kept dying and having to replay the whole sequence. Over and over and over, and unlike most of the game which is full of options, here there was only one path forward. I'd been playing all day, probably for eight hours or so by that point (something I don't do much anymore). I was so damn frustrated.

As it turned out, I needed to do a jump maneuver the game hadn't taught me yet. There is a specific moment after this sequence where it does go out of its way to explain how to make this particular kind of jump. I probably could've figured it out on my own, and I'm sure most players did. That said, looking on-line for help, I saw in several discussion forums that I wasn't the only one getting stuck here. But I didn't learn the secret until after I'd smashed my TV.

I get frustrated with games. I get angry when something seems unfairly or stupidly frustrating. I paid money for the damn thing, and I want to be treated better than this bullshit. This is different than a game being hard. Hard games can get wearisome, but at least I know it's my own lack of ability. Something like this, something frustrating because I have no idea what the game wants me to do (as opposed to not being able to do it), that shit drives me crazy.

I play on the couch, and next to the couch is a big, comfy yellow chair. In recent months I've taken to throwing my controller in frustration into the chair. It releases the anger and nothing gets damage. It has worked well as a kind of cover for my otherwise stupid and childish fits of rage. This time... this time my aim was off. And I was really mad.

I heaved the controller at the chair. Rather than hitting the angle where the chair's seat meets the chair's back (my usual target) the controller impacted high on the springy back of the chair. It wasn't in slow motion, but I clearly saw it happen, knew exactly what trajectory the controller was on as it flew through the air. I suck at pool, but this was a perfect bank-shot, right into the 42 inch HD TV.

The picture was gone instantly, replaced by the image shown in the picture. In the background I could hear the game still playing, some sort of placid background music and out door sound effects. Gone. Gone. Gone. Dumb. Dumb. DUMB!

So I'm working on that, that anger thing. Maybe putting the game down when I get pissed. Walking away. That kind of thing.

I got a new TV, and the first thing I did was put Assassin's Creed 2 back in. It was about 24 hours later, and my friend Brian was over. I had since looked up the offending sequence on-line. I made the “tricky” jump on the first try, and we just laughed, and laughed, and laughed. It's a great game.