Grrrrrr – AUTOSAVE! AUTOSAVE!

I really hate it when games become a chore. Maybe that’s why I got bored with World of Warcraft so quickly – it felt more like a chore than a fun thing to do. It is also why I quit Mass Effect – after spending somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour fighting to finally get to the end of the winding road that I had to drive over I reached the final cutscene just to find myself dead within five seconds.

That’s fine, I thought. It’ll just restart me back at the cutscene.

That’s not what happened. I found myself back at the very beginning of the level. I didn’t have it in me to go through that entire thing again, left the game, and every time I thought about going back to it I had the mental image of having to go through that entire level all over again.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I think games shouldn’t be challenging or hard or even frustrating sometimes. But the mechanics of the gameplay isn’t what should frustrate me as the player. If anything should frustrate me or prove challenging it should be part of the in-game role I assume or figuring out that puzzle or level. I don’t mind being frustrated by other players or characters. I don’t mind being challenged by bosses or other in-game situations.

What I do mind is being forced out of the world I’m currently immersed in. Taking me back to the beginning of the level that took me at least half an hour to get through is like pressing the rewind button, or skipping a record back to the beginning. In that instance, it wasn’t interaction with anything in the game that was annoying and frustrating to me as a character, or a person acting out this story – it was the mechanic of the game, not the world, and it made me angry as the player of the game.

I didn’t go through that level in the first place because I thought it was just the awesomest experience ever and wanted to do it over and over again – I don’t want to drive up the same fricking mountain for half an hour twice in a row – that’s not fun. I just wanted to get to the end and continue along the storyline.

I admit – I should have saved the game manually when I had a chance. Silly me, assuming that a cutscene would mean an autosave. I’ve learned my lesson for next time. However, I think that whoever decided that if the player dies at the very end of that level they’ll go back to the very beginning instead of starting back at the cutscene made a bad choice.