Thoughts pertaining to the misadventures of Desmond Miles, or why I am (possibly) leaving Assassin's Creed 1 unfinished.

Okay. I admit it. I am a noob. A total, idiotic, inept noob.

Whew. Good to get that off my chest.

Seriously though. I need to finish this game. I've been playing for what, two years??? And now the second one's out, and we all love Italy. I want to go to Italy. I'm tired of Acre. Jerusalem is pretty, but there are too many guards. Damascus is too hot looking. I want the cool air of a different part of the Mediterranean on my pixeled, mannified face.

Why haven't I finished this thing yet? Oh yeah.

I got tired of doing the same thing over and over again for each target. "Talk to this guy, follow this guy, steal this map, etc." NINE TIMES. That got really old. Yeah, good thing I was only doing the bare three per target for the last three missions. Skip those informer ones. Ugh. "Hurry, I dropped these flags. Go pick them up. Oh, and while you're at it, these people were chasing me. Kill them too." Hmph.

I was tired of hunting down those stupid flags too. I know they weren't necessary to finish the game or anything, but hey, on the 360 they give you these lovely little things called achievements, and those have points, and that makes you cooler when you have points. And we all want to be cooler. Except when it has you running around the middle east looking for about five hundred little pieces of cloth hidden in nooks and crannies. That's not cool at all. Oh look, there's one on the top of that cathedral. Hrm. Nah. I'll go this way instead.

*drowning* Okay. It is apparently against the laws of nature to be able to exist in water in this game. Must I die every time I come near a seawall or dock or boat? Even fountains manage to kill me if I fall in them. Turns out those warning labels depicting people drowning in buckets aren't so far-fetched.

*two hours later, after attempting the same fight for the seventy-third time (yes I counted)* I am not very good at combat in general (come to think of it, this sad fact spans across almost the entirety of my gaming experience) and when I am not running for my life I am dying. Usually outnumbered and surrounded by about twenty guards. This particular battle is extraordinarily difficult. To me.

The thought that millions of people managed to finish the battle, and finish the game keeps nagging at the back of my mind. Cody finished the game. If he can do it, I can, right?

Actually, no. There are lots of things Cody can do that I can't. Finishing this game, obviously, being one of them. For the first time in my life, I found myself crying over a game. How hard should this be? I mean, come on. It's just a game. There has to be a way.

Restart. Block. Dodge. Counter. Dodge. Cou-oops. Apparently there are some strikes that cannot be countered. Ouch. There are some that can't be blocked either. And now six of them are hitting me at once. Yay.

Oh look. I'm dead again.

Sorry, Robert de Salle. I won't be killing you today. In fact, I don't think I will ever be killing you.

You see, I have this thing called the strategy guide, and while it is pretty useless in telling me how to defeat you, it gives me the general gist in what happens if I theoretically manage to remove your evil deeds from the world.

Actually, it only sort of tells me. Apparently the folks at Prima believe in this thing called spoilers. Hrmph. Well I have the interwebs, and they will not lie to me.

Oh my.

Erm.

Yeah. Part of me wants to finish now. Just to see if this is all true.

But I can't.

Robert de Stupid and his armored goons won't let me.

Now for the big question - to let wounded, beaten, exhausted, stubborn dogs lie? Or to keep beating all those horses I killed plowing through roadside patrols?

Now I know why there is this huge pillar set up for girls who are actually GOOD at games to stand on and be worshiped by all basement-dwelling males. And also why there's that whole pile of charnel at the bottom where they throw the girls who aren't good at games in so they can laugh at them and use them as basis for stereotypes like .... like... ugh. I can't say it. You know what I mean.

I'm just going to go lie back down now and contribute to the idea that girls can't play games.