Predicting frustration

It is painfully obvious by now that I am having hard time to find a spot for GTA IV in my life... which is quite healthy, of course. Just now, on a windy/rainy Sunday afternoon, I spent an hour or two with the game, guiding Niko Bellic through a couple of missions, while failing in some. A mob boss execution at the top of a club building, surrounded by neon bilboards, on a dark and rainy night in Liberty City, was memorable, I must admit.

After that, frustration struck. In the 'Russian Revolution' mission - a warehouse shooting, which one can't avoid - I died a few times, first due to my own incompetence, then to my partner Little Jacob's inability to keep up, and again, embarrassingly putting Niko in flames with a baffled attempt at throwing a Molotov cocktail at the enemy. Four attempts was enough - I left the game with anxious feelings - feelings, that still resonate somewhere at the back of my mind and in my body. These are not feelings I long to experience with a video game. In a couple of hours, I probably try again, in expectation of whether those emotions re-emerge. That is definitely part of every game play experience; as a player, one predicts and anticipates the emotions the game is going to bring about, and even tactical decisions are made in prospect of the nature of the experience. We'll see how this affects my subsequent tries in completing the mission.