Problem solving upsets me

Last night I sat down to play Dragon Age and realized I couldn't handle an evening of problem solving. Problem solving is what playing video games is all about, and sometimes I don't want to have to do any of that. So instead I cracked open a new book, "Stranger In A Strange Land", that my boyfriend gave me for Christmas last year.

It got me to thinking about the way I spend my free time and the way my brain works. I've always had a VERY low threshold for frustration, hence my joking about playing games meant for 12 year old girls. This being the case, I've started a ton of games and then given up once they get "too hard", which sometimes has meant that I've died once. Umm-hmm. Once. I gave up playing Resident Evil 4 when this guy chopped my head off with a chainsaw and I never played it again. To reconcile this, I've started playing games on "Easy", with the hope that it will make the experience of playing through the game more of a relaxing, rather than stressful, experience. Sometimes, though, even "Easy" mode kills you.

I read an article a while back about a game mode on the Nintendo system that would literally play through sections of the game that you're finding difficult. Say you're playing "Kirby's Magic Yarn" and you keep getting stuck on the crazy jumping section where you have to time all your jumps and have nasty-nimble thumbs, etc. You could engage this play mode where the game would go on auto pilot, you, the player, could simply watch through said tough section, and then game play by the actual player could resume once a certain button combination was pressed or something to let the system know to stop auto play. At first I was like, "Say what?" But then I was like, "That's a game mode for people like me."

Anyway, my attention span has run out, but I'm curious to know if there are other people like me out there; people who play games specifically to relax, not to stress out; not to fight through; not to overcome.

I'm out.