As I write this it’s Sunday night, around 11pm. I am sitting here seething and feeling really sh*tty about myself and feeling like I suck at games in general. How did I get here?

F*CKING TETRIS EFFECT

I have always been good at Tetris. I played hundreds of hours of Tetris on my NES. I played hundreds of hours of Tetris on my Game Boy. I used to study the Tetris tactics I found in Nintendo Power.

Then.

Last week I started Tetris Effect.

At its core, it’s still Tetris, of course, but there is so much more going on. The background does its best to distract the living hell out of you (which makes it super hard for me to focus) and only gets more distracting the further you go. The music goes bonkers and the controller vibrates and the whole thing makes me want to stress barf.

THEN

MOTHER F*CKING THEN

At various intervals the speed just goes into overdrive and even when I keep the stack as low as possible and use the zone mechanic, I eat sh*t.

Until tonight (last night when you read this), I had only ever failed two levels and only once each before finding success. But, tonight, on ONE stupid level, I ate sh*t over and over and OVER AND OVER AND I GOT UPSET.

Games almost never make me so upset that I shut the game off; tonight was an exception.

I tried this one level probably six times in a row. I was fine until it came to line 21ish and the speed would go bonkers and, even though the stack was literally at the bottom of the screen, I failed each time.

It made me feel real bad at games and bad about myself in general. And I already feel so bad about myself, I just didn’t need that on top of it.

I didn’t rage quit, per se, but I did shut the game off and sit there feeling really upset. I don’t mind a challenge in games, but this felt cheap.

Oh, one thing I’ve never liked using while playing Tetris is the ghost image feature. I never played the game that way and always disabled the option if I could. In Tetris Effect, because of all the other stuff going on, and sometimes that includes things wandering across the field of play, I turned the feature on. It makes me play Tetris in a way I don’t like, am not used to, and clearly suck at.

So, tonight (last night for you), I am feeling foul and pathetic and like I may not even be able to complete Tetris Effect on freaking normal and even though I don’t care if anyone plays games on easy (or even if I play something on easy; I often do with older games due to antiquated control schemes), I feel like any semblance of pride I might have left would take a hit having to change the difficulty on TETRIS just so I could beat it.

I hope any of that made sense. I’m in a SUUUPER bad mood.

On Friday afternoon I got some really frustrating news and I wound up not playing anything all weekend. Hopefully I can finish up Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Rage 2 this week and move along to something else. At this point I’m unsure if I will continue on with Tetris Effect. I have enough things I feel bad about in life; I don’t need a game to make me feel like even more of a failure.

With that I ask: what will YOU be playing this week? Any new releases you’re interested in?

Please be safe out there, friends. And please, please be kind to each other. Cheers.