*POSSIBLE SPOILERS*

Now i'm no stranger to the building frustration that all gamers experience when they cannot complete a certain level on the new game they have just bought. We spend hours playing, only to fall at the final hurdle when we are confronted with a seemingly impossible task, or a boss that just won't die!! Never was this more apparant then when i got to the final level of Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within on the PS2 on my recent gaming session. Considering myself as one who likes a gaming challenge, I almost always play through any game on the hardest difficulty I can first time round, usually to lengthen the gameplay and keep me interested.




After having quite an exhilarating play-through of the game (i'm a big fan of the whole series), it wasn't until I faced the ending boss Kaileena that I was stopped dead in my tracks. My jolly smile that had been kept within my expression throughout the whole game, had deformed into some sort of contorted, disgusted snarl that was now stricken across my face. This boss was seemingly impossible for me to defeat. I spent hours struggling against her teleportation tactics, and the whirling sandstorms that were impeding me at every roll and acrobatic flip that I managed to achieve. I found myself willing her life bar to deplete; my sword strokes giving the illusion that everytime I struck her, it seemed to increase her life span instead of killing her further. It was now bordering on ludicy. Her health bar may have well as been non-existent in comparison to the amount of damage i was actually inflicting. On one particluar replay, I had her to within an inch of dying, until she teleported, and i was killed instantly with a mere thrust from her blade. As you can imagine, this was like having your soul ripped out by a bastard bunch of polygons that wouldn't die, only to then realise that you are never going to get any closer to completing the level itself; and so with this ridiculous revelation taking hold, I stormed off to simmer down for a while before trying again.

On my return to have another crack at that bitch-of-a-boss, it was here upon that I discovered a true aid that would give me my victory. Metal and Rock music. Oh yes. The wonderful screams and epic guitar solos that so many thousands of people around the globe adore, turned out to be my only ally against the game. Deciding to innocently switch on the song "Stricken" by Disturbed, a true reflector of my current situation, I was taken aback at how much easier the task now seemed. Incredulity threatened to overwhelm me when I realised that I had once again managed to reduce Kaileena's health to the aforementioned level. With the song picking up tempo in the background and my mind demanding my fingers to increase their pace, I somehow pulled off some fancy acrobatics and slew the ghastly biatch with a couple of well placed sword strokes.
Disbelief. I had done it. Aided by the blaring music, my mind focused on the lyrics rather than the actual game, it was as though I had been playing with a glazed and vacant look in my eye, an almost "zombie persona" had been adopted whilst the music worked its magic. Shocked by its successful method, I decided to incorporate the metal into a few other games that I was fazed by...




MGS4 was another wild beast that needed wrangling back to its wicked lair; a lesson needed to be taught to all games that frustrate the fuck out of us gamers. Again the final boss fight on top of the submarine with Liquid Snake as an opponent was proving to be difficult (once more with the hardest difficulty setting adopted). This time though, i was prepared. Flipping over to some "Hell & Consequences" by Stone Sour, the rest was a breeze. With the lyrics strongly embedded in my mind and the controller awash with the sweat of my hardships, a solid flying knee to the face exuded a resounding crunch as it impacted with Liquid's nose. I almost felt a tear welling in the corner of my eye. With a little sniffle of gratitude to the artist for making such a wonderful aid, my face transformed into a beaming smile.




The final test came in the form of the notorious Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Playing through on veteran difficulty, as anyone will tell you, is no easy task. I was doing fine up until the sniper mission alongside Cpt. Macmillan, where you have to defend the fairground at the end of the level until the helicopter arrives to evacuate the two of you away. Now as I remember, it took me a failed 18 attempts before I left the console in a raving rage complaining about how the physics of the enemies grenades were "all to wrong". But that was before i discovered this wonderful new technique. Skipping over to my gleaming PS3 and giving it a gentle stroke (platonically of course), I slipped in Cod4 and loaded up the level. Now, which artist to choose? After several deliberations, I settled upon the song "Enemy" by Sevendust and started playing. Unbelievable. It worked its magic again. On only the 3rd attempt, I managed to evac myself and the Cpt. out of the hotzone.



Breathing out a long sigh of relief at my accomplishment, I began to consider why this worked. Perhaps it was by chance that i completed the games whilst a metal band was playing. Perhaps it was the tempo and beat of the songs that kept me alert, or perhaps it was by some mystical enchantment that emanated from the lyrics in correspondence to a gamer's frustration.
Whatever it was, it worked. For me anyway. I'm not promising some sort of universal effect, but by playing these particularly hard games alongside musical intervention, well... I beat them. All I will say is thanks to the genius who first battered a drum's face in and screamed at the top of his lungs. It sure as hell helped me.