Gaming Neophyte

I seem to have reverted in video gaming skill recently... What happened?

I tried playing Dawn of War after a little break (not counting team skills like Saturday night with mrbabou). I'm talking about 1-on-1 small maps against an AI. I suck. I set the AI to "Hard" to give myself a challenge. You can't improve if you keep playing easy modes. But I have gone 0 in 4 in the last few days. That's got to be a record for sucking at an RTS.

Last night I started to seriously tackle Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex on PS2. It's an old game I picked up some time ago for 10 bucks minus a discount for using my Edge card at EB-Games. Anybody remember Oni when PS2 launched? Well, the setup is almost identical but with slightly better graphics.
Sadly, I didn't make much progress before either: A) getting bored, and B) getting frustrated. And why couldn't I find any save points after a full 20 minutes of play? At least I've solved every puzzle up to the point where I quit (that is, there were little things like how to get past a certain obstacle that required multiple jumps, etc). So running through the same areas won't be such a chore the second time around.

But there was a time I'd have run right through that first level before deciding to quit.

PS: also doesn't help matters that the GitS game, is a third-person 3D shooter with a camera that moves even faster than a first-person shooter. I suffer from accute vertigo when I play these kinds of games so about 30 minutes is the absolute maximum I can handle anyway.