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Hear that boiling noise? That curse word uttered through clenched teeth? That’s a frustrated gamer, kids.

In gaming, frustration builds to either a controller being thrown across the room or a game disc being snapped in two, left to fester under the entertainment center like Dust Bunny Prime. These moments occur when faced with insurmountable odds, usually a rush of Nazis, zombies, demons, or anthropomorphic mushrooms that turn the game into a mess of button mashing or hurried strategy. It sucks, sure, but getting through the chaos offers the satisfaction of beating the odds and turning the virtual tide (and, usually, 10 achievement points).

In rare cases, though, it offers a unique joy. A moment found in certain games that recharges the batteries better than any can of Bawlz guarana drink ever could. That special moment is the Tank Level, where frustration turns to elation and s**t blows up to the solitary cheers of the gaming enthusiast.

The most recent (and best) example of this is Ubisoft’s . It’s a first-person shooter blended with tactical objectives carried out by your virtual band of brothers in WW2-ravaged Europe. While the story is well-told and the gameplay is solid, it’s still a WW2 shooter, meaning you win the day by mowing down those evil Nazi bastards (Nazis being second to zombies as gaming’s go-to villain). Level by level, those ratzi jerks get better and better at flanking your hapless squad, raining bullets into you while German curse words explodes from your Dolby setup. It all swells into a violent crecendo of rushed orders to your AI-controlled soldiers to push forward and fight for freedom, , while you, the gamer, grip the controller and hope the onslaught will end. As soon as the last bullet is fired and the cutscene begins (accompanied by the trademark achievement jingle), you stop to catch your breath, wondering when the hell all this will let up.

Then, the rumble starts and the tank appears.

What follows is nothing short of perfect gaming catharsis. After being challenged so viciously by the game’s designers, the action-packed reward that would even please Spider-Man is you, dear gamer, at the controls of a UK tank squad, firing oversized ammo at those Nazi jerks who just tried to kill all ya’ll. Being a tank, you’re nigh invincible, save for the stray bazooka or rival armored division, and nothing stands in your way. Houses? Pummeled under your treads. Trees? Annoyances. Nazis? Cannon fodder. It’s five strong minutes of god-like justice and it leaves you giddy to continue the fight.

And therein lies the lesson. It’s easy to think a reward for a job-well-done in gaming doesn’t get better than achievement points or storyline advancement, maybe even a bonus costume to show off online. However, if the game becomes a slog, a struggle to make it to that dangling carrot of win, gamers are quick to destroy a controller or disc and abandon that game forever. It’s the moments like the tank level in Brothers in Arms that offer that fresh air during the experience, giving gamers a mid-game reward for their skill and providing a break from thinking too hard about their gameplay. In those moments, a gamer feels a sense of accomplishment and power, insuring that they’ll have the fortitude to carry on through to the story’s ending.

With episodic gaming, epic narratives, and other trends in creative game design letting players become more and more involved with the storyline, here’s hoping the brains behind the big games don’t ignore the gamer’s energy through the experience, providing that catharsis needed to soak in every aspect of a storyteller’s hard work.

Also, if they let people blow up Nazis, that’s fun too.