Poor game mechanics: swinging

I recently bought a pile of used games for the original Xbox. One of the games was the comic-based XIII. I had been looking forward to play this game mainly because of its distinctive visual style. So I played a few levels and while I wasn't stunned or anything but I thought the game was a mediocre shooter. Then came a part where I was supposed to use a grappling hook for the first time.

First of all the instructions the game gave we're really poor so at first I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Eventually I figured how to choose to grappling hook from the inventory. So I fired the hook to the spot it was supposed to and I climbed (or more like reeled with this really slow dumbass device) up. Then I thought I have to jump from the rope and I can grab a ledge that was in front of me. So I jumped and dropped to the ground and died. So I watched a loading screen. Another try with the same method. Dead again. Loading screen again. Then I figured maybe i should go all the way to the top of the rope so I can jump from a better angle. Well I couldn't go all the way to the top (I have no idea why) but I went as high as possible and saw the roof where I was supposed to go below me. So I jumped. Dead. Loading screen. So I tried a new approach. I climbed high and started to swing on the rope and jumped while the swing was at the apex. You guessed it. Dead on the ground again. So I said fuck it and turned off the Xbox. The final method I tried was probably the right one but I somehow managed to fuck it up too. I'm not very likely to spin that disc again.

This is just a very simple example of bad game mechanics of a really simple task in the game itself. On top of that the game didn't bother to give me good instructions so I tried all the normal approaches and everyone of them failed. This reeling or whatever isn't fun at all nor does it play a crucial part of the game. So why make a mundane on boring task fucking hard and even give a possibility for the player to die in a situation like that?

Another example of a bad swinging mechanics is Call Of Juarez. I died like ten times before I got the hang of swinging with a whip. And while I was supposed to be learning this I was constantly being shot. Pretty fun eh? And even when I know how to actually use the whip to swing it's still not fun. Also you have to stand in some very special distance to the object you're trying to swing from to activate the mechanic. Even though the whip clearly reaches the object from a considerably longer distance. And the fucking loading screen again every time you fail the swing. Goddamn!

Lego Indiana Jones and Bionic Commando actually manage to make swinging fun. Two very different approaches to the swinging but are both easy and smooth to execute. In Lego Indiana Jones you just have to stand in a right spot and press one button and there! You just executed a swing with a whip. Bionic Commando's mechanic is more challenging but it's still easy because you have an auto-aim for the spots you can grab and you can grab them from a varied distances. I mean if you can't make a game mechanic fun or valuable to the experience somehow then don't fucking implement it! I could have easily played happily through XIII without thinking "boy does this game need a swinging mechanic really bad".