I was interested to read a recent Wired article critiquing the lastest edition of Prince of Persia for being too easy. More importantly, they were disappointed by a rather fundamental principle of the game: you can’t die.

Much as in life, being able to die in a game is part of what makes it good to be alive. Crucially, it makes it impressive to stay alive against the odds. Without sufficient consequences for poor performance, a game begins to lose its values - actions become meaningless when set against such a blank background.

As bizarre as it can seem for players to chant “bring back death!”, death is what we need. Like some cheesy figure in a war-movie, it makes us feel alive.

Tags: death, prince of persia

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Video Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.