Videogamer writes: "X-Com: Enemy Unknown is one of my favourite games of all time. It's a stone-cold classic, a UFO-battling strategy title that features base-building, resource management, and tense field missions where your entire squad can be wiped out in seconds. It's about 16 years old now - the gaming equivalent of a smelly old dog, one with doddery legs who does terrible farts, but whom you love dearly anyway. The graphics look like cave paintings by today's standards, but time has done nothing to dent the brilliance of the core gameplay. In fact, I'd rather play Enemy Unknown than a lot of the stuff I've seen at E3. I'm deadly serious."
Dying or losing in video games is part and parcel of the experience and accepted as an occupational hazard. But some games take it way too far.
Lizard Lounge's Trevor Coelho writes:
"You’d be hard pressed to find an X-COM soldier more badass than Frida ‘Nitro’ Weber. On Day 1, after her first mission against Advent, she decided she wanted to be a grenadier. She thought of herself as a creator of sorts.
Yep, she really liked to make things. Like holes in walls – she loved to make those. Dead Advent? She enjoyed making them, too. She liked making dust and pulp, essentially, from things that were once solid and properly formed. It was her calling, she said."
Gamerant
Permadeath gaming has seen a huge resurgence over recent years. Giving players a single life or character with which to complete the game, games with permanent death as a mechanic are notoriously difficult, tasking players with keeping upmost concentration throughout their playthrough. More often than not, attempts may end in tears – but that won’t stop players from trying their hand once more.
