Death in gaming is back in style.

Death is back in style. Just ask blogger and scholar Ben Abraham, who's currently on a new playthrough of last year's African-set shooter Far Cry 2. A typical run through the game's campaign takes 30 or so hours, and you can save your progress along the way. If you succumb to a brushfire or take a hit to the head from a sniper, it's not a big deal: you just jump back to your last save and erase your mistake. But Abraham decided this wasn't enough of a challenge -- so this time he's playing for keeps. Living up to the title of his blog, Sometimes Life Requires Consequences, he's sworn that if he's whacked in the game, he will stop playing. Calling it the "Permanent Death" runthrough, he's been posting detailed notes and screenshots, and other gamers are following his example.

How does it change his play? Well, you can guess that he's being careful. He plots his course through the jungle to avoid guard posts and other risks, and he always keeps a buddy ready to watch his back. So far he's in the easy half of the game, but if he gets near the end and makes a fatal mistake, "I can certainly imagine being consumed with rage at the unfairness of the premature ending -- which itself somewhat mirrors feelings and reactions to death in the real world."

But let's take a look at what that thrill is. Initially, you may think that we had it better back in the days of coin-ops and arcades, when games were actually paid to kill you; every time you lost the game, you had to pump in another quarter. Naturally this kept you sharp and tweaked your adrenal glands. But I don't think that's what Abraham is after. After all, most coin-op games are repetitive tests of skill. Playing Nibbler for 44 hours is probably not the same as reaching the end of Far Cry 2. Games today have story arcs and character journeys. They have drama and surprises and denouements. And the designers are scared that all of you dumb players will keep messing up and missing these terrific endings they spent so much time on.

One genre today finds a happy medium, between a kind of narrative and a kind of mortality: roguelikes, the niche and nerdy descendants of Rogue and NetHack. These wonkish, low-tech adventure games have a long history and a diehard fanbase. But they all have two things in common: much of your adventure is randomly generated, giving you a different experience every time you start. And you'll start often, because in rogue-likes, death is permanent. As programming legend John Harris put it in a piece in Gamasutra, "Much of the time the player is gaining experience, he is in danger of sudden, catastrophic failure. When you're frequently a heartbeat away from death, it's difficult to become bored."