One of the many differences between the video game world and our own is the ability to re-spawn. No matter how many times you mistime a jump, attack enemies with too much abandon, or get ambushed by cunning 12-year-olds, you’re always given the chance to come back into the game and try, try again. And because of this re-spawning, the deaths themselves, while always infuriating, can be just as enjoyable to witness as the more victorious moments. In fighting games, for instance, the death move is something to be savored as you humiliate your opponent and revel in your gory glory. Death, in video games, is something not so much feared as tolerated. It’s an annoyance, its finality only temporary, a place where taking a flying dagger to the face, totaling a speeding motor vehicle, or exploding in the infinite coldness of space is no biggie. Immortality, via a continue or restart, is just a button click away.Elevating these terminations from their position of frivolous abundance into something altogether more poignant is Boing Boing’s Rob Beschizza, who’s created a compilation of someone who’s really, really bad at video games killing character after character, set to the chiptune of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World.” The virtual stench of pixelated death abounds, as an annoying but inevitable hindrance is given some byte.[via Laughing Squid]
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