Here are the Halloween-Tunes you have ordered

Since Halloween is getting creepily closer, I was digging up some of my old Gothic-albums. Literally digging: Some, which I haven't played for years, were buried under meters of dust!

For example Lacrimosa. I totally forgot how good they are:

A bit Untoten:

Christian Death - yay Rozz Williams!

Bauhaus - not only great architects!

Wojciech Kilar, Dracula's favorite composer:

And - last but not least - Queen Adreena!

Happy Halloween!

The Adventures of a Mage in Skyrim - Part 3

The Path Of The Mage

Waking up early next morning I started my journey by taking the road to the north, passing the northern watchtower and the farms (always looking for herbs to gather and – yes I admit: wildlife to hunt). At first my journey went pretty uneventful. I enjoyed travelling in the safety of the local guards but soon I left the last guard behind me I began to be more cautious. If the recent days have taught me one thing, then that death may wait for you around every corner here.

Entering the mountains.

The further I got northwards and closer to the mountains the colder became the weather. A few times I saw the huge fires the giants make in the distance. But I stayed on the road, in relative safety as I assumed. I also kept away from any ruin or cave entrance, because I was really in no condition to challenge a group of bandits or whatever else might hide in there.

Despite my safety precautions I suddenly had the odd feeling I was stalked at. And indeed just moments after I saw a thick splash landing just next to me. A spider was attacking me! I immediately started dodging and firing bolts at it but both my dodging and the agility of the spider made it hard for me to land a hit. The beast shortened its distance to me surprisingly fast, trying to attack me with its big, poisoned fangs. That was my chance: being so close there was hardly a possibility to miss it, so I kept sending firebolts against it, while healing my wounds with my other hand. It was a pretty close call but after all the spider was dead at my feet. I gathered some of its venom and then continued my journey.

Not long after this unpleasant encounter, I had another opponent taking his chance against me. It was an Argonian I think, dressed in a strange dark armour I have never seen before. He was wielding two daggers, not hesitating to attack me at all. It was in fact easier to kill him than the spider. He must have been a beginner just like me. After examining his body I was shocked though: there was an assassination note by the Dark Brotherhood itself! The letter showed clearly my name and was signed by some Astrid.

I can't say this made me feel safer. I must have woken the attention of somebody. But who? The imperials? No, they have their own spies. And why should they bother about some nameless escapee who had absolutely no significance for them until a dragon just happened to reappear after thousands of years, allowing her to escape the headsman?

This didn't made sense to me after all. I had to be prepared if another one tries where this murderer failed. And I had to find out why I was so important for them. The latter seemed to be the more difficult thing actually. I had no idea what fate or gods or whatever had waiting for me.

Beginning to ask myself if the journey was that a good idea.

My walk seemed endless and the road to Winterhold got more and more snowy and the landscape to the left and right showed no trace of civilization at all. I was totally on my own. With the little skills and equipment I got so far. I became angry about myself for getting me into all this. Ambitions are nice, but were they worth it being killed by some beast or assassin, or freezing to death in a snowy nowhere?

I don't know how or why, but I just carried on. Even if the path did lead me into the mountains. Stubbornly following this silly marking somebody I knew for just a few moments did draw on my map in far away Whiterun. The air became thin and the sky above me was as clear as crystal and endlessly blue. I felt I must have been above the clouds already and my path just kept on leading me into the unknown. A few wolves attacking me here and there showed me at least that I wasn't the only creature alive out there. And they gave me the opportunity to train my skills, even if that wasn't really something I cared much at this time. I just wanted to survive.

After wandering through this stony and snowy desert for far too long I suddenly saw a gigantic human silhouette appearing in the distance. The wind blew snow in my face so I couldn't get a clear view at it until I came closer. It was too large for a giant, and it didn't move. Approaching the figure I realized it was a huge statue. It did wear a long tunic like dress, holding the sun and crescent in her hands. I recognized it suddenly: It was Azura, the Daedric Prince and goddess of the Dark Elves. The statue was standing on top of a mountain, with steps leading up to it.

My heart jumped in relief. Perhaps there were pilgrims – and pilgrims mean safety and perhaps some warm drink or food!

I suddenly saw a gigantic human silhouette in the distance.

And indeed, at the feet of the statue, high above the surrounding mountain peaks there were two people. One turned out to be a pilgrim, the other was an old Dunmer lady who pledged to tend the shrine and told me she did see my coming already years ago.

Saying I was perplex to hear this is an understatement. How could she know? How could Azura know? I didn't even know I was coming here before I actually saw the statue itself!

Anyway. The Dark Elf lady told my with some regret that she did wait all the years to give me the task to retrieve an artifact for her Goddess some mage has stolen from her long ago: The Star of Azura. As I gathered the star is some kind of soulgem, which can unlike the usual ones, almost indefinitely reused. The mage wanted to use the special properties of the star to become immortal and is hiding now “in a fortress endangered by water”.

Still pretty confused and exhausted I told the lady to keep my eyes open for the star. Later the old Dunmer showed me the right direction to the Mages College and bid me farewell. When walking down the steps of the shrine I began to realize this all might be a much bigger thing than I would have ever thought: Assassination attempts, Daedric Princes foreseeing my appearance, a dragon interrupting my execution... quite a start into my new life, wasn't it?

Exhausted I entered the gorge leading me to the town of Winterhold. I had no idea what would await me but at least the landscape looked roughly like the priest of Azura did describe. And indeed: suddenly thatched roofs began to appear in the distance and after walking down a slope I was in the middle of – one of the most miserable places I have ever seen.

Winterhold, the city of the famous Mages College wasn't more than a handful frozen houses dotted along a windy and very empty road. To say I was disappointed would be about as understating as saying it was rather chilly up in the mountains.

It didn't took long till I found the town's inn, which did greet me at least with some warmth and a few friendly words by its keeper. They obviously didn't get awfully many visitors.

After some inquiries I got indeed confirmed that this is the famous Winterhold and that there is indeed a Mages College. The city however fell onto hard times. Or to be precise: most of the city fell into the ocean after a flood-wave from Morrowind hit the shoreline caused by the eruption of the Red Mountain many decades ago. Only the College remained unharmed, which lead to accusations it was the evildoing of the mages there which caused the city's downfall.

After hearing this I wasn't really surprised anymore that mages have such a bad reputation in Skyrim. And I was going to become one of them?

I might have been in doubt for a moment, but after all – what other chance did I had? I came so far, wandered through snow and mountains, fought beasts and a assassin just to give up and go back now? Back where to? There was nothing I could return to and who knows if I would have survived the way back to Whiterun at all. And even if I would: what should I have done there? Going on and trying to eke out a living as I did before the whole getting-caught-by-the-legion-and-getting-almost-beheaded-thing started?

No way. There was no turning back. If they want to hate you for being a mage, then at least be a damn good one.

I suddenly felt pretty lighthearted and offered the innkeeper to cheer folks up a bit with some songs. Which he accepted. So I earned me a bed for the night. And a few septims pocket money too. They weren't so happy about me practising magic though. Especially summoning fire atronarchs in your room isn't really something the average Nord cheers about. Even if it warmed up the place pretty nicely.

Site seeing in Mordor

A while back Shadow of Mordor got an update adding a "Picture Mode". This is a really quite powerful tool and is really quite nice to have a play with. I am really looking forward to seeing some of the amazing images people can now make with this, Below are a few of my attempts.

The Adventures of a Mage in Skyrim - Part 2

Whiterun

The first view of Whiterun

The walk to Whiterun gave me quite some time to think about the recent events. There I was: free again, just escaped from death and with the vague idea that I couldn't go on living as I was living before. It was time to make use of my talents and to stop wasting them. I began to pick the flowers and collect the mushrooms I found on the roadside, tasting and analysing them to learn their properties: I wanted to learn alchemy.

As the road lead me up through the mountains I got attacked by a pack of wolves. Again I wasn't wearing a weapon. Not even a single piece of armour to protect me, nor a shield to bash with. Instead I relied on my fire spell again and burned them to death.

It might sound like a trivial thing for me to have killed several legion soldiers and wild beasts, but believe me. It wasn't. It was not easy for me at all, but a necessity. I wouldn't be able to tell you about my adventures now if I hadn't defended myself.

You have to know that I don't start a fight unless it is inevitable and I don't wish death to anyone. But I want to get out of things alive and if I have to make use of my magic powers for this, so it has to be.

Before the Jarl

When arriving Whiterun I got already a nice collection of herbs and mushrooms together. Even some of these strange, glowing Nirnroots which grow at the shores of the White River, where Whiterun has got its name from. I could barely wait to experiment with them, but my first way lead me up to Baalgruf's palace towering over the city.

I never was at a place like this and the sheer size of the throne room made me silencing my steps and quietly walk towards the Jarl. I barely made it past the steps as his bodyguard, a fierce-looking dark elven woman approached me with her blade drawn. Blocking the way. Eventually I was allowed to approach the Jarl because of the news I had about Helgen.

I somehow must have impressed the Jarl because just as I finished my report he took me to his court mage who asked me to find an ancient artifact for him. The so-called dragonstone. A runestone with the locations of all dragon tombs known. He told me I could find it somewhere in the ruin of Bleak Falls Barrow. I didn't felt quite ready for such a task, but accepted anyway.

I also bought a few spells from him, even if I was not sure if I would be actually able to cast them.

As a thank-you for my efforts in warning him of the dragon he also gave me a steel armor. I'm sure he found such piece very fitting for me. He must have taken me for an adventurer.

After my stay at the Jarl's Palace I decided to turn the things I had no use for into gold (byebye armour!) and then having a try in making some potions. The local alchemist, Arcadia, was very nice and allowed me to use her alchemy-lab. The mixing went pretty nice as I didn't blow myself up and I made my first potions, which were actually good enough to sell them to her!

It was already evening when I left the alchemy shop. So I went for a bed to the local Inn. The owner gladly accepted my offer to play to the guests for a stay overnight. I am pretty skilled in playing instruments and singing (one of the talents I brought from my former life) and after a few songs crowd and propriertress were pleased and I did fall into bed like a stone.

The next day was lovely warm and sunny. I think the weather there is usually rather mild for Skyrim. While strolling through the city and linking up with people, I wondered how it would be to settle roots there one day - once I have the resources and made myself a name as mage. It became to me more and more clear that this is the path I want to go: I wanted to become a mage. I asked around a bit and learned eventually about the Mages College in Winterhold, far in the north-east of Skyrim. I knew instantly this is the place I had to visit.

I also did chat with a friendly girl of about my age with the name Ysolda. She wanted to establish herself as merchant in the city and in order to impress the Kajiit traders, who roam through the land, she told me she needed a mammoth tusk. That's a pretty unusual gift if you ask me, but I agreed to get her one. After all she offered me to show me some haggling tricks in exchange. Something I could really use to get a foot on the ground financially.

I also learned about an ongoing conflict inside the city. Two clans, the Greymanes and the Battlebornes are at a feud with each other. One side, the Greymanes are supporting Ulfric, the other clan did side with the Empire. You could almost forget there was a war going on outside when you are in that beautiful and peaceful city. But soon enough it seems, something just has to remind you of the ongoing chaos and violence throughout the land.

The rest of the day I spent with wandering around the walled city, looking for herbs to collect and deer to try my newly learned spells at: Because one of the spells was a pretty powerful firebolt.

It went pretty nicely until I came to a recess in the rocks just west of Whiterun. Suddenly bandits did swarm towards me and shooting with arrows! I didn't expect to find an opportunity to test my newly learned combat skills so soon (especially since they weren't really worth to mention at all), but I had to defend my very life. So I started running and dodging their attacks while keeping on sending firebolt after firebolt at them. Luckily I had already a good stock of potions which helped me restoring my magical powers which would have been exhausted pretty quickly otherwise.

I knew if I made it to the city guards I would have been safe but I was pretty far away from the gate still and the landscape was rough, making running in a straight path impossible.

I was very lucky indeed that day. Somehow I managed it to take them down one after the other. My running away caused them to spread so thin that they couldn't give each other assistance. I think that saved my life that day.

Upon returning to their hideout I served myself on their supplies before returning to the safety of the city of Whiterun. I knew the next day would see me leaving for the Mages College in Winterhold. So I had to be well rested and my stock of potions restored.

Yes, This Stuff Is Fictitious - But Also So True

Games likely have a higher cultural significance than movies nowadays. They are not only more immersive (you are the center of the action after all, not just observing actions of others) and entertain you on a much longer time-scale, they also can create a much denser and sophisticated world than films can do.A good - and pretty spooky to be honest - example is Wolfenstein: The New Order. Just take a look at the gallery of the in-game propaganda poster the austrian newspaper der Standard has published:

(c) Bethesda softworks

(c) Bethesda softworks

(c) Bethesda softworks

(c) Bethesda softworks

(c) Bethesda softworks

Now don't tell me that's not scary! This glance on a world that has never been, but if history had taken a different turn, would been at least possible (ok, perhaps not cyborg-shepherd's dogs).

Wolfenstein is a perfect (even if pretty drastic) way to show you how subtle propaganda sneaks into people's conscience. Its artwork might look strangely scary, but also quite funny to us: nazi dog food - haha! But it is made in the very same hyperbolic style the real propaganda was. Hard on the limit of satirizing itself. This makes the Wolfenstein artwork so strong: It looks as if its just an inch away from a possible alternative history, catching up on the typical agitation and propaganda artwork of the first half of the 20th century.

My point is: yesterday it was propaganda. A pretty blunt in-your-face way of mass manipulation. In a world where you can't escape being bombarded with such imagery, you sooner or later just adapt it into your own mental world and know how to behave accordingly. such weird stuff actually worked!

Today the ways of manipulation are more subtle. But commercial advertisement campaigns or political spin-doctoring have just the very same goal: Infiltrate the public conscience with what they want you to think and how to believe.
The lie can't be too big really. You can still make people swallow it, if you just repeat it often enough and on large scale, people will build up tolerance. Its the same psychological mechanism.

The Adventures of a Mage in Skyrim

A Mage - in Skyrim!

Preface

I rarely play games lately, but one I always come back to is Skyrim. I'm playing the Elder Scrolls-series since Morrowind and enjoy their open and very dense world. I got the habit though to play more or less with the same set of skills: light or heavy armor, sword, bow and arrow, additionally some healing, a bit alchemy (to poison blades and arrows) and of course smithing. So basically a pretty physically and well-armed character. For this adventure though I wanted something different which I haven't played yet in this depth: I decided to play a mage!

When starting with this game-diary I soon realized that its going to be a much longer narrative than expected. I think it takes me roughly the same time to write my adventures down as it actually took me to play them!

Since this project soon became something rather big and because I don't like to ”write into the drawer”, I wanted my text published. If anybody likes it or not is not my priority though.

As for the story itself: I write it down as it happened. Of course I might shorten or extend some events when I find it suiting and add or remove minor events. Usually to develop the story or characters, or when taking a narrative short-cut to avoid repetition. I want my player character being believable and “alive”. She has her motives, interests and principles and I think they reflect mine to a degree. So don't expect her to be a heartless villain. Believe it or not: that would simply not be me!

The skills my character develops and the items she uses reflect my premise: She won't wear any armor nor use any weapon other than a mage's staff. Her priority will be the school of magic. And she will make use of it in which way ever it suits her.

She will also pick locks where needed, persuade and make the occasional jewelry. But without putting too much emphasis on any particular non-magic skill.

The game itelf is quite modded, but with emphasise on a believable, lore-friendly world. There will be no Über-weapons or other silly things I regard as cheating. My character will be able to perform as bard (thats part of her background story), she will get drunk (just a hilarious mod!), might help to rebuild Helgen, run in general into more civil-war related events (several mods which add more NPCs to the game) and instead of dying she will be at the mercy of the Death-Alternative mod (much better than just relying on a safegame), in addition to Sanguine's Debauchery (where the player can get enslaved by the victor). There will also be the Devious Devices mod plus the Captured Dreams Store active. Some may object these mods because of their BDSM-content, but I understand them not as terribly lore-unfriendly really. People are people after all. In whatever setting they are. I'm though not decided yet about the degree these things will find their way into the narrative. It is quite possible that they don't appear at all. After all they are not the emphasis of my diary, rather an option my character can take if her story leads her that way.

As for the difficulty-setting I decided to use the neutral Adept-level, where player has no penalties when dealing or receiving damage, but also no bonuses. I find both pretty silly.

Additionally I have installed the Immersive Difficulties-mod set to Jarl level, which spawns more tougher enemies than the vanilla game. Since your character is at some point stuffed with potions and magic equipment this slight disadvantage just seems fair to me. It makes especially the early stages of the game more difficulty, which will of course find its reflection in the story itself.

This should give you the outlines of what awaits you in my text. Now if you excuse me, I slip into character.

The Adventures of a Mage in Skyrim

An Unfriendly Welcome

Well I guess being tied up and sitting on a carriage to my execution isn't the best way to start the story of my life in Skyrim, but my story prior to my arrival wasn't really glorious. So I prefer to lay a veil of silence about my life before the remarkable events I'm going to tell you about.
The carriage was heading (no pun intended) to Helgen, where the imperial legion has prepared us a very special welcome. I can't say the welcome was very cheerful, but we certainly had their attention. We, that was - by the way – Ulfric Stormcloak, the leader of the Nord-rebellion against the Empire, his companion Rolof, two people who's names would never learn: a horse-thief and another of Ulfric's soldiers - and myself.
When waking up on that carriage I had little idea in what trouble I was into, but when listening to the other prisoners talking I realized pretty quickly that we were all going to die for high treason. Whether I was being involved in the rebellion or not didn't matter for the Imperial soldiers. I was caught while crossing the border near the place where they ambushed Ulfric and that was obviously enough to be guilty.
As the carriage arrived at Helgen the Legion was already busy with preparing the execution. It seems they were just waiting for us to arrive.
I got a glimpse of hope I might get out alive of this after one of the soldiers told his captain that I wasn't on their list - the Empire loves their lists after all, as Rolof pointed out. But the captain simply decided that I was going to die too despite me being obviously a born citizen of Cyrodill!
Running for my life wasn't an option. The horse thief who was on our carriage tried it and got shot down by archers after just a couple of steps.
The rest happened like in a dream. The first head did fall, blood was gushing to the ground (I really shouldn't have looked) and just after a Legion boot kicked the lifeless body of the first deliquent away from the block, I heard the Captain crying that I would be the next.
I didn't at all expect the thing that would happen next. It is now of course part of Skyrim's history just like the war itself already is. No matter how it will turn out in the end.

I got lead to the block, brought down on my knees and bent over it. The last thing I thought I would see was the jagged and bloody headman's axe raising over me. But just when I was about to close my eyes waiting for the inevitable, a loud roar of thunder made the earth shake.
A huge, black silhouette did land on one of the towers just behind the headsman. It was a dragon!
The beast's roar – I had no other words to describe that sound – sent the headsman to the ground. My life was saved – but for how long? I was still bound and totally disorientated. There was chaos everywhere. Fire came from the sky and people started running around in panic. Some soldiers tried to attack the beast but to no avail.

Finally I came to my feet and started running for my life. It is hard to remember exactly what happened in the next few minutes before I was in relative safety. There was fire everywhere, people shouting and buildings collapsing. Within moments the execution became a battlefield.
I somehow made it to the keep where I could catch some breath. I met Rolof again there. He took of my bindings and offered me to take the uniform and axe of a dead Stormcloak who was laying on the floor.
I have to say I was quite moved by his offer - well he ordered me to do so – but still. I politely refused and told him that I never pick up a weapon. He was pretty surprised to hear that, but I told him I prefer to use the few magic skills I taught myself. It wasn't much really, but somehow it was enough to get out alive.
In hindsight I am pretty surprised how well I handled myself. It seems in moments of great danger we are able to mobilize energies in ourselves we never thought we had.

We soon ran into some legionaries who attacked us despite the much bigger thread waiting outside for all of us. Ironically the first legionarie we encountered was the captain who ordered me to the block just moments ago. I burned her hide with my fire spell. And I really enjoyed it. I even found a set of mage's clothes not long after. Which I enjoyed wearing quite a bit too. Not only because they were looking pretty fancy, but also because they were enchanted to subtly support my magic skills.
Making our way through the castle wasn't easy. Walls were crumbling everywhere and more than once we just barely escaped the dragon or falling boulders. Eventually we found a underground passage, which obviously hasn't been used in years, if not decades. The passage lead to a cave and we fought our way through spiders and a man-eating bear up to the surface. Towards freedom.

When getting out of the cave the sun was shining on us and the world looked so peaceful as if there never had been an execution or a dragon. This lasted only a moment though, then Rolof told me to get down and we saw the massive black beast flying over the mountains heading north; towards Whiterun.

I am still grateful to Rolof. Not only for helping me getting out of almost certain death but also for the generousity he showed me afterwards. Together we walked to his home town Riverwood. With a short stop at some standing stones which granted me their blessing on the way of the mage. Something not too common here, as he told me, since magic has a bad reputation in Skyrim.

A first look at Bleak Falls Barrow

When arriving at Riverwood he introduced me to his family as a friend, something which really moved me. They offered me to share some of their supplies with me, which I gladly accepted. I literally had nothing but the clothes I was wearing and a handful of things I did pick up in the keep. We did spread the news of the dragon attacking Helgen and I got asked to go to Whiterun and warn the Jarl about the threat. Of course they couldn't have sent Rolof, one of Ulfric's most prominent companions. The city, so they told me, was officially neutral, but with a strong imperial influence.
It's no lie when I say I had at least sympathies to the Stormcloak rebellion at this point, even as born Imperial. Who would argue with me about my affinities after the Empire showed me its most ugly side? And it was after all a Stormcloak who helped me getting out of this hell alive. My good impression though would change during my travels through Skyrim. But more of this at a later point.

The Deadening of Death

An integral part of most games is death. However it tends to really just come down to the same simple form of die re-spawn over and over. This really dose show in how games are done, both mechanically and emotionally they tend to be bland experiences mostly giving you frustration more than anything else.

Personally I am a big fan of games like Total War, but if anything games like that really do devalue death in a huge way. For example a sound tactic is to hire mercenary units and get them all killed in a forlorn hope in the same turn so you don't need to pay the huge upkeep costs. Really most games of this type can have this issue, of needing to be the cold calculating commander willing to throw units away for the bigger win. But then again the original Starcraft really did push a quite amazing story with characters that you cared about, but when it came to using the characters and a loose condition if they died, well they just never got used. But then again RTS games tend to have you more detached from the characters and world.

Another example is Titanfall, a game mostly about killing, and lots of it. One of the focuses is on killing the poor “grunts” to advance the summoning of your robot. This is a little odd as no reason is really given to why the poor guys are so crap and gunning them down helps your robot build quicker, but that is not really the point and is an interesting way of doing things. However an attempt is made at the end of each battle to add “value” to your life as a character, mostly if you have lost. When every battle ends the loosing side gets a small amount of time to get to a drop ship and escape, they have one life to do this as the rival team shoots them as they run or just blows up the unarmed ship. My biggest issue with this is the jarring jump from being killed with no downside other than annoyance to being forced to care suddenly about my character. As much as I hated the end part of the battles, you can't be too annoyed at people trying new things out.

Come to think of it is part of the issue the shooting down of escape craft to win a battle part of the issue? I find more and more in games that the tricky issue of death is glossed over or ignored in favour of game play, or simply convenience.

An example of this as a game play issue is War Thunder, another flight game that rewards xp for hits on opposing planes, a sound idea. It gets a little morbid when people find out you still get the xp for hitting planes that are clearly crashing, meaning people really try tear apart a plane that is already on fire and spiralling towards the ground. But would people still shoot if you did not get the xp? Is all this an example of worrying too much and not enough shooting stuff, or the fact everything has gotten a little stale?

On the other hand some games can really over emphasize death, take for example the new Tomb Raider. I found while playing that you can die in lots of situations and far too many have detailed "snuff films" regarding the character, having her neck broken, impaled shot ect. This has lots of issues not regarding that fact they are disturbingly brutal for the most part, but also the fact you need to watch the damn thing every time you fail the same bit, really annoying me as I want to get back to the game to try it again.

Recently Rouge-like games have really started to surface, anything from dungeon crawlers to colony builders all very final in death. Death is the end, start again.

I only play a few games like this and namely Rimworld and Xcom. I do however find that after hours of building a colony or levelling up a character just for it to be torn apart due to luck or a blunder is more frustrating than anything else. But then again it adds far more weight to a mission if effort hangs in the balance, but seldom do you care for anything more than that, not the characters who die along the way. The mechanical idea is fine but it dose not really make you connect to it as it makes death a certainty, it will happen, and you will likely be annoyed.

However quite recently Rimworld did release an update that really expanded on the damage system of the individual character, now every area of the body and internal organ can be shot, injured and destroyed. This really dose add tension to the game as a hit that fails to kill a character can have long lasting effects and can really add to the story of the colony.

After spending quite some time trying to dig out a situation in a game that made me emotionally respond to death, I finally recalled Gunpoint. In Gunpoint one of the characters ends up being framed for a crime and due to your actions before even knowing this situation you make it worse. You can try and change what happened, you can be honest you can lie, but her death will happen and made all the worse not just from your actions but also the innocence of her character. Really only leaving you with the chance for revenge, something she never wanted to begin with.

One of the big problems with death in games, is well being dead is inconvenient. Some games try and mix it up, Prey for example put you into an odd spirit realm to kill ghosts to go back, or something …. But that was busy work for the most part. Fable 2 had an interesting idea, when you die, you get back up in a triumphant flourish and carry on. However you will now have a scar on your character and it will be different dependent on how you died, this means you can get a really grissled look to your character adding to the personal character building narrative. A more recent example is Shadow of Mordor, a game about killing orcs but with a twist, all the orcs have a hierarchy and it can be manipulated and used against them in the mechanics, but the interesting is part is your death as a character can go towards shaping the individual captains, giving them grudges, promotions and being able to narratively mention the fact they killed you previously. This is something I really like from a player side, it gives depth to death without making you go back endlessly to carry on with the same bit you just can't seem to do.

Personally I do enjoy alternate death as a mechanic more than I a more finalised death, injuries, capture, transformations and countless other things can be done to break up the monotone drone of death. Some games such as Skyrim to host a number of mods to add more interesting elements into games, and we are seeing more and more interesting ideas so with any luck this will be a thing of the past.