Undead Slayer Review

Undead Slayer is a free to play iOS and Android game that puts players in the shoes of Ancient China’s most feared zombie slayer Xiahou Dun. He will fight the undead with nothing more than his oversized sword, his special moves and his...combat pets. More after the jump

Insert Coin to Retry: The Overcoming of Failure in Video Games

I still laugh at this picture. 

                                                      "We learn from failure, not from success"
                                                        Bram Stoker, Dracula

GAME OVER, YOU ARE DEAD, YOU HAVE FAILED and YOU HAVE BEEN KILLED are words that we see often, these words are usually colored red and are written in intimidating font. Yes my fellow gamers these are the words of the game over screens that all of us have seen at least once in our lives. However when we play a game there is a part of us that knows that failure will inevitably come biting at our very heels like some sort of rabid dog.

We have encountered (digital) death and failure so often that we tend to shrug it off but not before thinking about the mistakes leading up to our avatars kicking the bucket and then revising our strategies to ensure that the same mistakes will never happen again.

I have decided to go into the macabre topic of video game death and failure and see what motivates us to look at the Digital Grim Reaper in the face and laugh at his efforts to break our morale.

More after the jump, also note that there will be some minor spoilers ahead.