My hands hurt from holding my mouse so tightly and my heart’s pounding. In a few seconds, I will be wiped out by several siege tanks, but I don’t know this yet and what I don’t know is killing me. It’s a mirror match for 1v1 ladder play in StarCraft 2. I just placed platinum in the previous game and although I should be pleased, all I’m doing is panicking instead. Whoever said the most stressful part of SC2 multiplayer were the initial five placement matches hasn’t played afterwards–or at least hasn’t played them as someone as competitive as me.

The enemy appears as I’m debating taking a third expansion to support my burgeoning army. As I see him coming down the map, my mind stops and my stomach sinks. Seconds become minutes as I realize I am about to lose.

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Every once in a while a video game company does something worth telling the world about. Released yesterday, Valve’s new game Alien Swarm is one of those such things–and it wouldn’t have been possible without Steam and its large audience of varied gamers to distribute to.

I remember back when the name Steam wasn’t unanimous with quality and innovation. There was a time where it was disliked immensely. When it was first announced, a lot of the Counter-Strike and Half-Life community–including my whole CS clan, myself as well–were against Steam. Initially, in protest, a lot of us avoided installing Steam and refused to use it during our scrimmages. We went rogue for the first time, angered by the direction Valve was taking our favorite games in. We especially hated Steam because its introduction coincided with Counter-Strike 1.6′s launch. It was probably meant to granddaddy Steam into the gaming world, but the move mostly generated vitriol from then hardcore Counter-Strike fans.

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It’s 1993. I’m playing on my NES. I’m about to fight Bowser at the end of Super Mario Bros. It’s time for dinner, however, and my dad has called into the living room probably five or six times. I don’t want to eat because I’m about to finally save Princess Toadstool, but I’m seven and I have no choice so I put it on pause.

When I come back, after eating and doing the dishes, my console’s turned off. I stare in horror at my dad who is now watching television. And because the original game didn’t let you save due to technological limitations, I find myself back at the first level when I finally turn the console back on. There are eight more worlds left to go and I will never get close to the end again.

Games have been flirting with their portrayal of failure and game overs for years–they’ve been dodging the subject of death for even longer. Arguments have been made for and against severe consequences in the digital world for over two decades. Each game treats the topic differently. Some don’t let you save often if ever, others put a checkpoint around every bend. Sometimes, a game over screen means starting from the beginning while other times it just means restarting from an earlier level. And, in the case of Super Mario Bros., saving and thus restarting without penalty wasn’t possible until later titles in the series–the game over screen was permanent, whether it was reached by personal failure or an external error. When Mario failed, it was all over.

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