Personally, I prefer games where death is not treated as the most horrible thing in the world and something that can't happen.

For instance, in RPGs, I prefer it when death doesn't prevent the character from gaining experience, and where resurrection is easy and has no permanent negative side effects. (Also, I don't like it when dead characters drop their entire inventory; Baldur's Gate 2 I'm looking at you.)

In fact, I actually like it in games when death is a reasonable strategic choice rather than something that can't happen. For instance, in Zelda 2 you can only die twice without being sent back to the beginning, but after dying, your health and magic are restored fully; sometimes the magic refill is what you need.

(Interesting anecdote; when I was playing Dragon Quest 9, my main character died at the end of the final battle. She gained enough experience to level up (but note that dead characters, while able to gain experience if they were alive during part of the fight, can't gain levels), and in the ending, because the main character had an important role in the ending, she was revived with 1 HP. It then took only an easy battle for her to gain the level.)

I can partly relate to that. Though I often choose to try one more mission late at night anyway, only to kick myself the next morning when I'm too tired to get up. Happened again today, after a lengthy battleship mission last night. Thankfully I didn't lose anyone. That is, except for an incredibly expensive plasma hover tank, which will cost more than half of the Elerium I looted from the battleship to replace :P

I don't get why we can't have both tactics and AI.

I beat the X-com remake with Ironman on. I was playing on Easy difficulty so it's not exacly something to brag about, it just made every decision matter more.

But of course! Especially in Blade of Darkness! If gog's version was more stable, had better compatibility with modern system and didn't crash often, i could do it again and again, at my heart's content! But now i couldn't... Game crashes too often in win7...

I also did that in Bloodlines, but game is very long... However, i never loaded and tackled each and every battle on the rocks. Combat is easy for a bloodthirsty vampire, anyway. I never got final death, unless i play with a weakling who begins with social skills favored first. One save per city and no need to ever load from it (4 days it took me to beat gog's version)! In the vanilla though i wouldn't do it or risk it; crashes had been very regular... In modern windows...

Then I don't feel too bad about missing it before it disappeared off of gog. A pity though, since I remember from the demo I played years ago that it was very good. Thankfully we still have Rune.

Don't loose hope! It might reappear here some time soon (obviously gog will make it have better performance in modern systems then, as usual)! And besides, in XP, it works like a charm!

Then a solution becomes clear: we need to obliterate this distracting social ritual known as "work".

Its like the end boss of any game; only to be beaten by very specific conditions. Either a critical hit from a lottery ticket could work or a an equally sized surprise inheritance from that rich relative I hear about the first time when I get said inheritance.

... or I make a Kickstarter :D

I used to play arcade games exactly like that. Losing life didn't mean only losing your progress, but also real money!

I have to admit I don't even try the ironman modes etc. where game saving is restricted. It is bad enough how in some Resident Evil or was it Silent Hill games you have less saves if you play the harder difficulty levels.

I openly save-scummed in e.g. ADOM and also occasionally in OpenXCom. I hate the idea of losing progress, especially as in those two games sheer luck plays quite a big role occasionally (e.g. one hit kills, your character falls into a pit and dies, one grenade kills half of your crew before you are even out of the ship etc.).

I might be fine with it if dying only came from me playing in a very stupid or negligent way, not from bad luck, ever.

All the freakin' time, man.
I've never 'tried' to play or enjoy the ironman stuff, because it's just a natural thing for me.

I don't mind getting angry due to ironman related problems... it's a good release.

Even with games that allow you to save scum; I never do it, and only have a single save file the whole way through haha XD

I never liked Diablo II until years later I tried playing with Hardcore character. With death no longer being trivialized, it is much more fun to play. It's a different mindset. And I just hate having to go retrieve my own corpse, y'know? Verturing out on a journey to find one's own corpse is just a bit too surreal for my liking.

Man I would be too scared. But I suppose if you're quick enough with the town portals / rejuvenation potions (never knew you could craft these in the cube) then you should be relatively safe. Or with that attack jump ability of the barbarian to quickly get away.

Or a blaster launcher kills your entire crew.... The problem for me with xcom and saving is that it's a slippery slope. I start by saying that I'll only save at the beginning of a month. Then that becomes the beginning of each level. And then that becomes only 2/3 times per level. Before I know it I'm savescumming to prevent the loss of a favorite soldier. That's all fine and well, if you're still enjoying the game. But for me it becomes boring at that point and the missions start to feel like a drag. I find that missions hold their excitement for me pretty much indefinitely if I don't save at all. Though I use lots of soldiers, and swap them out each mission, so I'm never at risk of losing all of my most experienced soldiers.

By the way the grenade thing can be avoided to some extent. From what I've read, the aliens like to target soldiers standing close together. Blaster Launchers are trickier. They aliens shouldn't see you in their turn I think, so you have to peek-a-boo them.

I've mentioned this before, but I prefer games where death is a strategic choice rather than something to avoid at all costs.

In Zelda 2, for instance, you can die twice without getting a game over, and when you die, your health and magic are restored. Sometimes the magic restoration is what you need to continue. (Of course, you do lose your unspent XP when that third death happens, and in the Japanese version, every attack/magic/level that is above the lowest one (so level 8/2/5 would become 2/2/2, for example).