[zane]

death scenes add a certain atmosphere you cant get otherwise. It makes it feel like your actions matter and you should fear the unknown. Its superficial of course, but it adds to the fun. There are wrong and annoying ways to put death scenes into a game, but then there are wrong ways to make anything in a game.
One of the best ways to do it is to have a very small number of deaths that can only occur at climactic moments in the story to wake the player up. But games where you can die left and right can be done well too.

Darkstar is one of the very few recently made games iv played which uses alotttt of deathscenes. If there was a button to push, you had to consider it might be part of a plot to kill you. If you suddenly heard a new narration starting by peter graves, you knew you had met a new death. And that is part of what made the game fun. Without the intensity and dark humor it wouldv been a kindv boring myst clone.

I think where developers get in trouble with death scenes is when they make them a part of timed mini-games. When theres a patrol who constantly is bumping into you and making you reload, or when theres poorly made reflex minigames that kill you if you dont balance your mouse clicks right. I think a timed scene or two can be okay especially at the end, but for the most part death scenes are better if they involve static actions.