Maybe it's just me, but I'm noticing more and more games that have very little penalty for dying.  Battlefield Bad Company respawns you at your checkpoint and all enemeis you've already killed are still dead.  Bioshock (to my understanding) has the vita chambers and everything you've killed is still dead and all damage you've dealt (to a Big Daddy for example) still counts.  Force Unleashed respawns you at your most recent checkpoint.  The enemies have respawned, but you keep all of the experience you've earned which allows you to get more and more powerful and eventually beat that section.

Anyone else notice this trend?  I'm sure there are plenty more games than this that I've forgotten or just haven't played.

Do you like that type of game design or hate it?

Pro:  It means you'll almost certainly be able to beat the game eventually.

Con:  It takes away some of the challenge and satisfaction of beating a game.

I don't like it but it's not like this hasn't been a scourge for much, much longer than recently--it's especially irritating when a game only has one difficulty level and/or you have to go through the game once to unlock a harder one.

However, as a semi-relevant aside, I love when people complain a game is too easy because it provides unlimited continues--apparently not continuing never occurred to these Einsteins.

As I understand it, you can't die at all in the new Prince of Persia. Everytime you fall off a cliff or are about to be killed by an enemy, your companion rushes in and saves you.

 A game with unlimited continues can still be challenging if you have to start the entire level over again while keeping none of your experience or pickups.

Yeah. Its made games like Uncharted too easy because u always come back so close to where you died

I first noticed this type of thing in Conker's Bad Fur Day for the N64 ...

When you died in that game you would respawn at a check-point that was just moments before you died. Personally, I loved their implementation in that game because they could make elements insanely difficult while not making the game feel impossible or like it was cheating.

I'm not disagreeing with you but I was remarking about complaints about a game being too easy because it provides you with unlimited continues (and, thus, instead of simply only using one credit, you use them until the game ends which knocks the challenge down to zero in these cases), not when a game is so hard that even unlimited continues results in slow progression.

I like a challenge, as long as it is reasonable.

On the Megadrive I had the original Micro Machines.... it has no save functionality at all, thus to complete the game you have to do it all in one sitting, I did it once and thought "What was the point?" after all everything would be gone when I turned off.

On Lost Levels (Virtual Console) you get to continue with a spawn at the start, or middle of the level, but once you die 3 times it's back to the beginning again... also frustrating.

Zack and Wiki, and Super Mario Galaxy on the other hand, punished you by your idiocy in Z&W, or incompetance in SMG.... so you had to start the puzzle/star again, but they do not just put you back at the bit right before you started.... which is not cruel, but not too easy either.

I remember the early days of UO where you could loot players. It was crazy madness with packs of PKs running about killing anyone they could. It mas the most fun and the most frustrating experience I've ever had in gaming.

I'm not sure but in bb on intense if I die once it was the end so I guess that the penalty is right it depends on the game though.