Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra :: You're missing the crucial difference between life bars and lives.

[quote name="Fullofkittens"]If you have a lifebar, you think about how you're going to husband that resource. Will you be super careful and not spend it? Or do you decide you can get sloppy and get hit a few times, for the sake of trying something fancy? If you're playing a game with 3 guys, the assumption is that you will be playing the game perfectly. If you fuck up at all, you will die. The game demands no less than perfect play. However, since computers understand that humans won't immediately understand what's happening in a game, they give you a couple of extra guys to find out how to play. It's worth mentioning that we didn't used to call those units "lives" or "guys." We called them "tries." "This is a game that gives you three tries."[/quote]