Normally when you die in a shooter, it's not your fault. Normally, it's because some other guy shot you. Or if you missed a jump, it's because the stupid developer put the jump there in the first place. But my first death in Red Faction: Guerrilla was entirely my own fault. I was trying to save detonation charges, so I had placed a hydrogen tank at the base of a tall tower I needed to destroy. I took several steps back before shooting at the tank, which would cause a large explosion and topple the tower.

Now you're probably thinking that I didn't step back far enough and blew myself up. We all know what that's like. Death by exploding barrel is the number four leading cause of death in action games. But that's not what happened here. From doing one of the destruction challenges, which is one of the many activities on Mars, I knew exactly how far to stand from a hydrogen tank to shoot it. It exploded just fine, with me standing a safe distance away.

And then came the cool part, which I imagine will never get old in Red Faction: Guerrilla. Watching the tower fall over, hopefully to land on some other building and smash it. The Rube Goldberg beauty of physics in motion, one part engineering, two parts chaos. The tower held for a moment on a single beam before the stress was too great. The beam groaned and snapped and the tower started to lean and lean and lean some more and fall and then...oh, wait, since I had simply stepped backwards from the hydrogen tank that caused the explosion, the tower was coming right towards me. Physics, don't you know?

And that was how I died the first time in Red Faction: Guerrilla: death by standing under a falling tower. By the time I finish the game, there will be 47 other deaths, most by gunfire, several by explosions. But you always remember your first.