Hmm, the most hilarious death I ever personally experienced in a video game was when I was attempting to comple the NYC level of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory without killing anyone. I was almost finished with the mission... I came up to a door, through which I could see the heat signature of a bad guy. I whistled to get him to come over to it, then bashed it open. Looking around for the unconscious body, I found myself baffled by its absence... until I noticed the gaping elevator shaft directly across from the door. Oops.
Though it's not directly player-controlled, the "Bloody Mess" ending to Fallout is awesome. Bastard... EAT LEAD!
My skill with hand-to-hand combat in Dead Rising has also brought about some memorable moments. Those annoying Green Beret guys are a lot less menacing when they are tumbling down the 'up' escalator into a horde of ravenous zombie, or being shoved violently into a 15 foot drop onto pavement... into a similar horde of ravenous zombies. Eviscerating 8 of them in a row as their comrades look on in stunned horror? Awesome.
Killing a certain orange soda-drinking teutonic cyborg with two or three 10mm rounds on hard difficulty? Stunningly anti-climactic, then suddenly hysterical... killphrases? Also funny as hell.
Anyone ever played Police Quest: SWAT 2? Much morbid fun was had when I played the terrorist campaign and, in one mission, escaped with the ransom money, the hostage it was supposed to be for, and in the process downed an entire SWAT team and the LAPD's helicopter (the chopper is not replacable, nor are the dead cops). Thank God real terrorists aren't so inhumanly skilled!
The guy in Morrowind who wears the Lord's Mail tragically drowned as he failed to take into account the fact that even though he could kill me in two or three hits, and my weapons were doing so little damage that a magnifying glass would be needed to confirm his health bar was moving, I was downing water-breathing and healing potions at a rate that made me glad urination is not present in that game (lest my character would have had to reenact a scene from Austin Powers, minus the amusing computer voice).
That part in Jade Empire where you can kill the trainee assassins, and they send a full-fledged assassin to spar with you? I couldn't help but laugh when I finished him with a harmonic combo, and the dialogue "But he was a full assassin!" began as an obscene amount of blood sprayed all over the place... along the same lines... the parts where you control the big hairy guy whose name I can't remember? Like PLAYING the Crazy 88 scene in Kill Bill. AWESOME. Using the musket on enemies that are supposed to be tough? Also awesome. There are more, but that's plenty for now.
