Mechanics Part 2

I found the article by Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek to be a  lot easier to decipher than Sicart's. The analogy of golf 'mechanics' being the clubs, balls and course hazards really simplified the idea of game mechanics. I suppose a personal definition could be that game mechanics are the means by which the player engages with the game world and how the game world affects the player's experience.
A simple arcade game I love is the classic Missile Command. The mechanics of the game are easy to learn and as the player advances through the game very little actually changes. The increase of speed of the missiles that threaten the player and the amount of missiles released is a very minimal change but the difficulty ramps up steadily. An interesting thing I noticed that nearly all the arcade games had was the lack of an ability to "win". The end state of games like Pacman and Asteroids is determined by when the player runs out of 'lives' or some other mechanic. The player has to lose to win and have their score recorded.