Help tracking down title?

[MightiMidget]

A friend of mine saw the first episode or two of an anime that she wanted to continue with, but doesn't remember the title. So, I told her I would ask you all very knowledgable people and see if any of you knew! Here is her description...:

It was about this large group of kids, like, from the same class, on some vacation, and on the beach they end up finding this cave with this creepy older guy in it, who asks them to play a game, and it goes all scifi technology and they enter into some game system.

And it's really about fighting some...robots, or aliens, or something that are attacking, but they all collectively control the one giant robot thing they're battling with, and they all have these special seats that remind them of special things from their past or something...in the giant robot control room.
and they never see the guy again. and one of the kids dies in the first episode.

That could describe quite a bit of things...but I've never watched mecha, so I dont really have any clue what that could be...

Thanks everyone.

[Davidizer13]

Sounds like Bokurano; I've never seen it myself (doesn't sound like my cup of tea - more on that in a bit), but what's been described sounds like what I've read about it. Apparently, though, it's not a happy show; it's soul-crushingly dark and depressing. That one kid who dies in the first episode? He's far from the last to die out of that group. I don't mean to discourage you from watching it, but just a heads-up, 'kay?

[MightiMidget]

Yay! Thank you, David!! And also thank you for the heads up, I passed it on.

[Atria35]

Sounds like Bokurano?

Yep, it's definately Bokurano- I've seen about half of it. And agreeing with the warngings about it.