User blog comment:Traditionalfire/Killing in games/@comment-5287758-20120920024918/@comment-3492791-20120925062616

How much you feel is Walker's fault (and by extension your own) depends on your level of immersion. Zxjkl brings up a good point (and this is actually a matter of debate), if we should feel bad about things the game told us to do.

If you are not well immersed in the game you will just say, "Well I wasn't allowed to do anything else so I don't see why i'm in the wrong. I literally had no other options". If you are highly immersed in the game, you realize that Walker in a position of command. He is responsible for his team and the mission. He makes all the choices, and the consequences for these choices fall on his shoulders alone. That is the reality of command.

For example, the White Phosphorous incident. You might say that he had no choice but to use the mortar, as he and his team would not have stood a chance against the army there. However, in truth what was the gain? All you knew was that Gould wanted to reach the "gate". You had no idea why, or what he intended to do. For all you knew it could have actually be a CIA camp, and he wanted to get there so he could defend the civilians being housed there. Walker made a poorly informed split second decision, in spite of being counseled against it. As a direct result of his decision, 47 innocent civilians (men, woman, and children) were burned alive. This is a great turning point during the game as well. I'm not afraid to admit visceral joy I felt when I saw all those white dots and blow them all into oblivion. In fact I believe that was the point. This is quickly tempered by the fact you just took so much joy in killing all those people, and you discover all those people were completely defenseless and innocent civilians trapped in a trench. This is further elaborated on by showing that the mother could do nothing more to protect her daughter than to just prevent her from seeing her impending death.

This is starting to make me feel woozy all over again.