Video Games

I remember being especially pissed off about that because it was such a missed opportunity. I personally don't think there's any subject you can't tell a story about as long as you tell it well. Making the player complicit in a terrorist attack isn't in itself a bad way of telling an - admittedly - horrific story. But they really fucked the pooch on it. Instead of giving it the emotional weight something like that really needed, they treated it as a prelude to a firefight, and worse, resorted to cheap gags while doing it. (Oh, you're stopping me from running, and you're calling it 'No Russian/rushing'? How clever, and wonderfully appropriate!) I agree with @DethBeard, that most COD players are basically Jimmy from GTA, and if you just judge it by that level, COD got the players they deserved.

But I also remember another level from one of the other CODs where you're up in an AC30 gunship, hitting ground targets. It's eerily realistic because of the granular, black and white footage, the hum of the engine, the sparse radio dialogue, a disembodied voice telling you to shoot these little pixels on the ground, they don't look like people and you don't hear them scream. It's an incredible level because it must be almost exactly what it's like for the people who actually do it in real life, just as remote, just as sterile. There's no judgement if you hit or if you don't hit. It's totally terrifying. I thought that was a fantastic bit of storytelling, and incredibly subversive to be tucked away in the middle of a all-guns-blazing shooter.