Recent reviews by STALKER

"War is Hell" is a phrase often understood in fiction portraying armed conflicts. Combat can be a scary, deeply unsettling experience that weighs on the mind, however noble the goals.

Most military shooters aren't about that. Sure, they pay lip service to it, with narratives about intricate government conspiracies and pixelated atrocities (remember "No Russian", anybody?)

but at the core of the experience, the player isn't considered. He and his digital avatar are both rewarded (achievements, game progress, etc.) for shooting down everything in their line of sight. Regardless of how many people you kill, at the end of the day, you're still the good guy.

Without being Spoilertastic, you should play this game because it makes you think about how wrong that notion is.

You're player character's still a one-man army, and killing is still the only way to progress through the game. But with each life you take, both you and your player character learn to hate and fear your aptitude at violence, looking for some reassurance that your actions were justified, or at least, whether or not you had a choice.

When I put the controller down, I didn't feel like a bad person. It didn't make me hate myself.

But it did make me think: how complicit was I in what transpired in the game? And if I was complicit, is it really okay to play games like this?