BTW, I love how every single modern philosopher get's the mission wrong. It was written briliantly not because "did you know you didn't have to shoot? You did so yourself..." but because even after you shoot everyone you meet, it doesn't matter. You get the bullet too.

That betrayal was gut punching. (no pun intended) in a way, that only games can show. You felt the weight of the entire mission collaps on you knowing, that you were just another pawn in someone elses plan, and that you were alive only, because someone else wanted to use you one more time.

Not too long after this is also about when graphics peaked and then started to actually get worse. In my opinion it was when the controlled demolition of the games industry began to take place.

@LukeAlmighty
Peak of western civilization was in 1969, it has been spiraling downwards ever since.

@LukeAlmighty I wouldn't say it was the peak of Western culture by any means, but it basically accomplished everything the "games as art" crowd wishes it could have. It's a game series all about killing the bad guys and saving the day, and you open a scene with four serious-looking guys with machine guns in an elevator. You expect some sort of hostage rescue or something along those lines, but instead they just start mowing down random people at the security gate of an airport. They're screaming, horrified, trying to get away, but they're all just getting mowed down like blades of grass. It's beyond shocking and you find yourself questioning everything. If you're supposed to participate, what exactly's happening, why this is in the game, if you're secretly a good guy or actually playing a bad guy, just so many questions. And you're left totally in the dark until the mission ends and the same guys you're with shoot you in the head. It's subversive and gut-wrenching in a way that the most pretentious indie dev wishes it could pull off, and it's part of the most mainstream series in gaming apart from Mario.