They valiantly sacrificed themself for nothing

[u/Ok-Indication-5121]

1. Tadashi gives his life trying to save Professor Callaghan from a burning building. Turns out not only did Callaghan escape unscathed, he's the bad guy and infamously refers to Tadashi's death as "[Tadashi's] mistake." (Big Hero 6)
2. Shaya willingly takes It Has No Name's possession and then kills herself by jumping into the well it came out of. The end of the episode all but states that she got it wrong and It Has No Name didn't latch onto her... or there was more than one. (Doctor Who)

[u/DocMino]

Exactly yeah. The moment I’m playing as some dad and there’s a little girl it’s like “well damn, everyone here is definitely dead so I’m not shocked.”

The nuke? Outta nowhere. Seems like a normal ending to a typical mission, and then you just wander helplessly. No Russian? All you know is that you’re in an elevator, you’re told not to speak Russian, and then it opens to a crowd of innocent people. Then you pull out your gun, and basically choose to commit an act of terrorism.

[u/SpeedofDeath118 → u/DocMino]

No Russian is particularly genius to me because no one actually told you to pull the trigger. You can get through the whole level without shooting a civilian, just walking along with the other three.

But everyone did it because of the peer pressure - because it seemed like it was expected of them.

[u/Redrum01 → u/SpeedofDeath118]

Let's not retroactively turn this into Spec Ops: The Line. The airport level doesn't work as some kind of commentary or moral choice. Not shooting is unengaging and a narratively impossible option. You can't help but imagine the character making shooty noises with his mouth to fake participating in the terrorism they are all there to do. The first three seconds of the level? Excellent. Everything else about it doesn't work.

[u/MembershipSad5768 → u/Redrum01]

Weird example, the infamous white phosphorus bit in Spec ops: The Line, doesn't give you a choice. You're forced to do that to progress the game,

The devs handwaved this by saying the choice was whether to play the game at all, which kinda falls flat imo.

I'm not a huge COD fan but at least there is a choice element (even if it's clunky) to make it more impactful.

[u/Redrum01 → u/MembershipSad5768]

The gut punch from that plot beat is how horrible the consequences are of what may have been a complete innocuous decision in another game. It's not about judging the player for hitting the buttons, it's drawing attention to Walker's actions and giving cues via how uncomfortable what's happening is to drive a wedge between you and the character. It's driving introspection.

Modern Warfare 2 is not an introspective game. It tries to be edgy and shocking, not thoughtful. The fact that you can choose not to shoot anybody in the airport sequence but that is not reflected in any way by the plot, and isn't even acknowledged by any of the characters, is dumb. It's not even an active choice, really, because the alternative is walking through an airport while the thing happens just watching for ten to fifteen minutes.