10 Video Game Hallucinations That Melted Your Mind
4. Colonel Konrad - Spec Ops: The Line
Spec Ops: The Line is one of the most subversive shooters ever made - seemingly yet another gung-ho exercise in military fetishism which ultimately reveals itself to be stridently anti-war.
The turning point for protagonist Captain Walker occurs after he inadvertently deploys white phosphorus on a civilian camp, killing 47 innocent people.
After this, Walker's mental state begins to deteriorate for the game's remainder, as he attempts to shield himself from the atrocities he and his men have committed by effectively inventing his own unstable reality.
Namely, the radio conversations Walker believes he's been having with Colonel Konrad throughout the game are entirely fabricated in Walker's mind, given that Konrad died long before Walker even arrived in Dubai.
The game ultimately climaxes with the trippiest hallucination of all: Walker and "Konrad" confronting one another. Depending on the player's response, the sequence will either end with Walker killing himself or purging Konrad from his mind.
Whatever the outcome, the result is a potent, shocking statement about the lingering damage of war beyond mere body counts.