10 Truly Horrible Things Video Games Made You Do
8. Flamethrowering Japanese Troops In Call Of Duty: World At War
Call of Duty's most controversial moment involved the player engaging in reprehensible actions, namely partaking in a terrorist massacre in Modern Warfare 2's level No Russian.
The player can get away with not pulling the trigger during the airport slaughter, though, only being forced into action when the Russian special forces show up.
In World At War's appropriately-named mission Burn 'Em Out, there is no such avoiding responsibility. The player is given the task of eliminating dug-in Japanese mortar crews during the battle for Peleliu, and given a flamethrower to do it.
It's the most intense moment of the game's Pacific Theatre levels, as you move through cramped trenches bathing dozens of Japanese troops in burning petroleum. They scream, struggle and and die right before your eyes, and there's nothing for it but to press on and keep doing it until the game says you can stop.
There are few more graphic and horrible ways to kill someone in a war game than with fire, and yet this is what the player is forced to do as the enemy closes in.