20 Most Intense Video Game Moments Of The Decade

Spec Ops: The Line is an absolutely brutal game, and not in the way you might expect. While most military sims go for brutality through increased weaponry, explosive rewards and grisly blood filling the screen to indicate injury, Spec Ops went a different way.

We might never see its like again. Spec Ops focussed on the humanitarian tragedies of warfare, the everyday cruelty of the military itself and the difficult decisions soldiers must make in the heat of battle.

Just over halfway through the game, you’re tasked with plotting a air strike on enemy territory. The problem is, civilians are in the vicinity. You can try and aim around them, but the drone is nowhere near precise enough to miss them. Whatever you do, they get scorched with white phosphorus.

A monstrously painful chemical weapon used in real life warfare, white phosphorus sears flesh to the bone and causes an agonising death. That you can’t avoid civilians is entirely the point: this type of warfare is impossible without hurting innocent bystanders.

The game makes sure you’re fully aware of what you’ve done. Next you must walk through the streets of charred corpses, seeing children holding their mothers, putting a merciful bullet in any survivors.