Gaming

This reminds me of a joke about BioShock I heard once (bioshock 1 spoiler)

At the end of Bioshock, when the game says to kill Andrew Ryan, I rebooted my console and deleted my BioShock save. A man chooses, a slave obeys.

At least an option to disengage within the fiction would be appreciated. I'm not too keen on this idea that closing the game works as a conclusion. A closed book doesn't have a different story. It's not like Walker will leave his path if you are not playing it. Without a different resolution, even the guilt that they try to lay on the player can't stick as well.

Same. When I played, at a couple points I tried to go all the way back to the beginning, when it seemed like the initial mission Walker was assigned was in some way fulfilled or inviable. When the game had absolutely no response to that, it kinda detracted from my appreciation for the message of the game. For all that it has to say about hero fantasies and the player engaging in it, it doesn't have any alternative to that. It needs the player to commit the sins that it wants to denounce.

Going in blind is the best. Unfortunately, it's probably pretty difficult to do, since spoilers are extremely rampant. I don't even know how I managed to do it. But it really is magical if you go in blind.

I think it does what it sets out to do really well. The only thing I view as a shortcoming is that it left me with very little desire to replay it, though I've heard that there are lots of different branching story options at different points, mostly based on if your character chooses not to do something that the game implies you're supposed to do.

It's not a "fun" game, but it's engaging and short enough that I think anyone could get through it without getting bored, and I think the metacommentary that you experience from playing it is worth it.

This is the first of his that I've seen, and I'll definitely be checking out more.

It's on steam I think

then maybe laying on so thick on how the player, and solely the player, is at fault for pushing it to the end, is if anything counterproductive to that.

This is the argument I've seen many other creators make that I've never bought into. No one's going to stop playing a game they purchased just because the game is accusing you of being responsible for the actions of the characters within it.

The argument that this creator is making, I think, is an assumption that if you are playing this game, then it's intrinsically because you're entertained by war shooters. Now that only really applies through a certain time period. Eleven years on from it's original release, the only people playing it for the past few years are likely doing so because of its reputation as a meta-critical narrative. But it was released into an environment saturated with similar games based on real locations and real conflict involving real people. And I don't think the intent was to target the player exclusively or even specifically for criticism, but rather that environment as a whole. Why was the industry uncritically making games glorifying violence inspired by real events (and Games as Literature does point out that the catalyst for this genre--MW4--was more cynical about its violence than the later games it inspired), and why were we enjoying them? And the response doesn't need to be, and really shouldn't be, "I should feel bad about this." The argument is that the response the developers seemed to be aiming for is something like "Am I being mindful about the way my enjoyment of this entertainment reflects or maybe even shapes my view of and interaction with the real world," if that applies to you. In other words: Do you feel like a hero?

With this interpretation, I disagree that the developers believed the issue "is all in the players' agency and mindset." You're not being scolded for playing through this war shooter, you're being urged to reflect on why people play through these kinds of war shooters, especially when the violence (as is common for the genre) becomes increasingly militaristic and (arguably) carelessly nationalistic. I concede there's an argument to be made it's too heavy-handed with that message or too accusatory in the wrong direction, but that's just a risk for this type of art and is ultimately a subjective response.