The airport scene in Modern Warfare 2 is the single most upsetting moment I have ever experienced while playing a videogame. Infinity Ward realized that the level might be too much for some people, so before the game starts a message pops up asking you if you want to experience this controversial level or skip it with no penalty. If you don’t want the level spoiled for you I suggest skipping this article with no penalty, until you have played it for yourself.

You are an undercover CIA operative working to infiltrate a very bad organization. The level starts with you and a group of heavily armed men strolling into an airport. Very quickly the men begin firing into the crowd.

My jaw dropped, as I realized what was happening. As they started to mow down innocent people, my first reaction was to turn and shoot the bad guys, but the game restarted the level telling me not to shoot them because it would blow my cover. I was forced to walk along with them as they murdered countless people. Some of them begged for their lives, others that had been wounded tried to crawl away, only to be gunned down.

I am no gamer saint. I have gleefully mowed down civilians in GTA and giggled as blood spewed out of the heads of pedestrians. I don’t usually think twice about killing little digital representations of people, but this was different. This didn’t feel like anything I have ever experienced in a game.

I didn’t feel bad. I felt wretched.

It was like a punch to the gut as it dawned on me that I couldn’t stop this. The level doesn’t feel like it was included for shock value or to create controversy. It felt like the developers wanted the player to feel powerless as they witness this atrocity.

I will leave it for another time to debate the question of whether or not a video game can be art. But I will say that there are very few works, in any medium, that have had the sort of impact that the Airport had on me. I was outraged, shocked, pissed off, and powerless all in the same moment.

Maybe it was a question of timing. The nation is still reeling from the tragedy at Fort Hood, and a level where you kill innocent people as they scramble to run and crawl away feels a little too real. I can understand why they included the option to skip the level entirely. I can imagine that for some people, the level might be more than they can handle.