@epaul525 Thank you for the quality comment! I signed up here just to like your argument and post a comment to say how much I appreciate it.

Just to throw my 2 cents here, I think that what upset Tom is the fact that publishers claim that they respects and honors the soldiers and claim that their games are realistic. Tom feels that if they can't portrait the excruciating pain and grew some death that the soldiers have to endure, the publishers aren't living up to their claim. However, as much as I believe pain and death is an essential part of fighting in the battlefield, I believe that the chaotic atmosphere, the tensions, the noise, the sounds, the pain of watching your comrades fall, etc. (i.e. all the other things) are also what makes going to war such an unique experience (and one that you wouldn't want to go through).

In term of that, I think that the publishers have done well in their ability to immerse players in a war-like environment. Take the COD series for example. Plot aside, their gameplay mechanic and character interaction feels sweet. You got blurred when you saw a flashbang, you screen shakes and become bloody when you got shot, you have to stop breathing for a steady sniper aim, etc. You feels disgusted when you (Roach) and Ghost got killed by Shepherd (ops Spoiler). Try to play single player with veteran difficulty and you'll almost die instantly the moment you let yourself exposed to enemy fire. The main reason why you got to regenerate health is because the developer don't want you to have a discontinued experience. Instead of letting you bleed and die under the cover and then you'll have to respawn (anyway), they leave you a chance to stay low, wait for awhile, rethink your strategy and try again. Of course you can only do that if you're lucky enough to stay alive because even I (who used to play CS 1.6 in semi-pro level) have to restart a mission in veteran level countless of times. I feels good that if I play very carefully and slowly (and not recklessly) sometimes I can manage to stay alive and not having to reload the whole thing.

Of course there're always room for improvement, COD games are no where near perfect, but to me, it feels realistic enough and I appreciate the experience that I went through. They're more realistic than older games, which means that they're going in the right direction. We'll just need to expect more realistic future of FPS games because one day technology will allow that to happens.

What really bothered me is not the fact that Tom pointed out some some problems, but how he did it. It's always good to have critic and constructive criticism because they helps things to improve. However, reading Tom's article I only find negativity, cynicism and frustration. It feels like you're going into a dark cave with no way out. It doesn't have to be like that.

This article is just sad.

@FallenOneX Never mind the fact that you haven't watch the video interview, your total disrespect of all the good arguments @epaul525 has made and your focus on the "mistake" that you happily found in his writing amuse me.