Yeah that’s a fair point and I think I feel similarly, re: getting older and shifting perspectives. Much of my own perspective comes from not having played a ton of shooters in the past few years. The ones I do play, I tend to enjoy shooting at monsters more than people these days, but a lot of the ones I enjoy don’t really have a compelling story or campaign to go alongside them. I have in the past reflected on the fact that the overwhelming majority of games I own, play and enjoy are games about violence. It makes you think. But I think that I grew up on a steady diet of fantasy novels of great knights slaying monsters and powerful wizards turning the tides of fate. That culture shaped my personality and as a mild mannered introvert in real life it lets me engage in that hero fantasy without harm to others or myself. I enjoy it and I’ve come to accept it for being that. If you stop to look at it a overwhelming amount of entertainment in general frequently features violence, and I think it’s just baked into our universal human experience. Violence has been a mainstay in human history, and art reflects reality. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that. In order to maintain my sanity I choose to accept it as a fact of the human condition and, though maybe not revel in it, I will engage that instinct in a safe manner. The safe manner of my choosing is frequently by firing a big fuck-off gun at some ungodly creature that is threatening to impose its place in the food chain upon me, in some video game.

Good talk, internet stranger. I just wanted more people to enjoy Titanfall, I didn’t expect an impromptu therapy session, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this.