These are games, not historical documentaries. I don't think we really need to be traumatising game players by trying to make statements about the ills of war. Generally, people can separate intertainment from reality. People who play Metal of Honor, or even some of the more violent World War II games don't come out of it saying they know what it is like to be a WWII veteran. Just like people who watch Saving Private Ryan or read All Quiet on the Western Front don't come out feeling like they know what it was like to experience D-Day or to be a conscript in the German army during WWI. These stories may tell us something about an event, or make us see an event in a different and possibly even more realistic light, but they will never tell us what it was really like. Entertainment is not real life, once it becomes real life, it is no longer entertainment.

Even the more violent videogames are not violent for the sake of realism, they are not even realistic depictions of violence.

I agree with RSS about the Tusken kids, it wasn't an attempt at realism, it was just wanton game designing. Bad taste and not very well thought out. But then again, Sandpeople are just animals. Even when Anakin tells Padme he murdered women and children Sandpeople, she tell him not to take it so hard because we all have our bad days, as if the guy were feeling quilty for accidently killing a family of mice while backing his truck into the driveway. Later when Obi-Wan tells her that Anakin has just killed some real[/r] children, she doesn't say "Oh come on Ben, don't tell me you have never had a bad and went about hacking up little kids?" Rather she reacts with great shock and disbelief and says that it could not possibly be true (what the hell was George thinking having the former hero killing little kids? Damn that is sick, just thinking of it now urks me greatly...).

So my theory is that Sandpeople are treated as a subhuman, "under evolved" sort of race, and are not at all regarded on a scale with other aliens, but are treated on the same level as animals. Very dangerous animals that come at night and still your brand new wife you just purchased from from the hovering insect man, and they steal your chicken too. In other words, Sandpeople are very much like Coyotes. Err, actually I was aiming more for humans of different "races" throughout the last 100 year of world history who have been considered more animal than human. Black slaves in America, Aboriginals in Australia, Jews in Deutschland, and so on. Perhaps to LFL and the SW Universe, killing a Sandpeople child is much like killing a black slave child was an unforunate short time ago. I don't even know what I am talking now. But yeah, it was a dumb idea to include this in the game. It is pretty disturbing when it happens off screen in Eps II and III, but to actually have your Jedi required to do this to complete a mission that they are sent on by the forces of good... bad idea.

This kind of reminds me of an article in the Reader's Digest circa 1997 about violence in videogames, oddly it gave Goldeneye a lot of backlash for being a T rated game that had your character gunning down unarmed scientists. I found it funny that out of all the violent games that existed at that time, Goldeneye was the one to get the most flak in that article, just because of the scientists. Obviously the idiot who wrote the article failed to realize that you are NOT suppose to shoot the scientist, you are suppose to rescue them and you'll fail the mission if too many of them die. I'd be like someone saying Rainbow Six was a horrible game because it had you shooting hostages...