Hey, am I the only one who got grosed out by the game forcing me to tortute this guy in Numbers? 
I´ve tried not do it, sat there for a minute until I realised i could not keep playing without punching hsi face in and cutting up his tounge in the progress. Apart from my roomate, who had the same reaction, I´ve found noone else who seemed to be unsetteled by the sequence. (apart from an consiparcy-nutjob on youtube)
The guys on the bombcast didn´t even mention the scene.
 
So first, are there more people like me and my roomate?
And to all you who just punched him, why did you do it? Because it´s just a game? Because it´s what the character would do?
 Because it has become an accepted fact that soldiers torture prisoners to get information?
?
 
I´ve just did a google search and not one gaming website picked up on it.

The dude that reviewed the game for Game Informer was also disturbed by the scene. I do not understand why people found it so disturbing. I guess punching a guy in the face twice is more evil and unsettling than shooting countless numbers of people throughout the game. Makes no sense to me personally.

Its to enhance the experience, just like smoking is allowed in theaters during plays. Its part of the game, some people get a kick out of it, I couldn't care less. I just care for headshots

Did you find killing hundreds of soldiers unsettling as well?

" The dude that reviewed the game for Game Informer was also disturbed by the scene. I do not understand why people found it so disturbing. I guess punching a guy in the face twice is more evil and unsettling than shooting countless numbers of people throughout the game. Makes no sense to me personally. "

I set dudes on fire and mowed down hundreds of soldiers with rock and roll playing in the background. Punching a dude in the face didn't really seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

I didn't really care, it's just a game.

What Would Jack Bauer Do?

It's accepted in video games because people know that a game you play with a controller af mashing A is not the same as holding a knife and knifing below the finger nail.

It was a bit distrubing, but I went along with it anyways. At least its not a No Russian.

It's a videogame and that segment was kinda cool

I thought it was a nice little detail.

That kind of stuff is pretty common in movies too. And there was a torture scene in MGS3.
 
I haven't played Black Ops yet though, so I don't really know how I feel about the scene you're talking about.

" The dude that reviewed the game for Game Informer was also disturbed by the scene. I do not understand why people found it so disturbing. I guess punching a guy in the face twice is more evil and unsettling than shooting countless numbers of people throughout the game. Makes no sense to me personally. "

When has torture not been an accepted part of war?  The lack of its usage in a war would be much more of a new concept than vice versa.

Personally, I think if that scene made you stop and think for a second about the morality of it all, then maybe it's done a good job. Especially when you consider in real life, there's a good chance the guy you are torturing is just a poor bastard who owed someone money and now he's saying whatever he thinks will make you stop. Compare this to a video game or to 24, where the guy is always guilty and his information is always accurate because the narrative demands it be so.

Besides, there are a lot of worse ways to torture someone. This one was quite creative/refreshing and way better than just punching the man.

What happens if you turn it off?

I too found it unsettling.
 
I'm quite sure because it was far more personal than killing the "faceless" bad guys at the end of the gun barrel.
 
I thought it was Treyarch's "No Russian" moment, though not near as emotionally trying for me at least.

The OP seems to alluding to the notion that torture is not an acceptable level of warfare, say for instance like using Mustard Gas or disregarding human causualties entirely. It's not "nice" to torture the shit out of enemy combatants.  
 
Also to answer the OP's question litteraly, torture is supposed to be avoided at all costs in warfare. The French tortured like a third of every Algerian male in the 50s when they were fighting them, and even though France won against the insurgents the general populace was not exactly pleased with their methods. Almost all of France's loyalists switched sides and that is why there is no longer an Algerian French Colony. Plus, did waterboarding a few terrorists ever get the US anywhere? It gave countless terrorists groups nice little bullet points to put on their recruitment fliers and bolster their numbers. It's becoming more evident over the years to stop brute force methods of gathering intelligence (AKA torture) and I won't go into all the reasons but generally speaking it is generally being avoid more and more.

I think burning people to death with Dragon's Breath shells is worse. I mean, they're burning. To death.

I glassed him and punched him because I've got real life experience, but I did not like how he was perfectly alright to speak and get exercise immediately after.
 
Torture is part of intelligence gathering, if it wasn't for ways of "getting people to speak" (of course there are far better methods than that) 9/11 would not have been the only terrible event on US soil in the last decade. The world is ugly, the dirty work required to clean it up is uglier. Things like No Russian has happened in real life (except the whole start a war thing at the end, and at a smaller scale) and will continue to happen.

  Your playing a person who needs to get information one way or another. Information that might be critical in whatever scenario might happen next. I'm sure the Soviets were doing the same thing to American spies so they too could gather highly sensitive intel that could benefit them.     

What happens if you turn it off?

In order to gain life-saving information, I'd torture an enemy.

" It was a bit distrubing, but I went along with it anyways. At least its not a No Russian. "

Torture is a part of war. Maybe not "accepted", but it is there, and since those guys are the blackest of operatives, they do what they must to get results. A guy's mouth or America, your call, pretty much. 
 
I didn't find this part unsettling at all compared to  SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content. 
 
Oh, and just like No Russian: It's a bloody game. Sure, shit like this happens, but these pixels on your screen are far from the actual experience.

" The dude that reviewed the game for Game Informer was also disturbed by the scene. I do not understand why people found it so disturbing. I guess punching a guy in the face twice is more evil and unsettling than shooting countless numbers of people throughout the game. Makes no sense to me personally. "

" I think burning people to death with Dragon's Breath shells is worse. I mean, they're burning. To death. "

" @Meteora said:

" It was a bit distrubing, but I went along with it anyways. At least its not a No Russian. "

I actually felt the opposite. Maybe there's some truth to the quote "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." Not exactly the same but you get what I'm talking about. "

You left click to activate an animation (or press a button I guess), I fail to see how you can be disturbed by that.

You bunch of pussies.  

So because there's torture in a sequence in a video game about war it's suddenly "an accepted part of war"?

That's what he gets for not telling me about Nova 6.

I found that scene to be very tame so i don't see what the problem is. Granted it is one of those moments where you flinch at the thought of being in that moment yourself. I found all the scripted close kill you do to be way more graphic when you see the dudes eyes rolled in the back of their head. But still even what all that stuff nothing in this is in the level of saw torture. 

I'd like to point out that Clarke doesn't seem to rattled by it. Five seconds later, he's helping you kill dudes. Highly trained Spetsnaz operatives sent by his own handlers, no less.

" It was a bit distrubing, but I went along with it anyways. At least its not a No Russian. "

Two people have touched on the subject already but the OP asks why you can't refuse or rather, choose not to see the torture. He says that the game is forcing him to torture. You do have the choice. The game gives you the choice in the beginning just like in Modern Warfare 2. This seems to be one of those situations when this censor function kicks into gear. You hade the choice if you would like to see all the graphic violence that Treyarched planned to show you. It was integeral to their design that this scene happened and therefore you could not refuse to punch the guy but you always had the option to not see it.

" When has torture not been an accepted part of war?  The lack of its usage in a war would be much more of a new concept than vice versa. "

" I glassed him and punched him because I've got real life experience "

I thought the throat stabbing was way more gross.

" @Sjupp said:

" @Meteora said:

" It was a bit distrubing, but I went along with it anyways. At least its not a No Russian. "

I actually felt the opposite. Maybe there's some truth to the quote "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." Not exactly the same but you get what I'm talking about. "

Its all perspective. Depends on how you view things. I was more deeply disturbed in No Russian as we mowed down hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians. Sheer numbers is more disturbing for me in this case. If I knew the character beforehand I might be a bit more disturbed than usual. On the contrary, I knew quite a few people who liked the mission since they had fun mowing down civilians, lol. "

War is torture.

" @rhacer63:  But the people in No Russian were more "faceless" than the man in Numbers. So... "

Torture has not generally been used for "intelligence gathering". It's purpose has always been to extract confessions.  
 
Get someone to confess that they are a witch, Satan worshiper, terrorist, spy, etc. so that you can parade that person around for political gain.