First person shooter games are designed to allow the game player to wear the shoes of the hero in order to fulfill the inner desires of the shadow to be known as heroic.  In the psychology textbook Wayne Weiten discusses how it is in our nature to maintain our honor and strength in an us vs. them state of mind.  This is usually the setting of a first person shooter game where there are a small number of talented good guys vs. a large number of scrub bad guys.  This causes us to form a high level of camaraderie and teamwork to defeat the large numbers of bad guys, or in solo play a high level of honor and pride to avoid giving in to evil.  This pride forces us to carry on nobly throughout the game and do our best to rid the world of the hordes of enemies.  Being placed in the archetypal role of hero gives us this pride to live up to expectations and complete the game since it would be dishonorable to give up and let the bad guys win.  Following this in almost all games the archetype of either the wise old man or great mother show up to offer gifts or protect the hero on their mission.  This comes in the form of weapons or power ups or vehicles that provide more health bonuses or firepower to the hero.  In some games the shadow of the hero will show up as an arch nemesis.  In other games however taking on the role of hero awakens our own shadow if our shadow is one that strives for leadership, confidence, and ability to kill people to save the world.  Also in instances where the player can choose the role of dark side like in Star Wars Battle Front it awakens the shadow within the self who wants to watch the world burn. 
               This awakening of our shadow figure through gameplay allows us to examine part of our inner self as the way we go about playing the game.  If one spends more time saving comrades than just straight killing then their shadow obviously has some sympathetic emotions and wants to help save people.  On the other hand if someone repeatedly allows teammates to die and instead focuses all their attention on killing then they may be one whose shadow wants to watch the world burn and just see as much destruction caused as possible.  This is also apparent by the tendency of metal slug players to go out of their way to save POWs.  They could save them out of greed for weapons or points or they could have empathetic feelings for the POWs and thus have a moral obligation to free them.  This moral obligation can stem from the self’s shadow or from the taking on of the persona of the hero archetype.  Since the hero would be noble enough to protect those who are unable to protect themselves taking on this persona causes the game player to feel a sense of obligation to the innocent.
               Having the hero be outnumbered by an over powering empire is also very consistent throughout shooter games.  This role of rebel yet good guy yields an overwhelming passion to conquer the unjust rulers and righteously return order to the forsaken world that the game player has inherited.  The success of this mission is determined by the set up of the game for instance in Nazi zombies inevitable the hero will fail the to the undead horde where as in metal slug and battle front there is a possibility of success depending on the talent of the game player.  While this mission may be failed it is always possible to start over symbolizing that the will of the hero may never be defeated even if his talents aren’t enough to stay alive.  Externally this shows us to never give up at something and if our cause is righteous enough we will have the honor and pride necessary to see it till the end.  Otherwise we are corrupted along the way and become one of the overpowering suppressors and no longer a heroic rebel.  This is when the true defeat happens, when we no longer have the drive to restart the game and try again with a new life.  This shows us how we can always get back up after being defeated however the true defeat is in not getting back up before ridding the world of evil.