I just finished playing Hitman: Blood Money. Over the course of the game, I killed a lot of people. Hundreds, probably. Not that you're required to kill that many — you can probably get through the game only killing a dozen or so. But since I have very little patience for sneaking around (or for anything, really) my strategy for most missions went something like this:

1.) Load up on as much weaponry possible.
2.) Kill anyone foolish enough to stand in my way.

Naturally, I tried to impose a code of ethics on my conduct. Early on, I vowed I would not kill any women except when one was explicitly my target. Unfortunately, some of the women in the game pick up the guns of fallen male police officers and the like, forcing me to take them down in order to protect myself. The first few times I did that, I felt pretty sleazy ... but honestly you get used to it. You remind yourself these are not even real people; you are just playing a game.

In fact, at one point I decided to kill literally everyone in my path ... even people who were down on their knees begging me not to shoot. I rationalized this by telling myself these people should have known better than to take a cruise on a riverboat owned by a known drug dealer or to attend the wedding of the son of a gangster.

But then I started to feel bad about what I was doing. Sure, I was a killer — and as a player, yeah, I was probably looking to take out some of my personal frustrations. But I'm not a sociopath, not even a virtual one.

On my last mission, I killed only two people: the two I was hired to kill. No more, no less.

Apparently, when you get all super-famous like Shepard Fairey and you tell people their ads should look like Soviet propaganda, those people actually listen.