Wham! My 9mm belts a slug of doom into the terrorist, and his eyes are dead as he slumps to the floor in a mess of blood and pulped flesh.
Another shadow moves, just out of the corner of my eye, so I brace myself against the wall and cut him in two with a short burst from my AK 47. The ammo's getting low, so here's hoping no one else comes round that corner up ahead.
Dammit! I'm wrong! There are another three gorillas waiting to be slotted. As I waste 'em with a fragmentation grenade, a strange, eerie cry fills the darkened multistorey car park: "Jon. It's tea time. Can you get the girls to wash their hands!"
Yes, it was just a Playstation game, part of the Die Hard Trilogy. In millions of homes in the UK every day, these sort of games are being played by children, teenagers and adults too. It's become a post-pub ritual for some boozed-up grown-ups. There is a thriving playground trade in scratchy discs full of blood, guts and gunfire. It's not just gunplay that our kids are being exposed to.
The successor to one of the biggest selling games of all time will hit the streets this year. Grand Theft Auto 2 could be filling bedrooms up and down the country with the sounds of stolen cars and police sirens.
But do games like this have a negative effect on the youth of today or is such talk just a scare story put about by the media?
Game over?
The US Senate, for one, does not believe that such games are a good thing. One Senate committee has recently heard expert testimony from psychologists who are concerned about the effects of gaming on children's behaviour.
Professor Craig Anderson of Iowa State University told senators in March: "There is one clear and simple message that parents, educators, and public policy makers such as yourselves need to hear: playing violent video games can cause increases in aggression and violence."
He was presenting research that was also published in full two weeks ago by the American Psychological Association (APA). Professor Anderson also had another bombshell to drop. "There are good reasons to expect that the effects of exposure to violent video games on subsequent aggressive behaviour will be even greater than the well-documented effects of exposure to violent television and movies," he said.
So, according to Anderson, the danger posed to children by computer games is worse than watching violent films or TV programmes. This is an important link because more research has been done over the years about TV violence than the ills of computer games. It now appears virtually certain - described as "a fact" to the senate committee - that screen violence warps young minds.
This information should set alarm bells ringing all over the world. But what do experts on this side of the Atlantic think of the APA's conclusions?
Professor Harold Thimbleby of the School of Computer Science at Middlesex University says: "It's not really surprising. I'm both a parent and a computer scientist, and I see it from both sides. I walk to the station every day on the way to work and pass a giant advertising poster of Lara Croft [from Tomb Raider] being chased by a man with a chainsaw. It's up there for people of all ages to see. If it wasn't advertising a computer game, it simply wouldn't be allowed."
Dr Anna Warm, a researcher at Liverpool Hope University and one of the few academics in the UK working in this field, says: "The long-term effects of computer games on children are yet to be established."
She says Anderson's report does not break new ground, however. "It's quite a common view. It's basically what we call social learning theory: children will see things on telly, and then go and copy them outside. Then Anderson says that the interactivity of computer games makes their dangers even worse."
Warm does have some good news for gamers. "Despite the Anderson work, all the empirical research [properly run experiments] in this country is imprecise about the long-term dangers of games," she says.
"It also is very difficult to carry out practical experiments with children. We can't just get them watching violent games, then watch them while they attack each other. There are obvious ethical limitations here."
Vulnerable children
Academics in the US believe that psychologically damaged children are particularly at risk from exposure to so-called shoot 'em up games. Warm has looked into this and has found no evidence that vulnerable children are likely to suffer from exposure to the games. "The evidence for a causal link is very tenuous," she says.
So does that mean we can retrieve the Playstation from the top of the wardrobe and plug it in again? Not so fast, says Warm. "There is an emerging body of opinion on both sides of the Atlantic that testifies that short-term effects are indeed visible in children after games sessions."
Effects such as agitation, aggressiveness, hostility to others and feeling wound up are being witnessed, but are not viewed by experts as being as serious as long-term behavioural damage. "That is still just anecdotal; it's opinion, not scientific fact," says Warm. "It is going to be difficult to prove."
However, she also observes that it is not just violent games that seem to have short-term effects on children. "Racing games, where you have to keep up with a computer or beat the clock, also have an effect," she says. "Even games such as Tetris can open the door to psychological arousal!"
So, if the experts more or less agree that there is a slight danger that children could be 'psychologically aroused', what can parents do?
Professor Thimbleby from Middlesex University advises: "Make [children] think about the games; explain to them it's not reality and spend some time in the room with them. Learn about what they are doing there and try the games yourself. The worst thing to do is ignore it."
Warm adds: "The best way is to educate them. Tell them the violence on computers is not real. Warn them they might feel odd afterwards and encourage some non-computer activities as well."
"One thing we do see quite often is that there is an initial phase of almost constant gaming when the machine is new. This should wear off and then things should be reasonably normal. But limit the time they spend on the computer," she says.