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[KissVibes]

Maybe that was the rumor for Dreadnought? I remember that they were looking for a monetization expert or something.

Edit:

Here you go
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/spec-ops-the-line-dev-working-on-free-to-play-game/1100-6416537/

Yeah, that's for Dreadnought.

I'd be very surprised if Dead Island 2 was F2P but it is possible.

No way it is.

You wouldn't have a F2P game up for pre-order. Nor would you have a spin off F2P game and a $40 spin off, if you'd just make Dead Island 2 F2P.

 

[Glass Rebel]

Try on the hardest difficulty.

Especially the part where

Spoiler

the player is alone is quite challenging and also quite tense

.

Most run-of-the-mill shooters don't offer squad mechanics the way Spec Ops does, nor do they offer the sheer range of contextual animations the game does. They didn't go out of their way to make the gameplay super-duper fun because if they did, the same people criticising the game now would probably be going on about Ludonarrative Dissonance instead. The mechanics are solid, there's a good range of options available to the player regarding how to take out enemies, and the gameplay works holistically with the story to maintain the feeling of how relentless and repetitive the violence is. It's supposed to feel like a relentless grind, because that's kind of what the story is trying to say. Meat into the grinder, and all that.

Spoiler

That they still manage to break the gunplay up with white phosphorous sections, helicopter sections, and psychedelic sections where you're marching towards a burning tower, at least suggest some creativity on the gameplay designers' part. I can't think of another shooter that has me march through burning sand towrds a burning tower while dead people rise up around me.

Spec Ops doesn't encourage the player to use the squad mechanics though. Using them would make it even easier, further negating your point about it being challenging or tense. If I have to go out of my way to make the game more "compelling" by using mechanics that aren't integral to the gameplay or playing it on a higher difficulty, that's pretty much a failure on the developer's part (or publisher, if they pushed for it). I should not be required to play game designer to make a game good. Alan Wake is similar: On Nightmare difficulty it's a game about survival and crowd management and one of my favourite games of the last generation. On Normal it's a boring walk in the park.

And all that in your spoiler tags has very little to with what people criticize the game for. Yes, there are impressive set-pieces. Nobody is arguing that.

I wouldn't categorize Dreadnought as AAA, though. Description fits more with Dead Island 2.

I'd be very surprised if Dead Island 2 was F2P but it is possible.

 

[Zvonimir Boban]

Best post in this thread getting no love whatsoever.

 

[robovanburen]

It flopped? I thought it was a Neogaf and journalist darling no?

Most of them probably bought it for like $2.50 during a Steam sale.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Slap-in-the-face writing aside, I really enjoyed Spec Ops: The Line - gameplay included. That said, I never tried the (probably dead) multiplayer. I'm not sure if that's overall good or bad, but I think Yager's efforts were a success - artistically, at the very least.

It's a shame that there won't be a sequel, because I would have liked to see how they would one-up the first game's delivery.

Most of them probably bought it for like $2.50 during a Steam sale.

Accurate. It took a lot of praise to get me to buy a shooter, since I'm not generally interested in them.

 

[Rigalo]

Well it's not like it needed one, so...

 

[Dremark]

I don't play a lot of shooters and I only played this game for about an hour so far, but I don't feel that the game play is bad by any means, but I don't think it's on the same level as Uncharted or Gears either.

Also isn't Spec Ops: The Line already part of a long running series with like 10+ games in it already? I think it's completely possible for them to have done something interesting and unique with a sequel, after all I don't recall hearing people say the types of things about the previous Spec Ops games that they say about this one.

 

[TitusGroan]

Sorry, but at that point: Spec-Ops' "meta commentary" went out the window. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THESE THINGS THAT ARE HORRIBLE!? WHY ARE YOU STILL PLAYING!?"

"...Because you made me do these things. Because I want to see the ending that was overhyped to hell, Yager."

The only organic "illusion of choice" that actually felt good was

Spoiler

shooting the civilians or shooting in the air to get them to back off you after they kill one of your squad-mates

. Too bad that falls on it's face a few hours later when

Spoiler

the entire Dubai trek was Walker going insane/hallucinating so who knows if we actually even shot civilians. For all we know Walker could've just carried an AK and PEW PEW PEW'd while hallucinating sandstorms.

See, here's the problem. You're looking at the game as if the sole thematic argument it makes lies on whether or not you specifically

Spoiler

killed X group of civilians at point Y

, then criticizing it for when it moves away from that. You're taking one of the side effects, and acting as if they're the focus. They're not. The focus is on Walker's deteriorating psyche. Those incidents you mention all add up to help turn Walker into a broken wreck of a man, which is what the game is actually about. Not the violence, but the effects of that violence on that character.

That final point you bring up is interesting, because it makes my argument for me: If Walker had just hallucinated everything and walked through the sand shooting sand dunes, that wouldn't weaken the story. It would strengthen it. Because what could be a more damning indictment of the negative effects of war than a shell-shocked soldier walking through the desert, shooting at hallucinations? That would just cement the point even further. Whether or not

Spoiler

those civilians died

, how Walker reacted to the situations shows just how incredibly fucked up he is.

 

[Femmeworth]

I'm okay with this. A sequel wouldn't have been allowed to be as creative.

 

[Lautaro]

Not all games need a sequel.

 

[TitusGroan]

Not all games need a sequel.

#notallgames

 

[frogger]

It is a game with a great story but average game play. I beat it because of the story telling not because of the game play. Would love a sequel.

 

[Infinite Justice]

It is a game with a great story but average game play. I beat it because of the story telling not because of the game play.

pretty much, I really dug the story they were telling.

Hell play it on easy so the gameplay can go by quicker.

 

[KDR_11k]

To be fair, the game should not get a sequel even if it was a huge success, that just wouldn't fit with what it was. Though I wish they didn't take the result that negatively, sounds like they're really recoiling with Dreadnought and Dead Island 2.

 

[Bedlam]

The creative minds behind this game are long gone from Yager anyway. A true sequel was never really in the cards.

Also, I loved the gameplay. Found it to be much better (more satisfying and dynamic, enemies that aren't bullet-sponges) than in Gears of War and the like.

 

[GavinUK86]

I thought the game was pretty crappy. All these supposed terrible things happen but I didn't feel for any of the characters or care about anything that was going on. It was just a by the numbers cover shooter. Played it, moved on. Not surprised it flopped. Dreadnaught isn't exactly looking great either.

 

[freethoughtbubble]

I absolutely loved the game. Thought the story was well told and provocative -- something I can't say for literally 90% of games which attempt to tell any sort of narrative. That certain people are dismissing it based on its story is curious to me. We may disagree on whether the execution was effective in the end, but the hate this game seems to engender tells me something else is going on here.

On a basic level, Spec Ops argues that military shooters make money by making war seem glorious, yet safe at the same time. Previous generations have gone to great lengths to hammer home the lesson that war is neither of these things -- war is hell. Spec Ops criticizes both the creators and players of these games for profiting and getting off on war-based power trips. (I've played my fair share of COD in the past, so I include myself in the latter group.) I can see why some people seem so smugly satisfied to see it fail commercially.

I thought the mechanics and story perfectly complimented each other. Complaints that the game did nothing new in the genre miss the point. Why would the game innovate in a genre where the entire focus is on killing people, when the entire point of the game is calling that idea into question?

 

[Mr.Miyamoto]

I don't think Spec Ops flopped because of being too smart, it probably had more to do with it's mediocre gameplay. the game didn't do anything new nor outstanding in any way in that department.

I've tried several times to progress past the first few levels and the gameplay is just so mediocre that I can't.

 

[Big_Al]

The game really doesn't need a sequel, I absolutely adored it but it's a one and done kinda thing and that's all it needed.

I absolutely do not agree with it being mediocre gameplay wise, if anything I enjoyed it a lot more than other recent shooters like for example Uncharted 3 which I thought was incredibly mediocre. Good mechanics, good feedback, fun weapons to use (especially the shotgun and the slight slo mo when getting a headshot) and some really fun combat encounters with aggressive AI in a unique locale and cool areas. I think it's really underrated as an actual game tbh.

I'm just glad it actually got made It reminded me of First Blood in a way, the effects of war and the decaying psyche of the main character. I loved that. I also loved how the game was constantly going 'down', the characters are going forward into their own personal hell (or at least Walker is) and they are constantly moving forwards and downwards as well locationwise, it's an extremely vertical game. My other favourite thing is how striking it can be in its colour scheme and setup - it's actually really bright and colourful in a really great way.

I need to play it again sometime.

 

[cuyahoga]

Well duh, the entire DLC schedule was killed like a week after the game launched because it totally bombed.