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LTTP: Spec Ops: The Line (I am Sick) [SPOILERS]

N

Nome

Member
So what does it mean if I had zero reaction from the game? A lot of that IS because I've already gone through all of the CoD's, and have seen most of the gritty war movies. Mission accomplished?
 
K

Kingbrave

Member
antitrop said:
Please feel free to expound, I would love to hear your thoughts.


Twice for Spec Ops and once for RE6, I believe. He won't be missed.
Click to expand...

It was okay. It wasn't the greatest thing I've ever played and it was far from the worst. Glad I got it cheap on Steam.
 
2

28 Posts Later

Member
I've been skipping through a few Youtube 'Let's plays' to hear others opinions on the game and I've noticed just how often, despite its perceived overt nature, the games message appears to fly over the head of the content creator. Players
laughing as they mow down the civilians following Lugo's death, burst into laughter because they shot Rigg's mid-sentence,
who mock the game for "trying to be deep" whilst simultaneously commentating on how happy they are to find some new enemies to kill. It's rather eye opening how differently a game like this can be viewed outside of the discussion board / game press setting.
 
Refreshment.01

Refreshment.01

Member
Kingbrave said:
Started and beat this game today due to this thread. It was okay.
Click to expand...
Now watch this video, it helped me absorve a bit more of the plot. Even if you don't care much what the guy is saying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlBrenhzMZI

Again, thanks anitrop for pointing me out towards it, served me well.

Nome said:
So what does it mean if I had zero reaction from the game? A lot of that IS because I've already gone through all of the CoD's, and have seen most of the gritty war movies. Mission accomplished?
Click to expand...
See above.

Edit: Kind of important to me. What's the deal with the shootng down helis scene?
 
E

EatinOlives

Member
Owensboro said:
Spoilers and such: You have been warned.

I blew through this game on easy after the $5 sale simply because I remember being there so much talk about it. Around 4 months before I bought and played it, I re-read The Heart of Darkness (something I hadn't read since high school) and watched "Apocalypse Now" for the first time ever. My thoughts on those are for a different thread, so lets stick to the game.

I have the strangest set of reactions to this game, partly liking and partly disliking a lot of it. For one, it feels like there are just to damn many "kill box" rooms. For a game that is trying to have a serious story and make you feel bad for killing people, it makes you kill a lot of people. It also doesn't help that I tried to beat the "White Phosphorus" moment without using it, and must have died 15+ times until I realized the snipers on the roof indefinitely respawn. I would set the camera to the upper right building, shoot one, and watch as he fell but another enemy magically spawned and ran to his exact spot. I used every bullet in the gun I had, killing countless snipers, and more kept spawning. That realization made me very angry. I didn't want to use the White Phosphorus. I didn't want to burn people to death, but the game was actually making me do it. There was no way around it. It made the resulting scene of walking slowly through the burned, mutilated bodies of soldiers and seeing the civies lose impact because I legitimately had a gripe: I didn't want to do it. I've read some things since then where the designers said they wanted the player to get angry, but I wasn't getting angry for committing some war atrocity, I was getting angry because I had no choice.

In retrospect, I ended up coming to the conclusion I think most people ended up with: It's an interesting piece that's not particularly a great "game" (meaning the shooting gets boring, repetitive, and makes me wish I had around 50%-60% less enemies to shoot). The fact that it made me have actual emotional moments throughout is pretty damn commendable.

....Whew.... I'm glad I got that out of my system. Sorry.
Click to expand...

Such a scene was going to be incredibly difficult to pull off anyway, but Yeager certainly didn't make a bad job at it.

A few minutes before they had given you the illusion of choice, and then threw it right back in your face when neither choice actually did anything meaningful. Then they get to the gate and one of your mates wants to go all video game style "LET'S KILL THESE MOTHAFUCKAS" and "WE GOT 'EM CHOICES, BRO". Walker explicitly states, "there is no choice, you must use the white phosphorous". You weren't meant to have a choice, there's no really no point in criticizing the game for not giving you one.
 
J

Jintor

Member
I think there's room to criticise it on execution there. A lot of people 'felt' as if there should have been a way around it, or that the idea of not having a choice there was put too bluntly.
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
I noticed somebody mentioned Kane & Lynch 2.
That game was fascinating in its own way I thought.

From a write-up I did somewhere else said:
Youtube-quality graphics, one-dimensional game-design, and what the heck I actually played through this game? I'm sitting on a stack of games that include the likes of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the ICO/SOTC set, and a bunch of other games that are supposedly really good. I barely played any of them though, for reasons I'll try to detail in this write-up I spent some quality time with a couple of losers and their quest to create the biggest pile of corpses.

I didn't play the original Kane & Lynch so I don't have any idea of what the story or the characters were all about. They're still alive so either they're doing something right or something horribly wrong. Anyway Kane arrives in Shanghai for "one last job". He gets in touch with Lynch and everything goes downhill. Actually I take that back, there is no hill, things shoot straight to hell as soon as Lynch gets a gun in his hands. After killing several dozen people Lynch's boss starts throwing a fit, this leads to another job that involves more killing. Turns out that among the bodies was the daughter of the man who practically owns the city. The police, the gangsters, some task force, the army, and bizarre hooded guys are after our two bestest buddies.

Dealing with everyone is handled in the same manner. Sometimes you shoot them, other times you shoot them, and on rare occasions...you shoot them. This isn't Vanquish or whatever the heck people play these days. If anything Kane & Lynch are worse off than your average human being. These guys have more issues than Sports Illustrated and that really can't be used to their advantage. They don't get some cool berserker powers or some kind of special ability like telepathic bullets or an exploding camel. Sure they've got the whole health-regen going on but who doesn't? To top it all off Kane & Lynch are followed by what is essentially the cameraman, who captures every instance in all its gritty detail. So when either of them are getting shot at, the screen starts filled up with artifacts while turning red.

So what the hell? Turns out I couldn't put this game down and shot through it in maybe a sitting and a half. What's there is actually really compelling, and everything the game does seems to work in its favor. Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying this game is particularly great, it just does everything it sets out to do. It's like some ugly self-aware schlock-fest that even when it fails it succeeds. At one point in the game I wander into a sweatshop and see several identical women hunched over desks knowing their lives are in the hands of a trio of sadistic bastards. Since it's a videogame I do what comes naturally, and shoot one of those women in the head. Pixelation is used not only to blur out the really naughty bits, but to also deny any sense of satisfaction. I just killed an innocent person because...oh right it's a videogame, maybe I was expecting an achievement or something. This game re-uses a number of images, like ones that show up on computer-screens or on posters. It could be that the entire experience was delivered in a way solely to mess with my head. I guess they got me there, I've never spent this long thinking about the time I killed a helpless person in a videogame.

I guess there's some other stuff I'm supposed to say here, like Kane & Lynch remind me of me and how I want to get away from all the pains of the world, but as long as I continue to screw up I'll be dragged further in. I'm not sure if all of that applies though, I'm still trying to figure why those guys are fighting to stay alive. Maybe they've seen Hell or wherever it is they believe in and discovered it's even worse. Maybe it's why I continue to write, even with the thought that the gaming industry is almost destined to fall apart before long. What else is out there for me? I have no talent or experience with anything else, but eventually my age is going to catch up with me. So I don't know, maybe it does apply? Maybe I shouldn't be thinking so hard about the throw-away games I play.

Anyway now that I'm thoroughly depressed I hope you all go out and give this game a shot. If nothing else the soundtrack is quite good, the controls are solid, and it's short. That last quality really isn't bad at all, since you'll likely find this game for less than a tenner anywhere you look. Hey maybe you'll grab the X360 version and we can do a game of online-coop. Just don't get too freaked out if I empty several clips in the sweatshop.
Click to expand...

On my second(hard difficulty) play-through of Spec Ops: The Line. I think its brilliant but I haven't quite figured out what I want to say yet.

Also I don't know if this works but here's my Spec Ops gallery.
This game deserves commendation for its art-direction alone:

ifiXiANN6k78y.jpg
Click to expand...
 
E

EatinOlives

Member
Jintor said:
I think there's room to criticise it on execution there. A lot of people 'felt' as if there should have been a way around it, or that the idea of not having a choice there was put too bluntly.
Click to expand...

There's definitely room to criticize it, but I don't think not giving you a choice is one of them. If anything, Yeager needed to make the player truly feel like there really was absolutely no choice, and I mean an organic one, not an artificial one that the game set in place. Having you be under insane amounts of fire and forcing you down a bunker with all that equipment in it, for instance.
 
G

Grisby

Member
Wasn't that big of a fan. Story was alright but the gameplay was lacking. Cover was awful and the combat scenarios were nothing special. They should have used the sand to greater effect.

Also, the game didn't look all that hot on the PS3.
 
T

Takuan

Member
Game was worth the $6 I paid. Wasn't a revelation or anything, but the shooting mechanics were competent enough and the narrative kept me going (I haven't read Heart of Darkness, which I hear it blatantly rips off - intentionally).

I agree that it was quite graphic; I can see the pivotal scene in the game being tough for certain individuals to experience. Finishing a near-dead enemy for his ammo/weapon was pretty brutal, too.
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
golem said:
Actually I like the game's commentary on "player agency" maybe more than its commentary on shootbang stories. For most of the game it presents you a series of false choices which usually end in the same result, but these make the player feel better about what has happened because they were able to pick the more noble path to follow. Examples of this include the two people hanging from the sign. You can choose the harder route of taking out the snipers instead of choosing which to shoot, but in the end it doesnt really matter in the game. The game world/story does not revolve around your choices. It only matters for the player. When it does finally present to you story points where the only choice is the reprehensible one, it might make you think a little about why you did it instead of just failing the game and the mission. You did it to see the story through- as the writer intended. You could have turned off the console, but you didn't. Just like Walker could have abandoned the mission, but he didn't- he saw it through.
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Yeah, well, I wasn't going to leave the game unfinished, I was enjoying it and wanted to complete it. I like those "hidden" choices, like the execution you mentioned. I was completely surprised when I found out I could kill the snipers, that is a perfect lesson of good game design. I don't consider "stop playing the game" as a choice, though. Or at least not a gaming one, but one belonging to meta-gaming (you're not making a decision within the framework and systems laid out by developers, you're skipping them completely and shutting them off).

I know that sometimes there's only the wrong choice, but it would have been nice if the game convinced me to make it. The way the phosphorous section was designed, I felt forced to make that choice due to the way the scene was scripted, instead of choosing it myself due to impossible odds or a time limit (yeah, something as simple as an incoming sandstorm or a dying partner could have made me hurry and feel like the right thing to do was nuking the zone instead of dealing with the enemies by hand -that is, until I saw the aftermath, and realised I had became a monster).

But just the fact that we're having this discussion means the game is good. Else I wouldn't mind about it, but I felt like it was a missed oportunity, like that scene could have hit even more strongly, by allowing me to become a monster instead of forcing me to.
 
A

antitrop

Member
Spoilers about player choice:

After Lugo dies and Adams and Walker are left surrounded by the civilian mob, you have the choice to gun them all down or fire into the air and scare them off. I bet a large number of players had no idea about the latter.
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
antitrop said:
Spoilers about player choice:

After Lugo dies and Adams and Walker are left surrounded by the civilian mob, you have the choice to gun them all down or fire into the air and scare them off. I bet a large number of players had no idea about the latter.
Click to expand...

Oops...Then again I also wasted the hanging civilian who stole food. So maybe that says something about me that I don't want to think about.
 
U

UltimateIke

Member
antitrop said:
Spoilers about player choice:

After Lugo dies and Adams and Walker are left surrounded by the civilian mob, you have the choice to gun them all down or fire into the air and scare them off. I bet a large number of players had no idea about the latter.
Click to expand...

Firing into the air
is actually what I tried first. I was very happy when it worked and glad I thought to try it!
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
antitrop said:
Spoilers about player choice:

After Lugo dies and Adams and Walker are left surrounded by the civilian mob, you have the choice to gun them all down or fire into the air and scare them off. I bet a large number of players had no idea about the latter.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, and the achievement popping up kinda ruined the mood of the scene for me. It made me realise there was another way, and I went back to try it and get the achievement (little trivia: I couldn't, I didn't know how to do it, though I read it afterwards).

But that isn't the fault of the game, I was the fool who read the annoying little box that came out. Should have concentrated more on the game :(
 
CHEEZMO™

CHEEZMO™

Obsidian fan
antitrop said:
Spoilers about player choice:

After Lugo dies and Adams and Walker are left surrounded by the civilian mob, you have the choice to gun them all down or fire into the air and scare them off. I bet a large number of players had no idea about the latter.
Click to expand...

I put my SAW to full use on my first run through :|

Fuckers deserved it tho. No one touches my Lugo.
 
T

Totobeni

An blind dancing ho
I really hope other shooters developers follow this and bring good stories in their games (but with good gameplay)
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
Now that I think about it, the scene Antitrop mentioned is maybe one of the 2 best designed moments in the game (the other being the execution), and probably the best example of excellent choice design.

I felt like I had no other choice, but not because the devs were actively restricting my actions. Yeah, it was a scripted scene like any other, but it didn't feel like one. I was Captain Walker, I had just seen my partner (and friend?) die before my very eyes, and my other partner and me were about to go the same route. To me, there was no other way out of that situation. It was either us or them, and morals didn't matter at all. Of course they mattered after doing it, and I felt like shit for what I had done. I had killed everyone I was trying to save, or let them be killed. There was no turning back after that.
And suddenly, BAM!, "Achievement unlocked", mood ruined (damn you Steam!).
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
CoachKevin said:
Having just put the controller down, I feel sick to my stomach and have no interest in playing another shooter anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Pretty much, won't look at military shooters with their propaganda and macho fantasy the same way again.

Even Yahtzee (Zero Punctuation) agrees that this game has changed the field.

"I thought we were over the whole modern warfare thing. It had its fun for a while, systematically abusing the word "realistic". But then Spec Ops The Line came along and showed us what a bunch of violent, paranoid gloryboy twats the whole genre was making us look like. You were supposed to slink off in shame! Nanny caught you with your hand in the cookie jar. You don't just continue eating the cookies!"
 
A

antitrop

Member
Messofanego said:
Pretty much, won't look at military shooters with their propaganda and macho fantasy the same way again.

Even Yahtzee (Zero Punctuation) agrees that this game has changed the field.

"I thought we were over the whole modern warfare thing. It had its fun for a while, systematically abusing the word "realistic". But then Spec Ops The Line came along and showed us what a bunch of violent, paranoid gloryboy twats the whole genre was making us look like. You were supposed to slink off in shame! Nanny caught you with your hand in the cookie jar. You don't just continue eating the cookies!"
Click to expand...

FUCKING MEDAL OF HONOR WARFIGHTER

If there are two things that I feel I've clearly established about myself on GAF, 1 is that I fucking love Spec Ops: The Line. The other is that I fucking despise Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

The reasons why on both are related.
 
S

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
Fine, I just bought this. $10 plus both Bioshock games seems like a fair price. I knew it had a muliplayer mode that no one touched, but I did not know there was co-op. I'm sure it betrays the very concept of the game, but I sure love co-op.,
 
A

antitrop

Member
Snuggler said:
Fine, I just bought this. $10 plus both Bioshock games seems like a fair price. I knew it had a muliplayer mode that no one touched, but I did not know there was co-op. I'm sure it betrays the very concept of the game, but I sure love co-op.,
Click to expand...
For a first playthrough this game deserves to be played alone, in a dark room, with headphones.

Never tried co-op, but I think it could be cool enough.
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
Snuggler said:
Fine, I just bought this. $10 plus both Bioshock games seems like a fair price. I knew it had a muliplayer mode that no one touched, but I did not know there was co-op. I'm sure it betrays the very concept of the game, but I sure love co-op.,
Click to expand...

Co-op is basically a mission mode. Kinda like Spec Ops in MW2/MW3.
Nobody is playing the multiplayer.
 
R

REV 09

Member
CraftySkills said:
This seems to be a criticism that's exclusively geared towards games and I've never quite figured out why. I know plenty of examples in all types of media with deliberately flawed and unlikable protagonists which help the plot. Is it because in a video game we just naturally project ourselves onto the character to a point if were not playing as a fantasy of our selves then we don't appreciate it? It's something I want to see explored more in games but every time a game goes in that direction people almost always respond negatively to it.
Click to expand...

that's fine, but in Spec Ops, you aren't the Protagonist.
 
A

antitrop

Member
REV 09 said:
why are you all using spoiler tags? the title has a clear warning.
Click to expand...
I think specific details about the various endings are worth of a spoiler tag for glancing eyes. Other parts of the game might not make sense to someone who sees it without understanding, but blowing the entire ending(s) for someone is not worth a few characters of text to blank it out.
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
"It takes a strong man to deny what's right in front of him."

Welp, time for a third playthrough. The "definition of insanity" quote is a more appropriate quote for this game than Far Cry 3.
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
The_Player said:
Yeah, I was a bit harsh about this being the only possible explanation of what the fuck has happened; it's just the one I believe in.
Click to expand...
I think any other explanation simply doesn't make sense. It's built right into the game.

antitrop said:
The title of the book is "Killing is Harmless: A Critical Reading of Spec Ops: The Line" by Brendan Keogh. I have not read it, but I should.

It's only $2.99 until tomorrow.

http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/23/36...-available-now
Click to expand...

I'm just curious to see if it's actually worth reading. A chapter on each chapter of the game seems excessive on first glance.
 
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