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LTTP: Spec Ops: The Line (SPOILERS)

This game should have gotten game of the generation awards. Sadly it was quickly forgotten. I'm glad this game doesn't stop to amaze people. I've love to sit and have a drink with the writer. The guy is fucking brilliant.
 
Doctoglethorpe said:
One person actually told me the gameplay was intentionally bad as a message about the sameness of military shooters. I would accept that had it been a shorter cheaper game that was more digestable and to the point, but a full length/price AAA? No, thats just silly.
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The price was intentionally $60 as a message about the sameness of military shooters. ;)
 
I didn't think the gameplay was outright bad. The shooting felt pretty good to me, and the team commands worked better than most games I've played. I just had an issue with the covering system only working half the time.

And are these guys working on anything new? Or did their company go under?
 
"Ah jeez, where is all this violence comin' from man? Is it the video games? I bet it's the video games." - The Radioman
 
It came at the perfect spot when the shooter fatigue kicked in for me. I was getting bored of dudebro without really knowing it. I haven't touch a CoD/BF after Spec Ops The Line.
 
Doctoglethorpe said:
It has a cool ending (albiet somewhat cliche by now.. Fight Club, Apocalypse Now, Black Ops, etc) but I found the gameplay and main character (Nolan North as Nolan North) so boring and monotinous that it wasn't worth the grind to reach it. By about half way through the game I had reached the point where I was saying to myself "just push through this chore, the ending is supposed to be amazing, just a few more hours!" It felt like work. Feeling that in a game is not a good thing, and looking back I wish I had just watched it on youtube or something.
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Sums my feelings as well except for your point on Nolan North. I thought he was genuinely fantastic in his role as captain walker.

Spec Ops is a game I really appreciate for what it tried to do thematically and narrative-wise but every time I think about re-installing it, I remember the tedious last push into Burj Khalifa in the final part and I tell myself "Fuck that", and then I play another game...
 
Tkawsome said:
The extent of his madness was pretty surprising. You knew Walker was mr Kuntz, but you always thought it was for some greater good. Save the 33rd, save the CIA guy, save the civilians, kill Conrad to end it all (or Konrad, I think you did spell his name right). It strings you along thinking you're on the right path, but doing awful things to achieve your goal. And in the end you get nothing. You annihilate the 33rd, doom all the civilians, and realize that Konrad was dead the whole time. A good ending isn't made by a twist, it's made when all the previous events culminate into one climatic moment. That final sequence does that pretty well.
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pretty much.

the point where that was revealed was the final gut punch to walker and showed me how fucking far gone he was.
 
One thing I was wondering after finishing it, how close is this to Gears Of War in pure gameplay? Obviously the visuals and the whole setup and story are different. I don't have an Xbox to compare myself.
 
Rolf NB said:
One thing I was wondering after finishing it, how close is this to Gears Of War in pure gameplay? Obviously the visuals and the whole setup and story are different. I don't have an Xbox to compare myself.
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Extremely similar. Most significant difference is that Gears enemies are bullet-spongy, while enemies in Spec Ops go down in a shot or two.
 
In the middle of my FUBAR (hardest) play.

I don't get the gameplay criticism. It's a shooter. You shoot people.
I'm guessing that some people just don't like 3rd person shooters. There's a wide variety of weapons. The "heavies" are a little over kill. It would have liked to be able to headshot them in the face. Also, a bit of funk in some cover situations and not having more options with the squad commands are the only complaints I have.

The graphics are descent. The sand effects--blinding and burying opponents--are a nice touch.

The story is complete shit to me. On a reckon mission, Walker breaks the rules of engagements and decide to go in a for a rescue of 4 soldiers held by insurgents. Not able to save them he continues to find the CIA is fighting the soldiers, so but he sides with the CIA because the soldiers are assuming that's what they are. There's a big Abort button flashing in my head the whole time.

Also, the sandstorm scenario doesn't make any sense to me. There's a coverup, but of what? And the entire water supply for the city is in 3 tankers? You can see they ocean from the top of some buildings. It's all very unconvincing.

Unparalleled_Mediocrity said:
I still don't get people who want a choice with the white phosphorous bit. If you had a choice, you wouldn't use it and then the whole trigger (or catalyst) for Walkers descent into madness would not have happened, rendering the rest of the game pointless. Someone has said on this topic that they had no control of Walkers actions, well you actually did. You made him do all those things. When the WP is used Lugo practically points at the camera and says 'he turned us into fucking killers'. It wouldn't be much of a critique on modern military shooters if it gave you the choice to not do all those horrible things.
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This is a third person game. I don't see how anyone could feel responsible for doing dumb stuff a game forces you to do. The WP is a mistake. I was bothered more by taking down the building with the chopper.

Most of the choices don't change anything. it's not like you can choose to side with the CIA or the 33rd. Btw, who commands the 33rd? Radioman is entertaining, but nobody's taking his orders.
 
Well, the game is 3 years old and there wasn't that many posts, but some make interesting points.

Imbarkus said:
This is another game with a tragic multiplayer component. Imagine what more they could have done focused on single player?
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Ironically, that's what they did, but Rockstar wanted the game to have a tacked on multiplayer mode, so...

The multiplayer component of the game was created by a separate developer, and included "at the detriment of the overall project and the perception of the game," according to Cory Davis, lead designer at Yager
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Tapejara said:
Lugo dies. I ended up shooting the crowd just because it seemed natural, as other shooters have shown desensitized me to virtual killing.
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I fired a couple of shots in the air and the crowd dispersed. I'm surprised how anyone would try to attack the crowd. In a real life situation, someone could trip you and your partner isn't going to shoot them off your back.
 
The setup is very contrived (and at the same time very simple "hey it's a modern version of The Heart of Darkness so just go along with it"), but otherwise why would you judge the story before playing through the game?
 
szaromir said:
The setup is very contrived (and at the same time very simple "hey it's a modern version of The Heart of Darkness so just go along with it"), but otherwise why would you judge the story before playing through the game?
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I'm on the second playthrough.

They go as a reckon and they don't report back any findings to anyone. Not once.

Never read The Heart of Darkness. I'll have to put that on my list.
Apocalypse Now is one of the first DVDs I bought.
I watch the movie when it came out.
 
The moment the civilians hanged my mate I went full berserk. Felt good unloading an entire machine gun clip on crowd mentality.
 
szaromir said:
One thing I didn't get though, is Konrad already an illusion the first time radio contact is established (when he forces you to make a choice which man should be executed), I thought he should be still alive at that point and commit suicide only after water reserves were destroyed but in the ending scene his body is decayed, so maybe he was dead all along.
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There is a flashback in which you see those two hanging guys were already long dead, but what bugs me is why Adams and Lugo don't just do something about Walker at that point instead of just looking at one another.
 
Love love this game... and the gameplay detractors, forget that too.. thought it was a fun game to play as well. Best 3rd person game I ever played.
 
Yager only made 3 other games, all windows flight simulators.

They got a contract to do Dead Island 2 for Deep Silver but the game got canceled and it sounds like at least a part of the studio had to file for insolvency in July.
 
It has been a couple years since I fully played through the game, but here are my thoughts:

Spec Ops: The Line is genuinely my favorite iteration of Heart of Darkness. More than Conrad's original and Apocalypse Now. That may sound ridiculous, but there are two main reasons. First, it's not straight up racist like book, and not racially problematic like the movie. Second, the fact that you are in the shoes of the character who is descending into madness elevates the story to another level.

I seem to be one of the few who did not find the shooting itself to be so mediocre. It's cumbersome and rote, but it didn't quite feel clunky or boring to me. It felt like Yager saw the gameplay was going to be a bit plain and decided to make the story context surrounding it progressively violent and maddening. The simplicity and dryness of the gunplay makes the other craziness even more effective, in my opinion.

I would also argue that the loss of subtlety by the end works. Those in-your-face splash screen messages did not show up until fairly late into the game (2/3rds mark?). I am really REALLY picky about heavy-handedness. The argument "but you could just stop playing" that the game makes is something I'd normally roll my eyes at. But I feel the whole interactive experience makes the point so well, that the game was deserving of its loss of subtlety by the end. Madness can be subtle, but it can also be mad. I think by becoming more and more insane, the game highlights that the whole situation, and perhaps both war and finding entertainment in violence, is all a little bit absurd to begin with.

The game didn't make me want to never play shooters. It just asked me to take a step back every once in a while and realize what it is I'm doing and enjoying. What makes Spec Ops special to me isn't its message, but how much it being a video game amplified the effectiveness of that message.

Not only my favorite game of 2012, but one of my favorite video games AND narrative experiences I've ever had across all media.
 
Love Spec Ops. Glad you're finding enjoyment out of it, OP (not OP... Thread Bumper? TB?). For me, Spec Ops was like a sucker punch in digital form. I've literally never looked at COD-type games the same way ever since. More than any other game, it has informed the debate surrounding an entire genre of game (the military-shooter, up until very recently, the premier genre) and for that alone it's noteworthy and interesting.

I honestly don't get the criticism that it's a worse version of Heart of Darkness and/or Apocalypse Now. I mean, I don't understand how people are comparing these things in the first place. Like, maybe Spec Ops makes for a terrible book or film... but, you know, it's a game. And as a game, it's incredibly effective. I've been gaming longer than I care to admit, and this was one of the few instances where I felt a game really explored themes of atrocity, agency, guilt and madness in truly interesting ways. Just talking about it makes me want to play all over again!
 
Silent Chief said:
I fired a couple of shots in the air and the crowd dispersed. I'm surprised how anyone would try to attack the crowd. In a real life situation, someone could trip you and your partner isn't going to shoot them off your back.
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Well I mean, I wasn't thinking. It was just learned impulse.

Edit: also wow I can't believe I phrased my original post like that. So cringy.
 
Silent Chief said:
I fired a couple of shots in the air and the crowd dispersed. I'm surprised how anyone would try to attack the crowd. In a real life situation, someone could trip you and your partner isn't going to shoot them off your back.
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I was extremely happy when the crowed left after I shot in the air. I was actually taking a leap of faith hoping the devs put that in as an option, and was very glad they did without outright telling the player.
 
I appreciate Spec Ops for being the equalizer among last gens sea of brown modern military shooters.

Also, Vibrant is the best filter to use.
 
The thing that really stuck in my head after I finished it was something someone else pointed out to me, but which my brain picked up on while playing without the rest of me quite putting my finger on it. You're constantly moving down, throughout the whole game. Even when you travel to the top of a building, you move down to get to it. The whole game, you're travelling down, down, down.
 
I really liked this game. I wish there were more people playing at the time because I thought the multiplayer was brilliant.
 
Checked this game out after hearing about the mortar sequence, but not knowing much about it or anything else in the game; just that it was a damning scene.

Got it, and yeah, what a fucking game.

Bashes you constantly over the head about
a) how ridiculous the premise of the military shooter is when compared to real life
b) main characters should have PTSD after the shit they go through in most military shooters.

Having said that, the part where the civilian woman just runs out at you, and because you just got out of a hectic gunfight, you probably shoot her broke a gaffer here a few years back when I was reading about the game as a lurker.
 
I beat the game over a week ago while playing it on and off for over a year or so. Loved it and didn't feel it was too heavy handed until the very end.

A lot of different interpretations of what is going on such as whenever the screen goes white then it is a "false reality" and on and on. 2012 was a great year when you include Binary Domain and Spec Ops the Line
 
Game's a masterpiece from a narrative standpoint. Mechanically, it's not all that, and can get repetitive, but the main draw is the narrative. Expertly handled to say the least, and makes you question a lot of things. It's the Heart of Darkness for the video gaming industry.
 
comshoplesce said:
Does this game need any sequel or remaster to PS4?
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Not really, imo. What would the sequel be about? "IF Walker survived... What happened then?" But in my playtrough he
died
.

One of my favorite stories in the videogames with average gameplay.
 
The Line is a fantastic coda to the last generation of consoles. It wouldn't really gain anything in a remaster beyond 60 fps.
 
...Yep. Played through it again (according to steam it has been 15 months since I last touched it) and I came out feeling like shit. Boy, this is a good way to bring oneself down.
 
The loading screens had an adverse effect on me. Instead of making me feel bad, they just made me feel like the developers were undergrad sophomores putting edgy slants on their philosophy papers. Luckily the rest of the game isn't as eye-roll worthy.
 
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