Alkastelca
Member
Incredible!
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LTTP: Spec Ops: The Line | Welcome to Dubai
- Thread starter bananafactory
- Start date
Incredible!
Off-Kilter
Banned
One of most memorable games I've ever played for sure. Especially for what looked like your standard america-fuck-yeah-shooter-set-in-the-middle-east
One of the most incredible and memorable experiences I've ever had playing a game, or in any other medium of entertainment for that matter. I've talked about it to a good extent in other threads; I absolutely love what this game does, and what the developers were attempting (and I think succeeding) to convey in ways that play on how we as players are conditioned to approach games.
A top 5 game for me.
A top 5 game for me.
Elitist1945
Member
Same here. Never realized it before then.
It takes a strong man to deny what's right in front of him.
SchrodingerC
Member
Spec Ops was the equalizer that the Military F/TPS genre so desperately needed, a compelling narrative that made you see the consequences of your actions, not just the PC.
Also, the developers picked fantastic songs for the soundtrack.
Also, the developers picked fantastic songs for the soundtrack.
Bobby Boulders
Member
I'll never forget the moment near the beginning of the game when you're going stealth and stumble upon two soldiers (enemies that need to be dealt with at that point) having a conversation while on watch. They're talking about normal things, one asks the other for a piece of gum, even saying "ah never mind, don't want to take your last piece."
Just humanizes the enemies in a way that hadn't been done at that time and starts giving you moral dilemmas early on. Great game.
Just humanizes the enemies in a way that hadn't been done at that time and starts giving you moral dilemmas early on. Great game.
I think that is kind of an inherent problem with video games though unless you use an entirely different genre to parody something (like an rpg that parodies COD)
Bobby Boulders
Member
Stop reading all of this and go play it. The less you know the better. It can be completed in a few sittings and it really is fantastically done.
Paltheos
Member
Pretty cool game. I really enjoyed the level design - This was another opportunity to make a cookie-cutter brown and gray shooter in the Middle East, but Spec Ops does not go that way. Bright and colorful and dazzling, from exotic aquariums to almost breathtaking shots of sandfalls around a cityscape, Spec Ops looks sharp. I also really like the use of rock music as opposed to bland synth crap. And of course, how brutalized the cast becomes through the game. That hoarse "RELOADING" by the end and the hateful disregard for the humanity of your opponents by the end really stands out.
bananafactory
Banned
KILL IS FUCKING CONFIRMED
I think it's totally possible for games to deconstruct/parody their own genre. Case in point, playing Undertale has led me to draw a lot of comparisons to Spec Ops lately. Undertale tackles a lot of the same concepts as Spec Ops, such as examining violence in video games and asking if the player is culpable in said violence. Only Undertale goes about exploring these concepts in a very different way than Spec Ops, and I think Undertale's more successful in its method. Namely Undertale gives you a choice in how you play the game, while Spec Ops does not.
In Undertale, if you initially play through it like a normal RPG, you'll likely get one of the neutral endings. At several points along the neutral path, the game asks you to reexamine the genre norms and ask yourself if that's really how you should be playing the game. Things a taken a step further in the genocide/no mercy path, in which players have to go out of their way to slay every enemy. So far out of the way of normal RPG behavior that there is no way a player can accidentally find themselves on the genocide path. This allows the game to safely make the assumption that the player is choosing to walk down this path, a responds accordingly. It's a path that only completionists would take, and the game takes the opportunity to ask what it means for players to do things they know are wrong (especially if they made friends with everyone previously in a pacifist run) but do it anyways just because they can.
Spec Ops, meanwhile, is all or nothing. Either you play through the game, full of forced combat and forced actions, or you disengage completely. Unless you through the game disc out the window and write your own fanfic ending, then you're on the train that the developers have set for you, barring late game choice on which ending you see, but by that time its well past the point of no return for Walker and the player. After the half-way mark, the game begins to make digs at the player for continuing the story, assuming the player shares culpability in the violence for allowing the story to continue, regardless of how much the player engages in the violence or tries in vain to avoid it, short of not playing at all. The game also engages with the same style of gameplay as the modern military shooters that it seeks to criticize. There's no real intersection between gameplay and story as much as it's a one-way street, with the story making it well known how self-aware the game is of its gameplay, but the gameplay can never make an impact on the story. It's just a familiar activity to set up the shade the story wishes to throw on the genre.
Of the two, I feel that Undertale is a far and way more successful in its approach. While playing Spec Ops makes me keenly aware of Spec Ops' feeling on how players engage with the genre, Undertale encourages me to think to myself about how I engage with the genre. This has resulted in me shying away from hitting the New Game option in Undertale after achieving the pacifist ending, letting the genocide option unfulfilled because playing the game has made the idea of inflicting violence against the characters I've grown to love to be abhorrent to me. Meanwhile, I could
drop white phosphorus on civilians
The first thing you see in the game (background of the game menu) is the America's flag and national anthem playing from the radio. I have to admit, when I first saw this, not knowing what exactly I'm going into, I rolled my eyes. I love how the background in the main menu keep changing as you progress through the game.
Whom_Gods_Annoy
Banned
Remember though, that flag is upside down and its Jimi Hendrix's rendition of the National Anthem.
Oh, I haven't noticed that. I just read about it and it makes sense why they used this version.
