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

For me, Spec Ops is this kind of game where gameplay is not so polished but mature story is all what I want from this game. And I get it. It wasn't another "shoot all enemies" game. Sometimes I can't shoot anyone and get virtually killed. And ending is... ground breaking. Didn't expect that Yager will show to us that we are a monster. Not an another hero - truly a monster.
 
Lostconfused said:
Edit2:
One thing I really liked was that there was a reflection of the main character in the laptop during the mortar sequence. Instead of it creating a disconnect between the player and the action, it actually make me think more about what I was doing as a player.

/
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This is the part that got me - It made me feel like I was the one who was murdering tend of hundreds of soldiers and civilians, not because of where I was directing the canisters of WP, but because I saw my face - Walker's face - in the reflection of the laptop screen.

Additionally, his face/head was removed from the rest of his body - like a evil entity. That alone added more to the sequence in my observation.
 
Sojgat said:
Are they really flawed though? It's just pretty basic cover based shooting, it's not ambitious stuff, but there's nothing wrong with it. You can mark enemies for your squad to target, and head shots give you a bit of bullet time. It's fine.
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Even for a third person shooter, it isn't nearly at the level of gameplay polish that some may expect from Gear of War or similar. How could it? Compare the budgets.

People still give Spec Ops gameplay too much shit, though. It's really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
 
That moment near the end when you're in the chopper and Nolan North is turning into a really fucked up person, seeing how much damage he can do....that was quite a cognitive dissonance moment for me.

The title cards during the load screens at the end were pretty creepy too. 'You are not a bad person.'
 
mattiewheels said:
That moment near the end when you're in the chopper and Nolan North is turning into a really fucked up person, seeing how much damage he can do....that was quite a cognitive dissonance moment for me.

The title cards during the load screens at the end were pretty creepy too. 'You are not a bad person.'
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"Do you feel like a Hero yet?" line during the loading screen hit home after the game ended.
 
antitrop said:
Even for a third person shooter, it isn't nearly at the level of gameplay polish that some may expect from Gear of War or similar. How could it? Compare the budgets.

People still give Spec Ops gameplay too much shit, though. It's really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
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To me the gameplay wasnt that bad for the most part. Pretty straight forward chest high wall pewpew action. But the story I felt it was a bit pandering though. Would have been more interesting with actual choices, but seems / feels like the devs did not have enough time to actually put those into the game itself.

Would have made for a far more complete experience if they did. Something that could have potentially been legendary if they went with a lot of different unmarked varying decisions in the game which leads to players having totally different experiences to talk about with each other after.

antitrop said:
In a post Spec Ops world I'm fascinated to see if we'll get anything from Six Days in Fallujah. I feel like there is some serious room for a survival-horror style military game (Which is exactly what a deployment to a war zone is, a survival of horror) which Six Days purported to be.

Spec Ops the line has you shooting US Army soldiers, I feel like Six Days is decidedly less controversial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Days_in_Fallujah

Or maybe it will just suck, but I like the premise.
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With SDIF I really think the devs shot themselves in the foot with poor PR. That basically caused the whole shitstorm on the game deep sixing the project. Real, real bad stuff there. Their ship got sunk by loose lips. Literally. Id go into more detail but am sure you know what Im talking about with the "poor PR" part I mentioned. Damned shame since I also wanted to see what they were going to bring to the table. Instead we got Breach...
 
mattiewheels said:
That moment near the end when you're in the chopper and Nolan North is turning into a really fucked up person, seeing how much damage he can do....that was quite a cognitive dissonance moment for me.

The title cards during the load screens at the end were pretty creepy too. 'You are not a bad person.'
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The screen with Adams w/ red eyes? Jesus
 
DrFunk said:
The screen with Adams w/ red eyes? Jesus
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.

2274091-loadscreen.jpeg
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Is there a youtube collection of all those load screens?
 
mattiewheels said:
Is there a youtube collection of all those load screens?
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Just did a quick search but did not see any. Though if you google Spec Ops loading screens you can find some images. Youtube does have some vids of loading screens but no real collection of them all which is what you were searching for.

*Game really does have a lot of effort put into small details that does make it stand out quite a bit. Like the sniper on the building in the main menu. Did not notice that at all since I had played through the title in a single sitting. But very cool stuff after watching the video. Along with the general design and artwork done throughout the levels.
 
I just finished the game, I am glad I am not the only one feeling kind of depress. At the last 3 chapter I actually switch the game to "Easy" so I can finish it and get it over with.

I played it after finishing Cherry Tree High Comedy Club too, way to swing my mood from high to low.

I couldn't try it since the game replace your auto save, and wouldn't let you save manually. What happen if you don't shoot the illusion in the mirror at the end? And what happen if you open fire on the solider that try to rescue you after the credit?
 
hi there, mostly because of this thread i will buy this game.

1. mentioning kane and lynch does not help however.

it's just in all around a boring game with little redeeming qualities. i do not mean i dont feel like a hero i mean it is simply boring to play. the gameplay is auto-pilot kill everyone from point a to b and have not that much interesting un between. it looked great and it performed great but a neat take on censoring head shots is not going to make doom 1 gameplay seem fresh. what the hell kind of stirring story am i supposed to expect from k&l? not that much so they should have poured more development in gameplay.

2. erikb needs to just be banned. i have never read posts so thoughtless. "this game is bad because it makes me feel bad". this individual is not mentally or emotionally equipped to handle this game obviously.

3. i can live with a standard shooter if the story is interesting. it sounds like from a lot of posts that it is. i dig. i really hope the gameplay isnt monotonous to the point where i just give up though.
 
Managed to get through this in one go today. God damn, that's some story you have Spec Ops.

Highly recommended to go through at least once. Never going thourgh a shooter campaign like that one before.

No complaints for a game I got for $6.
 
loved this game so much, sleeper hit of the year!
get it while its cheap, selling for around $15 or $20

so sad that it sold poorly, would have loved to see a sequel with new story & characters....


:(
 
Just finished the game.

Very confident game.

I thoroughly enjoyed the shooting. Guns with recoil in this day and age?

The characters were really well done. Solid game.
 
I’m curious to know what everybody’s first ending was.
I shot the imaginary Conrad, then in the prologue I put down the weapon.
 
See, I don't think I am reading this wrong. The game was made to tell its players what terrible people they are, and ideally trick them in to spending £40 so it can tell them off for doing so. I'd really rather this didn't catch on.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...nd-players-of-war-games-an-interview-with-the

Spec Ops is critical of war and the players of war games: an interview with the game’s writer

BEN KUCHERA / MON, JUL 16, 2012

Spec Ops: The Line is the rare game that presents armed conflict as something that is damaging to everyone directly or indirectly involved. The third-person, squad-based shooter may appear to be a stereotypical war game, but the cover and title hides a complex and moving experience. There is not a single character who goes through the events in the story and emerges on the other side as the same person, and the game’s ability to drive home the trauma associated with wartime environments is rare. I spoke with Walt Williams, the game’s lead writer, about how this was achieved, and the decisions behind the game’s narrative. Warning: there are some pretty large spoilers in here.

Playing what we’re given: the case for nuance in video games

“If you look at other artistic mediums, they don’t shy away from uncomfortable truths,” Williams said. “As a species, we create and use art to explore our emotions. Games have no reason to be afraid of fragile, personal, or uncomfortable experiences. If anything, we are the best medium to explore these things because of the interactivity. It’s the difference between relating to a character and experiencing a character.”

While the kind of story we see in Spec Ops is rare in video games, Williams is hesitant to blame the players or market forces. “I think the only reason there is little room for nuance is because we, as the creators, haven’t allowed it. We create the games we think players want, forgetting that they can only play the games we give them,” he explained. “When talking game design, you often here the question, ‘What about the gamers who just want to blow stuff up? Will [insert anything other than bullets/explosions] turn them off?’ And honestly, I don’t think this gamer exists. Yes, we all have moments where we just want to ‘blow stuff up,’ but we also want to be rewarded with deeper experiences.”

In many cases, new experiences and stories come from the ability to give players a little bit of credit up front, something few developers are willing to do. “You have to trust your audience. That’s what we did with Spec Ops. We asked players to come with us on a journey. Then we just started walking and trusted them to follow.”

Spec Ops often asks the player to make terrible decisions in tough situations, and in most cases the choices don’t present a “good” and “evil” option, but a choice between bad and worse. “We went over the game numerous times, making sure that every moral choice or possibly controversial scene was absolutely necessary,” Williams said when I asked if any were cut. “We were trying to make players question the morality of playing the game. This required the bigger moments to be organic and absolutely essential to the narrative/emotional path. We couldn’t just shock the player with something horrible—we needed them to feel partially at fault. If at any point in the game, the player came across a moment that felt simply exploitive, of their feelings or the narrative, then the entire game would fall apart. Everything had to have a purpose, and so yes, there were a few choices that were cut.”

One of those choices involved a scene early in the game where you find a man wired to a bomb, with refugees trying to save him. Your choice in that situation consisted of saving yourself and letting some of the refugees die, or saving yourself and letting all of them die. It’s not much of a choice, and was ultimately cut for being too “gamey.” A better, more organic choice was substituted. “Instead, it was replaced with the rescue of Lt. McPherson. That choice was much simpler. You’re aiming a gun at a man who may or may not try to kill you. Do you pull the trigger or not? When you get down to it, all the choices in Spec Ops revolve around one simple idea: Make the player think about that trigger,” Williams said.

The decisions in Spec Ops reject the binary choices in most video games, and the idea was to show how often people in violent situations have to bend their own morals or ethics to survive, or even help others. Keep in mind, the mess that you as Walker are trying to clean up was created partially by people thinking they were doing the right thing. “We are rarely presented with clean-cut, binary choices in our daily lives, and they almost never fall into the category of good choice/bad choice,” Williams said. “If there had been good options available in Dubai, then Konrad and the 33rd would have taken them long before Walker arrived. This was a bad situation for everyone, and they did the best they could with what they had.”

The game also asks you to make a decision when you know that you don’t have all the data in each situation. What you think is the “right” choice could have horrific consequences. “Most games try to embrace the player. The story revolves around the character and the action exists simply for them to overcome it,” Williams explained. “With Spec Ops, we wanted the player to feel like an outsider. An intruder. The game needed to be in direct opposition to the player’s wishes.”

Spec Ops isn’t about war, but about the players of war games

It becomes clear as you play the game that Walker, the game’s protagonist, is an unreliable narrator. How he perceives the world around him and his actions isn’t always the reality of what’s going on. In some ways, this may lessen the emotional impact of the choices you make, but Williams disagrees with that assessment.

“Spec Ops gets categorized as a war game because you play a soldier, fighting soldiers, in a military conflict,” he said. “But really, it’s about gamers: Who we are when we play a game, how we see ourselves, why we play them, and what we’re trying to get out of them. While that final moment does question Walker’s sanity and the validity of everything that came before, it’s also speaking directly to the relationship between gamer and game.”

Pay attention to the hints the game gives you during the loading screen. They may begin as helpful tips for the player, but then begin to change into statements about guilt, doubt, and even condemnation. You’re going through these terrible things, and watching them happen, because you purchased a $60 product that’s meant to entertain.

“During the ‘White Phosphorus’ scene, Walker buries his guilt and casts blame on Konrad and the 33rd, all in an attempt to keep going. Our hope was that the player would do the same—cast the blame on us, the designers,” Williams said. “That [the player] would have to bury their feelings of guilt and disgust to keep playing. And at the end, when Konrad reminds Walker that he was never meant to come here, we wanted the player to realize the same was true for them—these things only happened because they chose to play the game and keep going.”

We learn that Walker has become increasingly mentally unstable as the game moves forward. The ending scenes work on a number of levels. “While the reveal of Walker’s instability runs the risk of losing some emotional ground, it’s ultimately meant to hold a mirror up the player’s actions,” Williams said. “After all, the player has been killing fake people the entire time.”

The challenges of marketing something that looks like another war game

I’ve been talking to gamers and other members of the press about Spec Ops since I’ve finished the game, and everyone tells me that they assumed it was just another war game, and not worth their time. In fact, the first hour or so of the game looks and plays like a stereotypical war game before the story and plot twists begin to yank the rug out from under the player. I asked if this was intentional.

“It was,” Williams replied. “If players didn’t expect anything, because it felt familiar, then we could truly surprise them. It’s the same way Walker and his squad feel at the start of the game. To them, the mission is a joke, and not worth much thought or effort. We could have tipped the player off earlier… dropped small hints of strangeness to entice them, but that would have created an imbalance of knowledge between Walker/player. The narrative hinges on Walker/player being on the same page, because it’s a two-fold narrative: Walker vs. Dubai/player vs. game.”

The problem is that it’s very hard to see what makes Spec Ops so special if you only play a short demo or see a section of the game away from the greater context. “I readily admit that this made the game extremely hard to promote/market,” Williams admitted.

I had one last question: If you sent different people into the situations depicted in the game, could there have been a “better” outcome? Was this a criticism of the men in the game, or this sort of warfare in general?

“The breaking of Walker, Adams, and Lugo [your squad of soldiers in the game] speaks to the situation, rather than the individuals,” Williams explained. “They are following in the footsteps of many other men and women, all of whom have crumbled under the weight of this situation. Konrad, the 33rd, the Radioman, the refugees, the CIA… no one escapes unchanged. In this world, it’s never a question of ‘Will they break?’ but rather how they break. And that’s where we learn who they really are.”
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TheOddOne said:
I’m curious to know what everybody’s first ending was.
I shot the imaginary Conrad, then in the prologue I put down the weapon.
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But is Konrad the imaginary one?

I shot Konrad, then opened fire on the soldiers.
One of the most amazing video game endings ever.

ErikB said:
See, I don't think I am reading this wrong. The game was made to tell its players what terrible people they are, and ideally trick them in to spending £40 to tell them off. I'd really rather this didn't catch on.
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You don't seem to have even understood the interpretation of Spec Ops presented by that article, you've just highlighted the parts which would support your misreading of the material when taken out of context.

The intent is not to literally tell you off, and say you're a bad person for playing violent video games, it's a method of getting you to think about the themes the game is exploring.

The ideal situation is that the player has a strong emotional response, you just don't seem to be processing it correctly.

Maybe finishing the game might help?
 
Sojgat said:
The intent is not to literally tell you off, and say you're a bad person for playing violent video games
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http://uk.gamespot.com/features/personal-perspectives-the-top-ten-of-2012-6401884/

From a gameplay perspective, Spec Ops is just a regular old cover shooter. And if its narrative were to work, it absolutely had to be. In most military shooters, those big moments where you kill legions of bad guys or hop behind a turret and mow dudes down are supposed to make you feel like a badass. In Spec Ops, you are supposed to feel shame. The game takes the expected recipe and turns it inside out, forcing you to reconsider all the power trips you've had in shooters before and look into the soul of a man who loses his soul in a power trip of his own. Spec Ops subverts the very expectations it originally expresses, initially passing itself off as just another military shooter, and ultimately condemning you, itself, and the entire genre. This kind of self-awareness is decidedly rare in games--and all but unheard of in shooters.
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I would really rather that games that try to trick you in to spending £40 to make you feel ashamed for doing so don't catch on.
 
Sojgat said:
Even though that's not what it's doing, it's not like every dev is going to then copy that one theme. The depth, and ambition of the storytelling is what might catch on (if we're lucky).
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You sure man? I just see a dark future where devs see all the praise Spec Ops gets for telling its players they are losers, and decides they want in on that. Didn't the Far Cry 3 guy claim his game was a deconstruction of the genre?

Art is catching.

Like I say, I will wait until someone can do a theme other than playing video games makes you a terrible person before I think this is a good thing.
 
Ending spoiler:
I really liked how you finally got a choice of putting down the gun in the epilogue. I cool contrast to all the shooting you have to do in the game, and nicely hammering the point.
 
ErikB said:
Art is catching.

Like I say, I will wait until someone can do a theme other than playing video games makes you a terrible person before I think this is a good thing.
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Why do you dismiss something just because it makes you feel bad about yourself?
 
fushi said:
Why do you dismiss something just because it makes you feel bad about yourself?
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I don't so much dismiss it as not want to play it, and so I don't want to be having to worry that the game I just spent £40 on is going to be a lecture on why I am a terrible person in disguise.

Plus I already feel bad about myself, and I play games to get away from it.
 
ErikB said:
You sure man? I just see a dark future where devs see all the praise Spec Ops gets for telling its players they are losers, and decides they want in on that. Didn't the Far Cry 3 guy claim his game was a deconstruction of the genre?

Art is catching.

Like I say, I will wait until someone can do a theme other than playing video games makes you a terrible person before I think this is a good thing.
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Yeah, before we known it, Mario games will have a psych evaluation questioning your murderous nature if you stomp too many Goombas
 
Easy_D said:
Yeah, before we known it, Mario games will have a psych evaluation questioning your murderous nature if you stomp too many Goombas
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Does pretending to rescue princesses make you feel like a big man? I mean, how many princesses have you rescued in real life? (not to mention that wanting to rescue princesses makes you a horrible sexist). And can you run like this guy? Look how high he jumps, while you sit on your fat ass playing videogames.
 
Spec Ops is more about wondering about the dangers of the hero complex that video games are obsessed with right now than trying to tell the player off. Just trying to make people think a bit about desensitization and whether or not people should try to be "badass" or not.

Spec Ops is mostly great though because the characters react like people though and are actually afraid of the firefights and get broken down by the violence.

And FFVII, MGS, and MGS2 had a great deal of questioning player goals and hero complexes and sold a ton of units and the video game industry didn't really start emulate those games whatsoever.
 
TheOddOne said:
I’m curious to know what everybody’s first ending was.
I shot the imaginary Conrad, then in the prologue I put down the weapon.
Click to expand...
I
let Conrad finish the countdown, which resulted in Walker shooting himself. I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger, imaginary Conrad or not, and after all I've done, I feel I got what I deserved. I hurted or killed everyone I tried to save, or let them be killed. I was a monster, gone completely insane, and there was no way back from there. Not after what happened. I didn't deserve to live, and I realised that in the last seconds of my (well, technically Walker's) life. Not blaming the dead for my actions was my final (and probably only) act of redemption, accepting the guilt and responsibility, and the consequences that it has. Some could think of it as an easy way out, the coward's escape, but I think it was proper punishment, and acceptance that there wasn't any way Walker could have made up for everything he destroyed except through his suicide, by saving the world from further harm.

Looking back, I think that final decision was the only sensible one I made in the whole game, even though it
ended up with my character dead
.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Spec Ops is more about wondering about the dangers of the hero complex that video games are obsessed with right now than trying to tell the player off.
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You sure man? I just get the distinct impression from Walt Williams that he really does want to tell people off for enjoying this stuff.

waltwilliams2_zpsb4e04a04.jpg


He clearly wants video games to be more than violent power fantasies.

Would it affect peoples opinion to know that the game is supposed to be telling you off for playing video games?

--

I've got another one! A game that looks like a JRPG, only it is really a lecture on how the player is a terrible person with an immoral interest in underage girls, and reports them to the Daily Mail for buying it. I bet it'll sell gangbusters!
 
This is my #4 pick for GOTY behind Dishonored, Hotline Miami and Dark Souls PC.

I really want more ambitious storytelling ideas like this.
 
ctrayne said:
I really want more ambitious storytelling ideas like this.
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Possibly as a theme for his next game, Mr. Williams could examine how being a games writer who hates people who play video games and really, desperately, wants to be seen as an auteur makes you an asshole.
 
ErikB said:
Possibly as a theme for his next game, Mr. Williams could examine how being a games writer who hates people who play video games and really, desperately, wants to be seen as an auteur makes you an asshole.
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Metal Gear Solid is already a successful franchise.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
And FFVII, MGS, and MGS2 had a great deal of questioning player goals and hero complexes and sold a ton of units and the video game industry didn't really start emulate those games whatsoever...
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y'know, all thru my spec ops play i kept thinking 'doesn't the metal gear series do pretty much all of this, & more?' not that spec ops is bad (tho including the massive amounts of firefights/carnage was, i think, a poor decision), but i think the metal gear series manages to deliver a very similar, & in many ways a more powerful & expansive, 'message' (tho in maybe a less heavy-handed way?)...

&, yeah, it's not like it's had a helluva lotta effect on anyone else :) ...
 
Moobabe said:
Why the fuck is he back in here shitting up the thread?
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Frankly, I think mine is an entirely supportable reading of the material, backed up by what the guy who made it, and others, has said. I really don't see what is wrong with saying it just because you wish it wasn't.

(Plus, the game has clearly done far better when they were not trying to trick people in to feeling bad for playing it, but when players who were looking to feel bad about themselves or other players could know enough to seek it out)
 
ErikB said:
Frankly, I think mine is an entirely supportable reading of the material, backed up by what the guy who made it, and others, has said. I really don't see what is wrong with saying it just because you wish it wasn't.
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spec ops > resident evil 6.
 
ErikB said:
See, I don't think I am reading this wrong. The game was made to tell its players what terrible people they are, and ideally trick them in to spending £40 so it can tell them off for doing so. I'd really rather this didn't catch on.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...nd-players-of-war-games-an-interview-with-the
Click to expand...

You are reading it wrong.

“But really, it’s about gamers: Who we are when we play a game, how we see ourselves, why we play them, and what we’re trying to get out of them. While that final moment does question Walker’s sanity and the validity of everything that came before, it’s also speaking directly to the relationship between gamer and game.”
Click to expand...

Spec Ops raises questions about what it means to play war games, but it doesn't present answers. By playing the game, you make choices that lead to bad things happening. That is a game you play. Why? The answer to that is not necessarily "because you are a bad person". It's an answer only you can give, but most games don't make you address it, because they don't challenge you the way Spec Ops does.

You're trying to turn vague quotes into some kind of direct condemnation, and there's a reason you're not finding clear-cut evidence supporting your viewpoint. It's because your reading is simply wrong.

Normally, if I walked into a thread about a game I had barely played and presented my own opinions based on secondhand information and out-of-context twitter quotes, and everyone rebutted me, and I wasn't interested in playing the game for myself, I would just leave the thread. If I were to cling to my own views despite my ignorant viewpoint, I wouldn't be doing anyone any good, myself included.

That's why I don't spend time in RE6 threads anymore.
 
rosaceadude2112 said:
A reading based entirely on secondhand information and vague quotes isn't really valid or worth discussing.
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I don't think I agree. I have already seen van ord and Yahtzee use Spec Ops as a stick to beat people who enjoy power fantasy games, and the perception of what something is is at least as important as what it is.

Plus, I really think Mr Williams doesn't cares much for violent video games.
 
antitrop said:
You must first slide into it.
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FWIW, the sliding in to cover I like is the kind you can do in RE6, MoH2010, Crysis 2 and Killzone 3, in that you have a slide move you can do any time, and if you hit cover while you are sliding you end up in cover.

This is completely different from the sliding to cover you can do in Spec Ops, which is a context sensitive go in to cover move you can only activate when near cover.
 
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