Comments on: Thoughts: Spec Ops – The Line.

By: Griff

Griff — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 00:12:41 +0000

I just got through playing this myself and I wouldn’t call any aspect of the game at all mediocre, to me there’s a difference between a game that innovates and a game that does something that may be tried and true, but does it well and Spec Ops: The Line is the latter in my opinion, it may not innovate in the cover shooter mechanics but what it does it does very well, the shooting is a lot more compelling than say in the Uncharted games, which as much as I do like those games too (especially the second one) the cover shooting stuff is the least compelling aspect of them by far (note, I also played the game on the Suicide Mission difficulty which I felt offered just the right amount of challenge and would recommend anyone else do the same)

but beyond the basic gameplay you have such a compelling story that messes with your expectations at every opportunity, I haven’t seen a military themed game do that since Metal Gear Solid 2, just the whole idea of it being yet another a middle eastern military shooter, but instead of terrorists you’re fighting a rogue battalion of the US Army and instead of the cliche bombed out, dilapidated middle eastern city you’re in freakin’ Dubai, a city way more advanced than anything you’ll find in the US, is amazingly clever

my only problem is I had some aspects of the storyline mildly spoiled for me beforehand and I wish I had gone in knowing nothing, but it was learning those things which led to play the game in the first place that I otherwise may have overlooked, so it’s a catch 22, either way I’m very glad I played it

p.s. can we acknowledge just how good a voice actor Nolan North is? I know people poke fun at him because he’s in so much, but while I suspected it was him that voiced the main character and sure enough it was, at no point was I ever thinking of Cpt. Martin Walker as “Nathan Drake” despite the middle eastern setting reminding me a bit of Uncharted 3 at times, that’s talent

By: Thoughts: Bioshock Infinite. » The Scientific Gamer The Scientific Gamer

Thoughts: Bioshock Infinite. » The Scientific Gamer The Scientific Gamer — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:00:30 +0000

[...] a potted summary of my opinion about Bioshock Infinite would be pretty similar to what I thought of Spec Ops — not the best of games, but absolutely worth playing through at least [...]

By: Gap

Gap — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:47:22 +0000

And to be fair, “war is cool” is the reason I play ArmA. Or rather, pretending to be in a war is cool.

By: innokenti

innokenti — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 08:37:10 +0000

Yeah, I had typed out a message along those lines and then it got swallowed.

Basically, CoD 4 looked like it was a very nuanced experience based around a tight military thriller that was really about undermining the whole thing.

But then the IW guys said that they were just making cool stuff and didn’t show awareness of what they had accidentally created, so really it was just lucky that they had picked that decent story to use rather than the subsequent… er… non-stories CoD’s come out with.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 02:08:24 +0000

I always thought the AC-130 level of CoD 4 was supposed to highlight how remote and impersonal modern warfare was, with the player shooting shells the size of telephone boxes at people a mile below them on the ground who were utterly powerless to retaliate. It wasn’t until I read an interview with one of the ex-Infinity Ward guys last year that I realised they’d included it because they thought it was totally awesome. CoD has never been about any sort of message other than “War is cool,” except for the first games in the series when it was “War films are cool.”

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 02:03:25 +0000

Which is a fair enough point for Spec Ops to make as a narrative, but it still means it kind of sucks as a game. Saying that your game is intentionally average is perilously close to ironic hipsterism.

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:04:28 +0000

That seems like a fair conclusion. What other satisfying solution could there possibly be?

By: Gap

Gap — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 12:35:16 +0000

I think there’s a subtle line between glorifying violence and just representing it. The original Modern Warfare did a reasonable job of doing the latter, I feel, and ArmA is always fairly clinical, but then maybe certain people do view them as promoting violence purely by representing it. Certainly the latest CoD games have put me off buying them.

By: innokenti

innokenti — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:56:13 +0000

I am sorry for badgering on about this.

Just… I’ve never been a fan of the CoD manshoots, but I still played them and kind of wanted to. To have a go, to check it out. But Spec Ops has successfully dampened my interest in that sort of thing completely. I think it delivered a worthwhile point moderately well and I am so very glad that the team did it and pushed for it the way they did.

There was a lot of clever moderately subtle stuff that they employed to get it across – it wasn’t just the story and cutscenes. I hope that they go on to make use of good ideas in something else next.

By: Gap

Gap — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 18:31:01 +0000

Yes, I loved it, but you’re right that it offers no solutions. Perhaps that’s it; perhaps its point is that this is inevitably what you get when you go shooting.