Crossing Spec Ops: The Line

[Godhead]

One of the big things for me in this was not just the white phosphorous, that was only the beginning, but at the end when

Spoiler

you see that Konrad has been dead for some time and that you have become so emotionally and mentally broken you kept him alive in your head as a scapegoat for all the atrocities that you commit in the game, i.e. the man who stole water and the soldier who killed his family and talking into the radio thinking that Konrad is actually there and talking to you.

And then there's the fact that the game keeps on poking you in the loading screens when you die. "You're still a good person", "The US military does not condone killing unarmed civilians, but these people aren't real so what does it matter".

Spoiler

also I'm a little surprised that Yahtzee didn't talk about the hallucinations that Walker has with Lugo and Adams, along with Lugo's death scene where you mow down the civilians who killed one of the men responsible for damning everyone to die.

 

[Terminal Blue]

War is hell? Yeah, Spec Ops, we got that in the 70's when much better films and books were doing this. You're trying to evoke Heart of Darkness, way to miss the point of Konrad's book.

The book isn't about war at all. It's about the ivory trade.

 

[Erttheking]

...I don't think you know what a deconstruction is. It takes a concept and explores all the flaws it in reality has. In this case it's a mindless military shooter. A game with emphasis on everyone having a choice doesn't essentially mean it is a game with focus on the player making choices. Not every game has to be wide and sprawling like mass effect, some are linear, which allows them to tell a specific story.

That's not deconstruction in anything but the most simplistic sense. "Oh, you have no choice in the matter, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST DID" isn't saying anything new.

War is hell? Yeah, Spec Ops, we got that in the 70's when much better films and books were doing this. You're trying to evoke Heart of Darkness, way to miss the point of Konrad's book.

Nobody is asking for a sprawling massive game. Stop assuming that. It's tiring and ridiculous. Instead, focus on the argument at hand: the game loses the power of it's message and meaning by forcing your hand to do an inane and pointless slaughter of civilians and is no better than what Modern Warfare does - it only pretends to be.

Dude, it's a deconstruction of war video games. How many other times have you played games where you have an ac-130 bombing a couple dozen people every minute and mowing down legions of brown people by the hundreds? The point is that there are countless games like the ones with the white phosphate where you bomb the enemy by the hundreds and no one ever goes "you FORCED me to do that!" in fact people sometimes look forward to those sections. Spec Ops takes a section from a pretty generic war game and makes you look at the consequences of it.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Yep. Pretty much the same for me with the whole point being: "What was frightening were my thoughts while I was doing this thing, not so much just the thing itself."

Though funnily enough, even though the final choice of pulling the trigger on Walker 'felt' like the right one, that's not necessarily also true. For me the endings where Walker survives the guilt trip are moreso interesting than the suicide ending.

In one of them Walker becomes a complete monster.
In the other he is taken down and Yahtzee's viewpoint is expressed through Konrad's words.
But in the last one you surrender your weapon and you do go home.

Of course you're not particularly cheery about it, Walker doesn't feel like he even survived at all when being asked by the soldier...and yet he is still alive.

It reminds me of the final words in Full Metal Jacket: "I am in a world of shit...yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid."

I guess that's all one can ask for if they cross that line. The strength to cross back home when it's finally over. I doubt it will truly be over for Walker for a long time - PTSD is a *****. But if he shoots himself in the head that chance will never be given...

But yeah, one's viewpoint on the 'right' ending does depend a lot on how much you can relate to Walker hahah. No argument there.

Actually, I would say that what you make Walker do could depend on what you think is the more appropriate punishment for the things he did. If we can get all "psychological" for a second, at the end of the game we (the player) are Walker's will, mind, conscience, whatever you want to call it, and in those last moments we (Walker) have to decide.

Do we A. Pull the trigger. End it all right now. No guilt, no PTSD, and no judgement besides our own (For right now lets not debate if Walker is going to Hell for what he did. Maybe later.) Or B. Put the gun down and live. Live with all the memories of what we did to be alive right now, and maybe if we're lucky we can be halfway worthy of still living.

Me personally? If Walker gets to just shoot himself and be free from it all. Doesn't that mean everyone he killed along the way really did die for nothing? Don't get me wrong. I don't think Walker is even an 1/8 near to being worthy of such sacrifice, but if he kills himself after all that then all those people don't even have his live to give their deaths meaning. Basically, I'm trying to say I don't think Walker deserves to just be done with it.

However, what you decide to do also depends on two important things as well. Do you think Walker can actually do anything after all this to gain redemption, or at least try to? And do you think he will actually even make the attempt?

That's how I see it anyway. You either take the easy way out, or you attempt to take on the probably hopeless challenge of living with what you have done. I don't think I could really blame Walker for pulling the trigger though.

 

[josemlopes]

...I don't think you know what a deconstruction is. It takes a concept and explores all the flaws it in reality has. In this case it's a mindless military shooter. A game with emphasis on everyone having a choice doesn't essentially mean it is a game with focus on the player making choices. Not every game has to be wide and sprawling like mass effect, some are linear, which allows them to tell a specific story.

That's not deconstruction in anything but the most simplistic sense. "Oh, you have no choice in the matter, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST DID" isn't saying anything new.

War is hell? Yeah, Spec Ops, we got that in the 70's when much better films and books were doing this. You're trying to evoke Heart of Darkness, way to miss the point of Konrad's book.

Nobody is asking for a sprawling massive game. Stop assuming that. It's tiring and ridiculous. Instead, focus on the argument at hand: the game loses the power of it's message and meaning by forcing your hand to do an inane and pointless slaughter of civilians and is no better than what Modern Warfare does - it only pretends to be.

Dude, it's a deconstruction of war video games. How many other times have you played games where you have an ac-130 bombing a couple dozen people every minute and mowing down legions of brown people by the hundreds? The point is that there are countless games like the ones with the white phosphate where you bomb the enemy by the hundreds and no one ever goes "you FORCED me to do that!" in fact people sometimes look forward to those sections. Spec Ops takes a section from a pretty generic war game and makes you look at the consequences of it.

Yeah, I watched Apocalypse Now after playing the game to see what they used out of it (and to see the movie since I have been wanting to see it even before the game) and the key message of the game isnt in the movie and it most likely isnt in the book.

For me the key message is that while other shooters makes you want to be the hero this one shows you the opposite, it teases you into letting you think that you are the hero but at the end they just ask if you still want to be some kind of avenger that never surrenders or if you will finally accept the fact that you cant be a hero (the drop the weapon part at the end). While it borrows a lot of things from the movie and book (dont know how much from the book) the things that define this game are not from those two. This game isnt even about war but war games

 

[Terminal Blue]

Yes, I know, hence the sarcastic "good job Spec Ops".

Yeah, but short of paying someone to dump you in the uncharted jungle or a real-life warzone for a few months, I don't see how the game could adequately prepare you for moral failure.

Conrad's point, at least as I read, is that Europeans of his time could sustain the delusion of being more moral than the "savages" around them not because they were a different class of people, as they believed, but merely because of the environment in which they lived.

I dunno.. If you give people a moral choice with success and failure, most people will choose success, in fact if they make a mistake they'll reload their save game and go back and make the choice again. Why not? They're sitting in a comfortable room somewhere eating crisps and playing with fictional characters on a video game console.

I think there's a good argument that it's not possible to replicate Heart of Darkness in video game form, but I think there's also a very good point that if we're going to try then we need to accept that a loss of agency is required to tell that story, because it's not the story of us, of fat people living in luxury in nice houses, it's the story of what our fat arses would do if we were deprived of all the things which allow us to view ourselves as moral people.

The structure of video games with its sense of choice and interactivity is based around providing us with gratification, it's pre-loaded with the idea that if we press the right button combination we can get the good ending, or at least the least-worst ending. Heart of Darkness is a story which has no good ending, so in order to replicate it you either need to subvert that idea or you need to accept that you can't tell a story with those themes.

 

[Erttheking]

War is hell? Yeah, Spec Ops, we got that in the 70's when much better films and books were doing this. You're trying to evoke Heart of Darkness, way to miss the point of Konrad's book.

The book isn't about war at all. It's about the ivory trade.

Yes, I know, hence the sarcastic "good job Spec Ops".

Dude, it's a deconstruction of war video games. How many other times have you played games where you have an ac-130 bombing a couple dozen people every minute and mowing down legions of brown people by the hundreds? The point is that there are countless games like the ones with the white phosphate where you bomb the enemy by the hundreds and no one ever goes "you FORCED me to do that!" in fact people sometimes look forward to those sections. Spec Ops takes a section from a pretty generic war game and makes you look at the consequences of it.

Again, having a single scene does not a deconstruction make - especially considering that after that point the game continues without missing a beat and has still the exact same slow motions for head shots and only climaxes at a lazy twist ending that drives even further the thinking that the developers and writers couldn't decide what kind of game they were making.

You do realize that it started off with the steryotypical insurgent enemies who turned out to be the good guys right? And your actions constantly make thing worse as your team mates constantly call you out on how much of a physco you are and your physical and mental state continue to decay? That sounds like a deconstruction to me.

 

[Seneschal]

My problem with the white phosphorous scene was the way the game tried to make me feel guilty about it afterwards. You know, with the walk through the burning bodies and the cutscene with the dead mum and kid.

It didn't work because the game didn't give me a choice beforehand. If it had said, "Either use the phosphorous or face a really tough fight on foot" and I had chosen the phosphorous then it would have worked fine. But as it was, I didn't feel anything because I wasn't responsible. It was as if Bioshock had started telling me off for killing Andrew Ryan.

Agreed. It was a well-made scene, but it would justify it further if you could actually attempt to attack the Gate on foot. They could make the battle almost impossible (or literally impossible), so that you're forced to go back and use the mortar simply to make things easier for yourself. That would actually make the aftermath your responsibility, even if the game did rig the playing field for that.

 

[Loonerinoes]

Actually, I would say that what you make Walker do could depend on what you think is the more appropriate punishment for the things he did. If we can get all "psychological" for a second, at the end of the game we (the player) are Walker's will, mind, conscience, whatever you want to call it, and in those last moments we (Walker) have to decide.

Do we A. Pull the trigger. End it all right now. No guilt, no PTSD, and no judgement besides our own (For right now lets not debate if Walker is going to Hell for what he did. Maybe later.) Or B. Put the gun down and live. Live with all the memories of what we did to be alive right now, and maybe if we're lucky we can be halfway worthy of still living.

Me personally? If Walker gets to just shoot himself and be free from it all. Doesn't that mean everyone he killed along the way really did die for nothing? Don't get me wrong. I don't think Walker is even an 1/8 near to being worthy of such sacrifice, but if he kills himself after all that then all those people don't even have his live to give their deaths meaning. Basically, I'm trying to say I don't think Walker deserves to just be done with it.

However, what you decide to do also depends on two important things as well. Do you think Walker can actually do anything after all this to gain redemption, or at least try to? And do you think he will actually even make the attempt?

That's how I see it anyway. You either take the easy way out, or you attempt to take on the probably hopeless challenge of living with what you have done. I don't think I could really blame Walker for pulling the trigger though.

Fair enough. I mean...in a way that is the gist of why people who commit suicide are called 'too cowardly for life'. Because pulling the trigger is the easy way out rather than going on and trying to pick up the pieces.

But indeed, it's hard to blame Walker for wanting to take his life. And yet I agree with you - he's the only survivor of Dubai. So if he dies...everything he has done, everything the 33rd, the CIA, the civilians have done...all of it will have been for naught. Because no one would hear the story of Dubai from Walker's POV, no one would know even the slightest inkling of what went down. This way at least he lives to tell the tale. Of the 33rd wanting to do good, but in the end not enough since they are soldiers and not people actually suited to the job like say...a police force. Of the CIA wanting to bury the truth by killing everyone (another point to consider! If Walker suicides, then the CIA's interests win out in the end!) and of Konrad being a good man...right up until the end when he could see the horrible things he would be forced to do on a daily basis and rather than become what he considered to be a monster...he chose to take his own life while he was still a good man.

It ties into what is said in the game right after your choice not to pull the trigger on Walker: "It takes a strong man to deny what's in front of him." to which Walker says to Konrad: "Stronger than you." And I guess that is true. But of course then the question comes - is being a strong man truly a good thing in this case?

I'd say it is. Even if not for Walker or even if he doesn't feel like it right away...it'll be good for those who learn from his tale.

 

[RTR]

I appreciate how Yahtzee encourged us to watch other stuff on this site.

 

[GAunderrated]

Spec ops was a pleasant surprise from a game that looked like (from demo and cover) another generic brown 3rd person war shooter. The characterization of the party was quite deep unlike previous ones like bad company 2. The storyline for me was gripping and much higher quality than the majority of AAA shooters that come out.

I don't really feel like debating the whole "choice" since it is subjective and can be argued both ways. However, like yatzee I was more interested in my own introspective thoughts how the white phosphorous scene I was just like oh cool I get to make it rain fire on these enemy soldiers to find out the consequences of my actions.


*massive spoilers*

Despite that scene I was actually in denial along with walker that he had no choice. When I came up on the scene where the civilian and the soldier were hung up and I had to choice. I was in denial still and tried to save both and they both died wondering if I made the right decision (finding out later that the decision itself was an illusion). I was actually sad with the lugo scene but I didn't attack those that killed him. Thanks to briggs they were going to die anyways and I thought the slow death of starvation was more appropriate than shooting them.

Then finally making it through all that I went to the tower and I saw the truth. Konrad who walker and myself have been demonizing for his loss of humanity and blaming him for all the past actions was dead long ago and the true monster was walker and to a extent myself. I watched seeing walkers decisions and hallucinations to see what a tragedy these events were and the following results. Still despite everything that happened I shot konrad in an attempt to still be in denial and surrendered at the end only to hear the final words of walker to realize that he wasn't a hero or a villan, just a tortured soul at this point.

I personally believe what you get out of the game is how immersed in the game you were. I have friends that will play games that I play and get completely different experiences because they are no able to become immersed in any game which is sad from my point of view.

 

[getoffmycloud]

That scene was a masterpiece so much so I had to stop playing cause I hated myself for doing what I had done, I felt genuinely disgusted with myself afterwards.

 

[Lenny Magic]

"The US military does not condone the killing of unarmed combatants, but this isn't real so why should you care?" When the load screen had that in the place of a tip near the end, it just caught me off guard and I really had not idea what to say. It is the truth, but when it is the game saying it, there is really nothing soothing about it.

It is strange, I keep telling myself that I shouldn't feel guilty about anything that happens in the game, but I really can't help it.

Till Spec Ops: the Line, the closest a game has ever come to making me feel true guilt about my actions in game was when I played through Jade Empire following the way of the Closed Fist.

 

[ccesarano]

I'm a filthy skimmer so in response to Spider Jerusalem:

While you do have a point, from what I know of it the developers intended the White Phosphorous moment to be optional. However, I imagine making such a moment optional was a bit too ambitious for the scale of the project, and in the end they had to make a choice. Considering a lot of what they were trying to say with this game, that choice was to make Walker a bastard.

It makes sense with what the game is doing, which is a sort of critique or analysis on the modern obsession with war games. I feel like a game like this is kind of needed right now, imperfections and all. In an era where everyone is trying to make a Michael Bay video game it's nice to see an attempt at David Fincher.

As for the write-up, man, it is so very, very rare that Yahtzee and I see eye-to-eye on a game, and I expected him to rip Spec Ops: The Line apart. It was nice to see him give it a positive go for a change.

One thing I'd like to note, also, is how they presented the White Phosphorous in the game. The first time you see it you have no control, just watch as it drops on a bunch of soldiers and burns them slowly and horribly. So your first introduction is "this is horrible stuff".

Then everyone objects to it, and then you are presented it in a horrible, horrible manner.

While you touched on this in the other white blob moments, it just feels to me an intentional choice to take a powerful weapon and make the player feel horrible for it. Contrast it with any other game that tells the player "Use the rocket launcher!" or something, and then pats them on the back with a chest-thumping "Oo-rah!" as if they're some sort of hero.

I think the developers of Spec Ops: The Line intentionally tried to make these two greatly different in their presentation.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

My problem with the white phosphorous scene was the way the game tried to make me feel guilty about it afterwards. You know, with the walk through the burning bodies and the cutscene with the dead mum and kid.

It didn't work because the game didn't give me a choice beforehand. If it had said, "Either use the phosphorous or face a really tough fight on foot" and I had chosen the phosphorous then it would have worked fine. But as it was, I didn't feel anything because I wasn't responsible. It was as if Bioshock had started telling me off for killing Andrew Ryan.

Agreed. It was a well-made scene, but it would justify it further if you could actually attempt to attack the Gate on foot. They could make the battle almost impossible (or literally impossible), so that you're forced to go back and use the mortar simply to make things easier for yourself. That would actually make the aftermath your responsibility, even if the game did rig the playing field for that.

Believe me, they did that. I tried, about 5 times in fact. I just kept dying and dying until I finally thought "God, I have to use the mortar".

OT:This article actually put that bit in a new light for me. So yeah, good article.

 

[bells]

that section was good, it was damn near perfect. Because it's real... there is no "Super Hero" here. You can't beat an Entire armed platoon with armored vehicles with just 3 guys and limited Ammo... it would be STUPID to even try.

But walker was all about the mission, he can't stop. It's success at all cost... So, you need to use the mortars. You can start the fight on your own, shoot as many soliders as you want... but if their barrage won't get you, their snipers will... there is just no way around it. If you WANT to continue, if you WANT to pursuit your mission, you must play dirty and use the Mortar.

The little validation you have for your actions is that just a little earlier than that you saw that your enemies ALSO used the same tactics, so you feel like you're just giving them back...

Then you learn that YOU started the whole mess and that Walker simply can't accept that he screwed up, he was there to Rescue people and he ends up killing pretty much everyone he was supposed to save AND destroyed an ACTUAL rescue mission in the process... just because he was blindly loyal to his mission.

 

[Darth_Payn]

Yes, I know, hence the sarcastic "good job Spec Ops".

Yeah, but short of paying someone to dump you in the uncharted jungle or a real-life warzone for a few months, I don't see how the game could adequately prepare you for moral failure.

Conrad's point, at least as I read, is that Europeans of his time could sustain the delusion of being more moral than the "savages" around them not because they were a different class of people, as they believed, but merely because of the environment in which they lived.

I dunno.. If you give people a moral choice with success and failure, most people will choose success, in fact if they make a mistake they'll reload their save game and go back and make the choice again. Why not? They're sitting in a comfortable room somewhere eating crisps and playing with fictional characters on a video game console.

I think there's a good argument that it's not possible to replicate Heart of Darkness in video game form, but I think there's also a very good point that if we're going to try then we need to accept that a loss of agency is required to tell that story, because it's not the story of us, of fat people living in luxury in nice houses, it's the story of what our fat arses would do if we were deprived of all the things which allow us to view ourselves as moral people.

I agree to an extent. I think there definitely is a demand and need for something that valuable, but I really disagree that Spec Ops is it.

It feels like they've tried cherry picking bits from both the novel and Apocalypse Now, thinking that it worked in the past and the overall message and purpose is muddled in the final product. In Apocalypse Now there was never a question that Willard wouldn't find Kurtz, their meeting was inevitable. But in a game, attempting to try and pull the "war makes villains of us all" angle and then try and spin that with the whole "you, the player, are responsible" when no choice is ever given - even if there's a clear distinct possibility for it - is disingenuous.

Now, had Spec Ops, for instance, given that moment and let the player choose what to do it still could have spun the same story forward from that point and deliver the message of ruthless, brutal slaughter by allowing the players actions define the person they become towards the end. Do you sneak by the opposition or do you go in, guns blazing? Did you shoot that wounded guy on the ground or walk by? Let that work seamlessly into the ending and I'd be right there with you, hailing Spec Ops as a leap forward.

But having a forced decision like that lead to one single outcome every time and then pretend like it's a moral tale about something? Pfft.

Spider, you are dominating this discussion thread & have beat me to every point I was about to make, but more articulately, so I agree with your ideas & would like to subscribe to your newsletter, as Homer Simpson once said.

Was SpecOps marketed at any point in its development as a deconstruction? No. What you're talking about was what made me quit playing Homefront, because my character (if you can call a guy who doesn't talk & gets yelled at a lot as such) was dragged from set piece to piece, including that game's bomb-the-enemy-with-phosphorous bit, where shit went downhill and I felt I had little bearing on events. Back onto SpecOps, it is kinda cheap of them to put the story on hold until you do that horrible thing & forced to feel guilty about it. It's total bullshit. Do I have to link to TvTropes' YouBastard page again?

And how THE FUCK did everybody's avatar pic turn into Justin Bieber??!!

 

[Sniper Team 4]

That part of the game made my physically sick in my stomach. And the worst, or perhaps best, part is that I played right into the game's hand: This is Konrad's fault. I'm going to make sure I end him now.
I did eventually start to lose faith in Walker, especially when his execution kills became extremely brutal, but I kept telling myself that this was on Konrad's head. That ending was a real kick to the gut for me.

I do wish that choice was actually part of it. I fully expected, on my second run, that when I saved the CIA guy things would have gone different. And the first time I had to chose whether to kill the guy under the truck or let him burn, once I fired that bullet I kept wondering, "Oh God, am I going to need that shot later?" When you came across Lugo being held hostage I was certain that wasting that bullet was going to get him killed. Anyone else feel like a monster when they leave that guy to burn? I wanted to hit the mute button, but I told myself not to. Being uncomfortable was what the game was going for.

 

[Lex Darko]

HAHA, this is so funny. If the Willy Pete scene didn't have Walker killing civies would the "detractors" complain about not having a choice to use the mortar?

As far as I see it, the only difference here from CoD:MW is Spec OPs doesn't give you an automatic game over screen when you hit civies due to fog of war.

In Spec Ops the game goes on after civilian friendly fire, unlike the CoD:MW which somehow is able to tell you a car with 4 people driving through a fire fight are civilians even though the only eyes on the car are a mile and half in the air; completely negating the concept of fog of war to give players guiltless fun killing the faceless bad guys.

And for all these people who keep talking about realism in games the Willy Pete scene is most realistic display of the aftermath of a bombing that I've seen in a video game. How many "realistic" shooters have you played where you kill someone with a grenade that lands at their feet and you just see the enemy roll over dead? There's nothing realistic about that, not the slightest thing.

 

[ritchards]

So this game only works because there are so many other 'shoot everyone without guilt' FPSs out there?

Imagine if this was someone's first FPS and they had not played (encountered?) the others. What an experience that would be...