Crossing Spec Ops: The Line

[Dolfboy]

Well, I'm sorry you kinda ruined the game for yourself, Spidey. Trope catching will do that.

Video games in general, and shooters in particular, don't really stand to close scrutiny and bullshit can be called from any angle on whatever the you like. While you noticed the signs of what's to come(as did i to be honest), the vast majority of players, along for the ride and poppin' dat phosphorous going 'whee', didn't. And that's exactly who the scene was for.

For a game like this, to me, the ultimate question is, was it a good(if not necessarily fun) ride? And I'd say, yes, they certainly did a better job then most of the shooters I can think of.

 

[Blueruler182]

Spoiler

I do have a question though. I chose to save the civilians as opposed to Gould, due to knowing nothing about Gould except that he was sending civilians against soldiers, and the following actions up to the face melting played out like we went in with only half the plan and fucked it up because of that. Do the civilians still get roasted if you save Gould? Because, while that scene seems incredibly important to the ending, it seemed like something that could be done really well if you could avoid that scene altogether by choosing the mission over the civilians.

The following is the case:

If you try to save Gould instead he still dies before being able to tell you exactly what his plan is, so the game is pretty much the same no matter how you decide at that point.



Essentially the thing that bothered me the most about the white phosphorus scene was that I had decided to save the civilians earlier on, and my mind was constantly asking if this could have been averted if I had only decided to save Gould instead. I ended up constantly regretting that decision while I continued to play.

I felt pretty relieved when I played through the game a second time and realized, as mentioned above, that it could not have been averted, because it made me feel that the eventual outcome had in fact always been out of my hands. I understand that this can cheapen or perhaps ruin the story for some people, but as was already said, it is kind of the point. Bad things happen in wars, and the only way to avoid it is to avoid war itself. If all of the bad things in the game could have simply been avoided by making all the right decisions that overall message would have been greatly cheapened.

I agree entirely. The entirety of the game does send a message of "you're fucked" pretty solidly throughout, but there would have been an interesting moral issue with letting these civilians die and saving more. Hell, the character work could have had fun with it. One of the greatest parts of the game is watching your squad deal with what's happening, seeing them wrestle with the morality of "sacrifice the few for the many" would have been entertaining.

Not that watching them deal with everything else in the game wasn't entertaining enough. Just one of those things that could have made a minor tweak in the game that would have changed the experience considerably.

 

[draythefingerless]

so you wanted a winning option?

3 guys vs entire base, complete with snipers, explosives, and armored vehicles. yeah no, youre not rambo.

furthermore, it would debunk the whole white phospherous thing, by giving it a polar opposite. basically you would only use the phospherous if youre an evil bastard, and youre a white knight if you attack the base. whats the fucking point then? it becomes a jedi vs sith situation.

Damn straight i wanted a winning option.

Because Walker *is* Rambo. You go through the game killing bases worth of troops before that scene, and bases worth of troops after that scene. What makes that particular base so special that it pulls the infinite respawn, you cant win trick? Even if it was hard as hell to win it conventionally I would still make it satisfying to do it.

I died 4 times that scene. Three from the infinite respawning snipers. Once from that last humvee because i realized there was that bunch of civilians nearby and wasted time trying to splash the humvee to death without hitting the civies. On the 5th time i sighed, and hit the humvee square in the center, watching the phosphorous round explode in a radius at least twice as large as all the ones before it.

There were too many changes of the rules for that scene to have the effect of making me feel guilty.

The one decision i made i somewhat regretted later was playing along with "Konrad" and shooting one of the prisoners(I chose the murderous soldier). I thought refusing would lead to another unwinnable situation like the phosphorous scene.

sigh....there was a time where gamers werent such babies and actually had to use suspension of disbelief and imagination....oh woe is me.

 

[major_chaos]

You do realize that it started off with the steryotypical insurgent enemies who turned out to be the good guys right?

My apologies for quoting you so long after you actually made the post, but I gotta ask: how the hell is that possible? I have only played the demo but over the course of that the "stereotypical insurgents" first started shooting me without being provoked, and then in the next scene they were torturing and executing prisoners, so how are they "good guys" if all they are doing is at best committing slightly fewer atrocities than you?

OT: So spec-ops devs, I'm a monster for playing shooters and I should feel bad? well I guess i'll just do the heroic thing and not buy your pretentious wank.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

You do realize that it started off with the steryotypical insurgent enemies who turned out to be the good guys right?

My apologies for quoting you so long after you actually made the post, but I gotta ask: how the hell is that possible? I have only played the demo but over the course of that the "stereotypical insurgents" first started shooting me without being provoked, and then in the next scene they were torturing and executing prisoners, so how are they "good guys" if all they are doing is at best committing slightly fewer atrocities than you?

OT: So spec-ops devs, I'm a monster for playing shooters and I should feel bad? well I guess i'll just do the heroic thing and not buy your pretentious wank.

Because the "insurgents" turn out to be the survivors of Dubai and they are fighting the remains of the US evacuation force (the 33rd Batallion) because the 33rd has instituted a tyrannical oppression on the survivors. The entire game likes to point out how shitty war is and this is just another part of that message.

 

[LazyAza]

Gamespot did a spoiler podcast with the lead writer of Spec Ops: http://au.gamespot.com/features/gamespot-gameplay-special-edition-spoilercast-spec-ops-the-line-6386587/

I highly recommend anyone who played and finished the game give it a listen. He doesn't hold back revealing all kinds of things most people wouldn't have realized or thought of while playing the game. His perspective on the things they did and the gaming medium in general is very interesting.

 

[jmarquiso]

Wank wank wank wank wank.

That's all I'm hearing. "Oh, you don't like these choices? Stop playing the game you bought. Yeah, we totally made a product that costs 60 euros so we could tell you to stop playing it."

Bullshit.

We should totally stop making games with good narrative because of people like you. Let's just make CoD and give gamers big explosions. That's all they deserve.

Jesus fuckin' Christ. This is the first modern military shooter with some depth and you're complaining that it's not more like CoD.

Well, no, he's not. He's complaining that it IS like COD. And - in terms of player agency - sounds like it is. But player agency isn't the only way to judge a game's quality.

 

[jmarquiso]

Lastly, how is something not interactive when it's forced on you?

Think real hard about what you just wrote. If you still don't get it, I'm sorry, you can't be helped.

Would you kindly?

 

[Mudkipith]

You're not supposed to feel guilty, you "STOP LIKING IT, STOP LIKING IT RIGHT NOW" folks are taking it the wrong way.

Was I the only one a little frustrated how often I died? I'd never been more upset about a military shooter in my life.

And did anyone else get the painting of the mother and a slow playing twinkle twinkle little star instead of the normal loading screens?