Crossing Spec Ops: The Line

ElPatron

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erttheking said:
You're missing the point, you didn't play the game to not kill someone. The point is that most games are very linear and follow a set story, much like a book or a movie. I don't get why Spec Ops is a military shooter, (a series with very linear stories) is being criticized for lack of choice.
But somehow the game is supposed to have an emotional engagement with the player when he faces the things he chose to do. Except he didn't. He had to. Which gives it the "ends justify the means" feeling. Honestly, it made it fall short in my opinion. Do this, this is wrong. Whoopeti-doo.

I felt more "emotional engagement" in "No Russian". At least I had the time to convince myself I was committing an awful crime for the sake of not having to put someone else trough that situation, and obviously trying to save millions of lives in the process. And the game never pretended it was really my fault or my choice.
 

Erttheking

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ElPatron said:
erttheking said:
You're missing the point, you didn't play the game to not kill someone. The point is that most games are very linear and follow a set story, much like a book or a movie. I don't get why Spec Ops is a military shooter, (a series with very linear stories) is being criticized for lack of choice.
But somehow the game is supposed to have an emotional engagement with the player when he faces the things he chose to do. Except he didn't. He had to. Which gives it the "ends justify the means" feeling. Honestly, it made it fall short in my opinion. Do this, this is wrong. Whoopeti-doo.

I felt more "emotional engagement" in "No Russian". At least I had the time to convince myself I was committing an awful crime for the sake of not having to put someone else trough that situation, and obviously trying to save millions of lives in the process. And the game never pretended it was really my fault or my choice.
I don't think you really get the idea. Basically you agreed to do everything in the game when you turned it on. If you really didn't want to do it you could have just turned it off and walked away. Because let's be honest, it may not have been your "choice" but it wasn't your "choice" when you incinerate the weighted companion cube in Portal and be honest with me, did you really hesitate to use the mortar?
 

ElPatron

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erttheking said:
it may not have been your "choice" but it wasn't your "choice" when you incinerate the weighted companion cube in Portal and be honest with me, did you really hesitate to use the mortar?
No, it wasn't my choice. I did what I have to do to accomplish my goals. Even incinerating the companion cube.
 

Erttheking

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ElPatron said:
erttheking said:
it may not have been your "choice" but it wasn't your "choice" when you incinerate the weighted companion cube in Portal and be honest with me, did you really hesitate to use the mortar?
No, it wasn't my choice. I did what I have to do to accomplish my goals. Even incinerating the companion cube.
Well then you have another way of looking at it, you wanted to accomplish your goal and while doing so, you caused the deaths of a couple dozen people. You wanted to accomplish the goal, and in order to get to it you made a staircase of bodies. Either way you are responsible for killing those civilians, there's no denying that.
 

GloatingSwine

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SpiderJerusalem said:
Except it's NOT the player that makes the decision, it's the game. The entire sequence was so poorly written and played out that I knew that the "oh god, what have you done?!" moment was only seconds away. So I did nothing. I refused to start shooting.
That's the rationalisation Walker keeps trying to use...

Also, you do have a choice. You can open fire on the soldiers with your guns, and see how far you get.
 

InsanityRequiem

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ElPatron said:
Non-interactive media. Irrelevant.
I'm gonna have to fight you on the words there. 'Non-interactive media'. There is no such thing whatsoever called "Non-interactive media". One definition for interactive is acting upon or in close relation with each other. By that definition, watching the tv or reading a book is interactive media. You pick up a book, read the words, turn the pages. You are interacting with the story, absorbing what is given to you. When you read, do you imagine what will happen in the story later on before you get to the end of the book? That's interacting with the story of the book. Do you get mad then if the book didn't go how you wanted it to go then? Same with television, grabbing the remote, turning to the show you want, and watching/listening to the show going on. I bet you have the same imagination running in how you think the show will go.

By the very nature stories interact with our minds, they are not "Non-Interactive".
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

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SpiderJerusalem said:
And you still seem confused with basic set up and beginning of a story and a major decision that removes established gameplay choices in order to force a plot twist on the player instead of organically tying it into the design that has been previously set in place.
Since this is the gist of our contention, the rest being pretty irrelevant details, Ill just focus on it. As far as player agency goes there's no difference between "You have to leave the station in order to save it" and "You have to use WP to defeat these enemies". Since your argument hinges on the loss of player agency during the Gate chapter in Spec Ops, it is strange that you pick a game which has just as little player agency during major plot points.

Besides, I'd argue that the WP scene comes pretty organically in the context of the established storyline. Walker and his squad faces an obstacle they realize they won't be able to get through by conventional means, so Walker decides to use a weapon we've been show previously is terrifying because it is the only way he'll ever get past the enemy camp. Considering the character you are playing (a driven special forces soldier), it makes sense that he wouldn't launch a suicidal attack or turn back, just like it makes sense that Artyom leaves VDNKh even if the player never gets to decide whatever we want to stick around until the monsters overrun the station or not.
 

DjinnFor

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SpiderJerusalem said:
Umm, yeah? It is. Force the player to do something and then scold them for doing it and pretend that it's some kind of artistic statement? That's bad design right there.
That wasn't what happened, though.

Really, all that need be said is this: "Would you kindly...?"
 

Aggelos Kotsikos

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Being the stupid bastard I am, I ignored Yahtzee's advice, and read this review a couple of days before playing the game myself. So I was aware that there would be a scene that was supposed to make me feel guilty for even taking the game out of it's box. When the time to bomb those civilians came, I was thinking "What Yahtzee was saying, was bullshit, I don't feel guilty for burning those people, I don't even feel remorse" But when I had to face what I had done to the civilians, those thoughts went away and were replaced by "Well, I guess I am officially an asshole, aren't I ?" The years of playing games like CoD, and BF, made me think I had become immune to any "shocking" mommnets, but that scene, really made me reconsider.However, it wasn't the image of the mother hugging her child that gave me those emmotions, it was the dying enemy soldier, that talked to Walker, right before he saw the dead bodies of the civilians. His final words "We were trying to help", instead of dehumanizing him, and the rest 33rd, dehumanized Walker and his men. That made me feel like I was the monster in this story, instead of the enemy.Every detail from that point on, made me feel worse and worse for killing members of the 33rd.
 

DioWallachia

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SpiderJerusalem said:
DjinnFor said:
SpiderJerusalem said:
Umm, yeah? It is. Force the player to do something and then scold them for doing it and pretend that it's some kind of artistic statement? That's bad design right there.
That wasn't what happened, though.

Really, all that need be said is this: "Would you kindly...?"
People keep bringing up Bioshock as if it's supposed to somehow validate something.

All it does is remind me that poor storytelling has been in critically acclaimed games before, and will continue to be for quite a while still.
Sorry to jump in the conversation so late but why Bioshock is brought up? the only reason of why the game mocks the player choices is because there wasn't one really.

Replace the good old invisible walls with closed doors = critical acclaim? It could have been more powerful if ALL the choices lead to the same conclusion to feel the horror of free will being an illusion or to at least demonstrate that the antagonist were effectively very well prepared to anticipate your every move and fuck you over no matter what you do.
 

ElPatron

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erttheking said:
Either way you are responsible for killing those civilians, there's no denying that.
There is a difference between being ordered to kill civilians and orders can be refused, let court-martial handle it.

I never really had a choice.

LordOfInsanity said:
All very true, but I don't think I understand why is that relevant.

And I don't get mad when things don't end the way I want. I get mad when I get plot-holes. Then I start "Retake [insert name]" on Facebook.

Abandon4093 said:
That's exactly how Walker see's it.
Walker, as a character, had a "choice". The narrative made him chose a path. Fine by me, I'm in.

But trying to make *me* feel guilty for something that was never my responsibility? That's pretty far-fetched.
 

Ashcrexl

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Seneschal said:
Zhukov said:
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.
well, i figured that Walker and Co. had already agreed that it was actually impossible to assault the Gate with that army and realistically (which is what the story aspires to be) they would be absolutely right. So the mortar was a necessary evil last resort just so you could reach your goal, finding Konrad, which at this point, you probably still want to reach.