Poll: Is Spec Ops: the Line overrated?

[kanyewhite]

*Puts on flame suit, hides behind bullet proof glass*

Okay, I liked Spec Ops. It was good, some of the time. However, every time it pops up on these forums people call it "A SHOW OF HOW OUR MEDIUM IS ART AND BETTER THAN MOVIES!!!!" I felt like the game was hindered by all the delays and a lower budget than it deserved. The gameplay was ok, just not standout.

This is where I'll get controversial. The STORY IS NOT THE BEST. In fact, if it was a film, I think it wouldn't be praised. The twist at the end felt like the bad Twilight Zone episodes, and the "emotional" moments were good, but not "more effective than Schindler's List" (which I was told). THe characters just felt generic even near the end, when they were supposed to be all crazy, except Walker. I also had a creeping feeling they were trying to make Konrad like Andrew Ryan in the sense you talk to him and never see him, which didn't do much for me.

The game's satire isn't exactly the video game Animal Farm, and I felt if you sort of cut out the white phosphorous stuff and the lynching, it just could have been another generic shooter.

I think I'm way too harsh, but maybe we were too easy.

 

[tippy2k2]

Well if you cut out the two pivotal scenes out of any great piece of work you could argue that it'd just be a generic "blank".

This game has been clipped by the same issue that clip a lot of great things: Everyone calls it the best thing ever and your expectations become so high that the game, no matter how great, can't possibly meet them.

I loved the story, the characters, and the voice actors (especially the VA's; Nolan North deserves whatever the gaming equivalent of an Oscar for his voicing talents). You didn't love it; does that make Spec-Ops a bad game?

The problem with the term over-rated is that it's 100% based on personal opinion. I thought that this was one of the best games of 2012 so no, I don't think it's over-rated. I also thought that Far Cry 3 (right up there in GoTY contention according to most gamers and game sites) was not a very good game so I think that's over-rated. Does that make Far Cry 3 a bad game?

 

[Clowndoe]

I don't think it's overrated. Obviously it's not a literary work of genius but I think this is a case where we can lower our standards and judge it based on those. It's a big-budget shooter, the sheer fact that it makes the comments that it does makes it worth huge praise in that department. The characters may not have been great either (again, by movie/literature standards), but at least they show some evolution and are somewhat believable; again, fresh air. And while the shooting may be generic and lackluster...

...well it was, I just slogged my way through it.

Bottom-line, it may not be perfect, but I'm really glad something like it exists.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

It's overrated, but only because people have started putting it on a pedestal so high up that Nolan North could scratch God's ass.

It's still a fantastic game.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I think the issue with it is that while it may excel in some respects as a story, it doesn't excel as a game. It may be a great piece of satire or writing, but it's housed in the body of a mediocre action game. It's the same sort of issue I have with all of the praise that Walking Dead gets. I can respect that it may be a landmark for character relationships in videogames, or maybe a landmark in solid believe situations, but that should always be marked with an asterisk denoting a lack of success (if not in some cases outright failure) by the standard measures videgames are judged by.

 

[kanyewhite]

I don't think it's overrated. Obviously it's not a literary work of genius but I think this is a case where we can lower our standards and judge it based on those. It's a big-budget shooter, the sheer fact that it makes the comments that it does makes it worth huge praise in that department. The characters may not have been great either (again, by movie/literature standards), but at least they show some evolution and are somewhat believable; again, fresh air. And while the shooting may be generic and lackluster...

...well it was, I just slogged my way through it.

Bottom-line, it may not be perfect, but I'm really glad something like it exists.

On the whole " It's good for video games" thing, I hate it. People didn't say "It's not a book, but It's good for a movie." and then stay where they were. Movies kept going on until they met that. This is going to sound hyperbolic, but you're validating Ebert by saying that.

 

[Full]

I liked the game, it was memorable, I had some fun in the gameplay, and it's for sure in my top 5 of the year. However, it's really not perfect. Like, in the slightest. It dared to dream, chased after it, but wound up without a cigar and a scraped knee in front of the finish line. Yeah it's good for games, but I want it to be good for everything.


Honestly this is the only website I've seen that actively supports the thing, on other sites it's either people who say it's just an overall piece of trash and should be forgotten about in the shit drains of all entertainment, or people who've never played it. People here see it as what Jesus would make if he made a shooter.

Yes, there could be some meta commentary, the acting is phenomenal, and dem character arcs, but that's about where it ends for being standout. Overall, it's an at least solid game.

It's one for the history books, but not the pedestal.

[sub][sub](I worked on that closer forever.)[/sub][/sub]

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Possibly. I think it lived up to the hype, but I could see how other people would just find it decent or overrated. Not nearly as overrated as The Walking Dead though.

 

[Saviordd1]

Fuck no, its underrated by the mainstream; it seems that its mostly this website that actually likes the damn thing.

As much as I hate to say this because it makes me feel like an unpaid english teacher there's more underneath the hood than "A shooter with a few twists".

I won't go into an essay on the topic (and believe me, I could) but basically the game's story saves it because of all the shit it throws at you on both the obvious level (which your looking at) and the between the lines level (which I love).

Again, in short, fuck no, that game was awesome and deserves whatever accolades it gets.

 

[NightmareExpress]

The gameplay is nothing special in the slightest.
The narrative is really something else, though.

If I were to call it overrated, it would only be because of the difference of quality between gameplay and narrative.
I think a game has to be good in all facets to gain the "truly great" badge and be fairly immune to being called over-rated...however, this game banks on people saying that the narrative is refreshing and completely different from any other war-shooter out there while delivering a mostly same-y TPS experience. Had the gameplay been innovative, I'd have said "nope, it deserves the praise".

But with all that said, it's a fantastic title and my personal "most overrated thing of the year" goes to The Walking Dead.
The entirety of the franchise, be it the comic, show or games.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I think it's overrated. The story would have impact if you actually had any ability to choose the actions of the protagonist. Am I supposed to feel bad that Walker killed a bunch of civilians with the mortar? I didn't choose to do that, the game made me do it.

Also the gameplay was shit.

 

[sethisjimmy]

Heavily overrated. While the game aims to satirize and subversify the generic shooter genre, it itself is a generic shooter. It's very boring to play. I'm sure if you're the kind of person who likes third person cover shooters, it might seem revolutionary for having a different kind of story, but for someone who finds them boring, the game doesn't do anything new. It also forces false choices upon you and then blames you for "picking" the wrong one, when there actually was no second option.

I also feel like aside from the few "big scenes" towards the middle and end respectively, the characters are pretty bland and generic. The narrative really doesn't do anything new either, the "you were evil all along" cliche has been around for ages.

I played it after the hype though, so I guess you could say I had high expectations. I went into the game expecting something different, and was disappointed when I found a Gears of War reskin.

All that being said, it wasn't terrible. I enjoyed the setting and it had decent production qualities. It's just decidedly average.

 

[Triforceformer]

I think it's overrated. The story would have impact if you actually had any ability to choose the actions of the protagonist. Am I supposed to feel bad that Walker killed a bunch of civilians with the mortar? I didn't choose to do that, the game made me do it.

That's part of the point. The game is lampooning the fact that Spunkgargleweewee forces you to commit massive amounts of murder, gives you no say in the matter, then acts as if that shit was just so damn cool man did you see that? It also doubles as a reality check for the player, who by that point had likely played so many segments like that one with the white silhouettes that they just stopped caring about what they actually did in them as long as they got to kill the specks without worrying about death. Walker was thinking of things more in terms of that Video-Game moral binarism; they're shooting at us so they're obviously they're bad guys and should die so I can move on. Only it turns out you don't just fucking bomb people with fire and walk away from it without consequences. If you had the choice to just turn away from that situation and go home, that would undermine the game's efforts to show us just how psychotic the average shooter protagonist really is.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

snip

I understand what they were going for with that scene among others. However personally I found it just didn't have any impact. Had the mortar been presented as an option that you could use to make the fight easier rather than being forced to use it would have made the events that occur after its use more personal and impactful.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Fuck no, its underrated by the mainstream; it seems that its mostly this website that actually likes the damn thing.

As much as I hate to say this because it makes me feel like an unpaid english teacher there's more underneath the hood than "A shooter with a few twists".

I won't go into an essay on the topic (and believe me, I could) but basically the game's story saves it because of all the shit it throws at you on both the obvious level (which your looking at) and the between the lines level (which I love).

Again, in short, fuck no, that game was awesome and deserves whatever accolades it gets.

This. The mainstream seems to have ignored this game and this website is perhaps the only place where I can talk about it with other people. No one of my friends have played it nor want to play it, and in any other place where games are discussed, Spec Ops is never mentioned. It is quite literally underrated.

 

[Nouw]

I loved it. Regarding the characters, I didn't mind their 'generic' qualities because in a satire they act best as a vessel to explore the world and this game's themes. That isn't to say they shouldn't develop, which they did, but I feel they could have gone further. Perhaps it would have detracted from Captain Walker's experience.

 

[AD-Stu]

This is where I'll get controversial. The STORY IS NOT THE BEST. In fact, if it was a film, I think it wouldn't be praised.

Well yeah, of course it wouldn't have worked as a movie - so much of it relied on gaming conventions, and on you actually BEING the one doing all that stuff, to in turn make you ask yourself why you play games like this and what you're really getting out of them. A passive experience like a movie would never have been able to get the same point across.

If you take all of that away and look at it purely as a gaming experience I'd agree, it's not great (whether you choose to believe the Word of God that the gameplay was deliberately mediocre is another issue, I guess). But I wouldn't say that makes it "overrated" because nobody was rating it for its gameplay in the first place.

 

[Clowndoe]

On the whole " It's good for video games" thing, I hate it. People didn't say "It's not a book, but It's good for a movie." and then stay where they were. Movies kept going on until they met that. This is going to sound hyperbolic, but you're validating Ebert by saying that.

But when I say it's good for video games I'm not implying that that's the grand sum of what I expect from the medium. It's something like positive reinforcement. They took a step in the right direction by at least making a discussion about a theme, but I'm hoping it's a precedent for something better, like for Call of Dutys to do something similar (yeah right) and for the SpecOpses to take another step. It's not so much the result I'm applauding it's the effort (assuming it is an effort for them).