Spec Ops: The Line. A Shooter Propelde By Story Rather Than Gameplay?

[Tohuvabohu]

snip...

But I am leaning towards trying it. Hell, I was actually going to get it - but ended up getting the Secret World instead. I might cave in and buy it still... like today :|

Amazon's Summer Sale which started today has it for 50% off (24.99 USD), and it is the Steam version.

Can you confirm that for sure? I can get a buddy in the states to get it for me since Amazon.com wont accept Canadian addresses and I don't want them buying something that I can't get.

I bought the Amazon PC Download version last night. (thanks for letting me know, @mindlesspuppet!) Instead of downloading it straight off Amazon, I just took the activation code and activated it with Steam. (I didn't know Amazon didn't let Canadians make purchases. Even for Digital Downloads?)

The steam activation worked, I downloaded it off there and played it a bit last night.

OT: I'm only about an hour into the game. It's definitely more than I had originally expected. Although I haven't encountered an extreme morally horrible situation yet. But the story itself is one big intrigue. I've yet to have any sort of clue as to what the hell is going on.

And surprisingly, the game is gorgeous. One of my major complaints for most modern military shooters is that they are so drab and awful to look at, no matter how many explosions there are.
But this game actually has a gorgeous and atmospheric setting. Also, the few firefights I've been in so far have already been pretty damned hellish. I'm reserving my overall opinion until I beat it, but so far, I am really liking it.

 

[Waaghpowa]

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First, amazon.com blocks Canadians by not allowing you to enter a country/state/province outside the US. Second, they block non American IP addresses.

I played the demo for Spec Ops a while back and I thought the game was ok, I had to tweak my controls because the sensitivity is insane on default (Possibly a raw input and my mouse has an INSANE DPI). Yes, it does look rather nice for a brown shooter. I recall the developers saying that they were doing something with sand. My guess is that they wanted sand to be realistic and believable, which in turns adds to the atmosphere of the setting in the game. Apparently the succeeded.

 

[Niska]

I just finished it this morning after playing for a few days on Suicide Mission difficulty. Honestly, Spec Ops has affected me more then any other game I have ever played. The moral, graphic decisions you are forced to make and your characters decent into madness make you feel horrible at times. The game play is bland but you play this game for the story.

 

[The Last Nomad]

It's a fairly generic third person cover shooter. On the surface. But after what I just witnessed in the game, I don't care if it's generic. Well I don't care because I got the game as a gift. I'm still not sure if I could recommend buying it for full price. It's got an intriguing story and it's not afraid of controversy. If you had any idea what the game just made me do...Jesus Christ the scene I just saw was horrible.

Spoiler: What basically happened

main character thought he was killing enemy soldiers with white phosphorus, but when you were finished burning them alive, you realize they were actually the good guys, not the soldiers you were fighting just minutes before. These guys were helping civilians. And you burned them and those civilians. Women and children were among them. There was a mother holding her child in her arms. And it's quite graphic. Burned flesh and everything. But the saddest thing for me was when you approached one dying soldier who with his last breath just asked you "why". Christ, this game is fuckin' dark.

It's definitely not a gray military shooter. It's very colorful actually and locations are not what you'd expect from a generic military shooter. It's a very surprising game. It makes me sad that the actual gameplay is very generic. 2 weapons, cover system, some grenades and 2 squad members without the ability to issue a lot of tactical commands. It could have been so much more. Hell, with a story like that it should have been so much more.

Definetly gonna consider buying this if I see it cheap somewhere and I imagine its the kinda game that will get pretty cheap pretty soon.

I just finished it this morning after playing for a few days on Suicide Mission difficulty. Honestly, Spec Ops has affected me more then any other game I have ever played. The moral, graphic decisions you are forced to make and your characters decent into madness make you feel horrible at times. The game play is bland but you play this game for the story.

Or you could just read Heart of Darkness and/or watch Apocalypse Now, which is the exact same story, only without the lousy Shyamalan-esque attempts at a twist and the poor dialog.

So a slightly worse version of Apocalypse now in video game form?
That makes it sound better than the majority of games released this year.

 

[kasperbbs]

I've played it for an hour or so. The story is one big WTF. So Dubai is destroyed by sand, a US army platoon has gone rogue, CIA is now hunting them and now your team has to fight EVERYONE: the Dubai citizens, the platoon and I guess the CIA as well.

Apocalypse Now? Heart of Darkness? More like MW3.

Besides we know they put the game in Dubai only so that the US teenagers can shoot more Arab people.

Thats what i liked about it the most, you don't know what the hell is going on, but everything gets explained eventually. And no, Arabs are not the enemy, i wont spoil anymore.

 

[Jubbert]

The one thing that I loved more than anything in the rest of the game is how as you progress through the story and Walker gets more and more unraveled, the melee executions that he performs become more and more brutal and merciless.

Example: At the beginning, the executions are pretty standard - Punch a dude in the face, shoot a dude in the head, all pretty clean.

Near the end, you'll shove your rifle barrel into the soldiers' throats and pull the trigger, you'll shoot them in the kneecap before shooting them in the head, and you'll use your rifle to choke them before snapping their neck. The very worst part about all this is finding out how the violence you commit, rather than most games where your actions are all to kill designated "bad guys," is actually completely unjustified.

 

[Reaper195]

I played the demo a while back. The only thing I was not fond of was the gameplay, which felt somewhat clumsy and reminiscent of Conflict: Desert Storm 2-ish. The voice acting, story and everything else on the other hand was brilliant. Almost makes me wish they'd just made a CGI movie out of it instead of a game. In fact, many game developers should make CGI movies instead of games.

 

[Jubbert]

I've played it for an hour or so. The story is one big WTF. So Dubai is destroyed by sand, a US army platoon has gone rogue, CIA is now hunting them and now your team has to fight EVERYONE: the Dubai citizens, the platoon and I guess the CIA as well.

Apocalypse Now? Heart of Darkness? More like MW3.

Besides we know they put the game in Dubai only so that the US teenagers can shoot more Arab people.

The Dubaian insurgents are only the enemies in the first, like, hour of gameplay.

 

[octafish]

Hmmm, I tried the PC demo and it just screamed "SHODDY PC PORT" at me. Does the full game have proper graphics options?

 

[teebeeohh]

Hmmm, I tried the PC demo and it just screamed "SHODDY PC PORT" at me. Does the full game have proper graphics options?

no and you also have the usual mouse issues that come with a bad port, if you have a controller connected to the PC the whole interface will just display the buttons on the controller.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Hmmm, I tried the PC demo and it just screamed "SHODDY PC PORT" at me. Does the full game have proper graphics options?

no and you also have the usual mouse issues that come with a bad port, if you have a controller connected to the PC the whole interface will just display the buttons on the controller.

While there is a slight mouse sensitivity issue, graphics options are fine. They are not great and detailed as Max Payne 3 options for example, but it's a UT3 engine game. A 5 year old PC can run it just fine. My biggest issue is the default control scheme and "one button to rule them all" like in Mass Effect 3.

 

[octafish]

Hmmm, I tried the PC demo and it just screamed "SHODDY PC PORT" at me. Does the full game have proper graphics options?

no and you also have the usual mouse issues that come with a bad port, if you have a controller connected to the PC the whole interface will just display the buttons on the controller.

While there is a slight mouse sensitivity issue, graphics options are fine. They are not great and detailed as Max Payne 3 options for example, but it's a UT3 engine game. A 5 year old PC can run it just fine. My biggest issue is the default control scheme and "one button to rule them all" like in Mass Effect 3.

Ok. So probably not full retail then. I'm not a fan of the third person anyway, and fighting the controls really does turn me off.

 

[Serving UpSmiles]

Waiting for the console version drop down to $30.

Demo didn't "Wow" me but the game still intrigues me.

I also want to try out the multiplayer despite every review saying it wasn't that great.

Same here, the demo was just boring and looking at all the praise this game is getting it's making me reconsider ignoring it. Hell people are comparing it to "Heart of Darkness" for Christ's sake.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

The only things I've heard about the game come from Giant Bomb, where they all had rather negative things to say about it, including: very poor graphics, bland, uninteresting story, sand mechanics that don't come into large play until more than half way through the game, irreversible choices that aren't explained to the player, and more.

They summed it up as a case of misleading advertising; a boring, bland playing and looking game that's been misrepresented in the media as something it's not.

 

[tsb247]

I enjoyed the demo, and I will likely pick the game up. I will probably wait until the price goeas down though because I don't feel like paying the, "Release day," price. If I really decide that I want it, I will either save up a little or pray for it to show up on a Steam mid-week madness event.