Spec Ops never made me feel bad. I know I'm a good person IRL, but that game TRIED to make you feel like a horrible human being in the worst way possible. Think about it, the main turning point in the game is something you are forced into by the game. It might be cool if the player himself had this big battle and then reverted to using the mortar. But of course, then If I didn't use it, the the game would not be able to continue. So, I don't understand how it makes you feel bad.
ALSO....SOOO OVERRATED. BUTTT.....I already made a sizable thread about thread on that.
I don't really understand this criticism. Humans can be forced to do bad things through circumstance or necessity and still feel bad about it even if it was out of their control. I felt bad dumping my ex-gf, even though she "rail-roaded" me into it by being annoying, for example.
Zhukov said:
bananafishtoday said:
Daystar Clarion said:
How people feel bad after playing this game is beyond me.
Out of curiosity, did you see Walker as a character distinct from yourself who you observed act, or did you project yourself into him and see his acts as your own? I don't mean the "choices" (the game was strictly linear); I mean everything that happened in the game.
I guess If I had to choose I'd say I mostly saw Walker as a distinct character.
Thing is, I can't really project myself onto whose actions I have no influence over. Even if it's just mostly inconsequential dialogue choices a la Mass Effect, Human Revolution or The Walking Dead. That's enough for me to start thinking of the character as "me" or as "my character". Spec Ops didn't have that. It kinda tried with those few choices, but that wasn't enough, at least not for me.
On the other hand, Walker didn't have any defined personality that I can recall. You don't know anything about his past, his likes and dislikes, his sense of humour, or... anything. SO I really didn't care about anything that happened to him except out of curiosity. I guess I kinda felt sorry for him toward the end, but that's about it.
Just out of interest, why does something as inconsequential as choosing a sarcastic or polite comment increase your immersion but minor things like using a sniper over a pistol or something do nothing? Both largely inconsequential yet both provide a little bit of personalisation to the protagonist, how he talks or how he fights etc.
I don't really understand this new obsession with "choices" though. Books don't have to have choices but can still draw you in completely if written well, even though the reader has no choice whatsoever about what direction the narrative is going in. I've nothing against some games going for lot's of choice and consequence, but i don't see why it needs to be in everything. A book often follows a protagonist or narrator through a specific story arc, a game can do the same. Only a game allows the player to experience directly what happens through the narrative.
But just because you can control the motions Walker goes through throughout doesn't mean you should have complete freedom over everything that happens in the game or else it's a terrible game. YOU are playing Walker's story, no one elses. Personally i think the fact that it's YOU experiencing directly the horrors of Walkers actions is what made it so effective.
I just can't get into it, I'm sure the story is great , but the shitty GAME keeps getting in the way. It isn't a good port either. I'm really struggling to get through it. A lot like ME2 or Bioshock, well not quite that bad, the story at least isn't as bad as those, but the gameplay is...
The author of those articles is missing the point of the game. For an equivalent, look at the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. It is FULL OF HOLES. Shit happens that doesn't make sense even in the rules defined by the universe itself, there are red herrings all over the place, the lore is contradictory, and if it were at all played straight it would be a complete failure and have faded into obscurity long ago.
Instead, it's the most important anime and one of the most important pieces of Japanese culture period in the last twenty years, because it is not at its core a Giant Robot anime. It's a deconstruction of the mecha genre and a story about one man's incredible daddy/mommy issues, and in that context it works brilliantly - it makes no sense because it doesn't need to.
Similarly, SpecOps: The Line is not a First/Third-Person shooter; it represents a new take on an older premise through the lens of a contemporary medium. This game is deconstructing modern military shooters and trying to talk about PTSD. What exactly is happening throughout the game is not clear;
Walker was a sick man before he got to Dubai and, as I like to believe it, began hallucinating from the moment he opened fire on that first CIA operative, and continues to do so until (in the ending I chose) he hands his AA12 over to the grunts that find him standing in a daze in the courtyard.
Dubai looks nothing like the real Dubai, and that's okay because it's fictional. SpecOps overtly presents itself in the vein of realistic modern military shooters, but very little is realistic about it - that's the point. Similarly, the combat kind of sucks; that's okay, because this is not a game where the player is supposed to be having fun in the traditional shooter sense. It is not a shooter.
TL;DR
I suppose the best way to describe SO:TL is as an expressionist game, much like Psychonauts; its contents are exaggerated and unrealistic because, as a piece of art (and yes, games are art and this is perfectly valid in the context of any other artistic storytelling medium, so why not games as well), it is trying to make one or more points, incite feelings in the viewer/player/audience/consumer-of-artistic-medium, provoke discussion, and talk about the human condition. Citing its unrealism and its plot holes as flaws is missing the point of the game - "Realism" is a feature of shooters, and, as I contend, SO:TL is NOT a shooter. It is pretending to be one, because DECONSTRUCTION R GOOD. It's not perfect by any means, but it successfully does what it sets out to do, which is take apart the shooter genre, talk about PTSD, and challenge the player's understanding of their chosen medium.
EDIT: Okay, I just read all the way to the end of that first article complaining about the developers complaining about the multiplayer. Uh, do they seriously expect a game with a middling budget and no fanbase like that to compete with CoD? It ain't gonna happen. That's the entire reason the SP got MADE. They were told to make a successful shooter (SpunkGargleWeeWee, to paraphrase our own Yahtzee Croshaw), which is obviously an effectively impossible task because the shooter is stagnating and it has no room to grow; CoD and Battlefield have more or less consumed the entire market, and TF2 has the scraps.
No, you didn't. The other option was to put the controller down and stop playing. You had a choice, and you made yours. Your action killed those people. And you should feel bad about it. It's all very meta.
If you try to justify it as 'That's not a real option because I paid money for this game and have to play it to it's conclusion to get my money's worth', then I can't help but feel as though you missed the point the game was trying to make.
There have been a few games that I've played that have left a very real emotional affect on me after playing. Also, there have been games that I've been brought nearly to tears (or at least that stuck-in-your-throat feeling you get sometimes) while playing. You said it best when you gave the writers credit for that. It really is the sign of top-notch storytelling that makes you actually "Feel" something while you play a "game". And yes, feeling bad about things you've done in a game that you would feel bad about doing in real life is a good sign. I honestly wonder at those people who play a game where you can do horrible things (by choice, mind you) and still walk away feeling nothing. This may be that they are able to disassociate themselves from a video game, and that's good, I think. But I also wonder that if people who feel nothing during game play like that would also feel nothing about doing such things in real life.... But I'm no scientist.
And in response to your post's title; I'm a 7-year Army Veteran who served in 3 combat zones. I am actually diagnosed with severe PTSD due to that. Saying you have PTSD from playing a video game, however wonderfully written and emotionally involving, in my view, isn't even close. Not getting on your case, it's just...I dunno, the use of PTSD for every little thing people go through these days...
I still don't see how that game manages to make people feel bad.
Don't get me wrong, it's pretty good stuff, but why would I feel responsible for nasty stuff that the game railroads me into doing?
As for what choices I made... I tried to free the two hanging guys by shooting the ropes, but they both got shot by the snipers (not that it matters, since they were both dead anyway). I mercy-killed that one guy who was on fire. I scared the lynch mob away by firing into the air.
I actually felt good about all those choices. They were completely irrelevant though. The big event doesn't give you any choice.
Can't remember what I chose at the end, since I went and watched the other endings on Youtube straight after.
I hear you. At the point in chapter 7 (or 8 or 9 can't remember) where you do a bad thing, my first reaction when i saw a guy still moving was to shoot him thinking that he deserved it. I felt like shit when i reached the soldier who said that they were helping.
Well, let's see; I think that aside from the fact that the game forces you to do some serious stuff, what made it compelling for me was the mindset in your own head, I think I was so used to these games, I stopped questioning whys or hows.
And this is the one that for the first time got me "hold on..." That's was made it brilliant to me, it's not what happens in the game so much, it's what's happen in your head even after you stopped playing it.
Oh, and for the choices... let's see:
1- Kill the US Soldier that tried to escape.
2- Let the guy burn.
3- Kill the snipers, but couldn't save those two hanging anyways, though it's obvious why.
4- Shoot to the air to scare the posse.
5- Tested every ending.
An episode of Extra Credits "spoiled" the game for me, but I was still interested in seeing how it was all executed. I recently watched an LP of it from someone who actually "got" it - even started dropping the phrase "We're descending into the Heart of Darkness" during the ubiquitous rappelling scenes. Hearing "Oh God, I hope those weren't civilians." during the Mortar section, and then watching the LPer mercy kill the writhing burn victims, was one of the few experiences from a video game (even witnessed second hand) that 'reached' me.
One thing that seems to be missing in the discussion is the fact that
Walker is screwed up from the start. He doesn't suddenly snap due to what happened in Dubai. He *arrived* snapped, courtesy of what happened in Kabul.
Also, the dichotomy between "Die, *****" executions and "He turned us into killers" is simple. If someone is trying to kill me, and I have to kill them to stay alive, my adrenaline is up and I'm going to do whatever it takes. I'm going to say things to psych myself up, to put on an image if only for my own benefit to keep me from realizing that I'm a person and so are my enemies.
Killing unarmed civilians in a horrible way is something else entirely.
This is one of those games I wish I could un-hear about and go into completely blind.
Another shooter that got to me, that I actually played, was Far Cry 2. I remember fighting like hell to keep a partner (who had saved me several times) alive during a bad firefight. When I couldn't and she ended up dying, soaking up all my syrettes until she went to sleep forever, I re-loaded and tried again. When I finally managed to keep her alive, I felt like I had really accomplished something. When the end game events occurred, I felt betrayed and angry. Blood for pay, and nothing else matters. I gladly died on the ridge, making sure the bomb detonated. The character I was playing was broken at that point, a part of the problem.
Strange how both games drew inspiration from Heart of Darkness.
I only paid 7USD for this game and I am glad. I was utterly disgusted by SpecOps: The Line.
It was mostly the portrayal of the Special Forces soldiers that bothered me. Those are the most elite, badass warriors America can offer. To get to the point where they are sent on a highly dangerous mission like that, they need a mind made of steel. They need to be able to overcome the most horrific of situations. The way they broke down, the way they were downright unprofessional, was highly disrespectful to the real Special Forces.
I also did not feel bad for a single decision in the game. They did what needed to be done to get on with their mission. Anyone who is shocked by anything that happened in the game needs to open a history book about WW1 or WW2. Watch a video of the mountains of dead jews. That's true horror. This game was an insult and a pathetic attempt to manipulate the emotions of people.
I have family that fought in the most horrific wars in this past Century, wars your country doesn't even remember existed, despite supplying weapons to the participants. Those people, including one former Commando, ALL have some degree of PTSD. I understand your idolization of those people, but the fact of the matter is, your objectification and idealization of them is as far removed from reality as you claim the game is. And as insulting.
I guess If I had to choose I'd say I mostly saw Walker as a distinct character.
Thing is, I can't really project myself onto whose actions I have no influence over. Even if it's just mostly inconsequential dialogue choices a la Mass Effect, Human Revolution or The Walking Dead. That's enough for me to start thinking of the character as "me" or as "my character". Spec Ops didn't have that. It kinda tried with those few choices, but that wasn't enough, at least not for me.
On the other hand, Walker didn't have any defined personality that I can recall. You don't know anything about his past, his likes and dislikes, his sense of humour, or... anything. SO I really didn't care about anything that happened to him except out of curiosity. I guess I kinda felt sorry for him toward the end, but that's about it.
Just out of interest, why does something as inconsequential as choosing a sarcastic or polite comment increase your immersion but minor things like using a sniper over a pistol or something do nothing? Both largely inconsequential yet both provide a little bit of personalisation to the protagonist, how he talks or how he fights etc.
a) Because things like weapon choice do not define a personality. They can complement a personality, and in games that let me I will often use them to do just that, but in the absence of other options they do not constitute a personality on their own.
b) Because the game never reacts to my choice in weapons. Using a shotgun a lot doesn't make Walker act more aggressive. Using a sniper doesn't make him cold and calculating. Other characters never comment on the weapon I'm using. However, in, for example, The Walking Dead, other characters will call me out if I tell inconsistent lies. They'll get annoyed with me if I'm rude or aggressive toward them. If I tell them my opinion of another character they then go and pass it on. If I swear around Clementine, she repeats it later in company and all the adults give me accusing looks. That's the game reacting to my choice. Small choices and small reactions, sure, but reactions nonetheless.
I don't really understand this new obsession with "choices" though. Books don't have to have choices but can still draw you in completely if written well, even though the reader has no choice whatsoever about what direction the narrative is going in. I've nothing against some games going for lot's of choice and consequence, but i don't see why it needs to be in everything. A book often follows a protagonist or narrator through a specific story arc, a game can do the same. Only a game allows the player to experience directly what happens through the narrative.
a) I am not obsessed with choice. I'm fine with linear games that have zero narrative-related choice. More on this later.
b) What works in book may not necessarily work in games. Also, how exactly does a book not allow the reader "experience directly what happens through the narrative"?
But just because you can control the motions Walker goes through throughout doesn't mean you should have complete freedom over everything that happens in the game or else it's a terrible game. YOU are playing Walker's story, no one elses. Personally i think the fact that it's YOU experiencing directly the horrors of Walkers actions is what made it so effective.
Either this bit wasn't aimed at me or I have failed to explain myself clearly.
I do not think SO:TL is a terrible game. I think it is a pretty good game. I liked it. I don't think I should have complete freedom of choice in it. I would have been fine if it had no choice at all.
My problem is:
a) The game tries to make me feel guilty for things I did not choose to do. It's like someone walking up to me, grabbing my wrist and using it to punch themselves in the mouth with my hand, then trying to tell me off for committing assault. My reaction is not going be, "Oh my God, you're right. I'm a horrible person who punches people in the mouth." Instead, my reaction is, "What are you talking about? You did that, you twat, not me. You should have stopped and contacted your superiors for new orders as soon as you were fired upon by US troops because I'm pretty damn sure your original orders didn't cover this situation." "Experiencing directly the horrors of Walker's actions" has a significantly lessened effect if I am not responsible for those horrors.
b) Walker is not well defined enough for me to care what happens to him. So, once again, "experiencing directly the horrors of Walker's actions" has a significantly lessened effect.
Another shooter that got to me, that I actually played, was Far Cry 2. I remember fighting like hell to keep a partner (who had saved me several times) alive during a bad firefight. When I couldn't and she ended up dying, soaking up all my syrettes until she went to sleep forever, I re-loaded and tried again. When I finally managed to keep her alive, I felt like I had really accomplished something. When the end game events occurred, I felt betrayed and angry. Blood for pay, and nothing else matters. I gladly died on the ridge, making sure the bomb detonated. The character I was playing was broken at that point, a part of the problem.
Strange how both games drew inspiration from Heart of Darkness.
If arguments are anything like duelling, then in case of Spec Ops: The Line people are trying to duel by wrangling a sword out of each others hands. Each argument for Spec Ops can be turned against it and vice versa. It's impossible to come to a conclusion. People just say "It tried to guilt trip me and failed, 0/10" or "I felt guilty and horrible 10/10". Sometimes it's "It only had the illusion of choice and a linear story 0/10" or "It's illusion of choice masterfully masked how linear the story was 10/10"
Each piece of art is using a magician's trick to make the audience believe that what they portray is the reality. Paintings use lightning and realism, books try with good characters and logical plot. In this case, illusion of choice was the "trick" to make us believe we had a choice at the Gates. That's either absolutely amazing mechanic or a mere cheap trick.
I was blown away, but I realize that it left many other unaffected - as it always happens with art.
Don't let anyone make you feel bad about your emotional response, OP. Thats what the game is *supposed* to do, at least for those that make an effort to get invested in the characters.
I won't say it was a traumatic experience for me, but I was definitely glad when it was over.
Out of curiosity, did you see Walker as a character distinct from yourself who you observed act, or did you project yourself into him and see his acts as your own? I don't mean the "choices" (the game was strictly linear); I mean everything that happened in the game.
I ask because after talking to a lot of other people who'd played Spec Ops, it seems like that's the big difference between those who were deeply affected by it and those who weren't. I think seeing yourself as Walker is necessary to complete the willing suspension of disbelief with a game like this one. Otherwise it just doesn't work, in much the same way that, say, LotR would seem silly and contrived if one focused on the fact that Middle Earth doesn't actually exist.
I had a similar experience with the game as the OP btw. The game absolutely wrecked me, and in the end I was incredibly relieved to have the
suicide option
because I was so badly in need of the catharsis it provided.
This, more or less. I played it, and made decisions that I believe I would have made in that situation, which I always do in my first playthrough of a game with choices. So the ending hit me pretty hard. However, I decided to
shoot the colonel
at the end, because I couldn't just give up like that. I could never do that to my family, and I'm not the type to give up. Great game though.
I think people are too keen to voice their revolutionary opinion. I am in a thread about the impact of Spec Ops the line and it's full of people who found it dull. Discussion may flare up over the two opposite opinions, however it is so agonising reading people give reasons for why they didn't enjoy it to others who did enjoy it.
What are you hoping for!? Them to suddenly turn around and say, yeah I actually found it drab after all that. The emotional impact I felt not only dissolved but failed to exist in the first place. (That goes for opposite as well, if it needs to.)
Only other thing I can imagine you may achieve is to warn others. Given the polarising nature of the game it's best people find out for themselves imo.
OT: The (illusions of) choices had me reeled in, and I enjoyed the game for it's narrative and portrayal of the decent into madness. The hype did not escape me and I knew what to expect from the game, I had a mindset to enjoy and go along with it. This paid off and my time was not wasted. The hype might have took away from the experience some what and I can see how it could flat out ruin the game.
I sincerely hope my post is not akin to some of the drivel in this thread.
I really don't think you could miss the point harder. He missed that a) Spec Ops (the game) makes bad design decisions on purpose to show why they're bad and b) Spec Ops does not in any way endorse what its protagonist does.
I only paid 7USD for this game and I am glad. I was utterly disgusted by SpecOps: The Line.
It was mostly the portrayal of the Special Forces soldiers that bothered me. Those are the most elite, badass warriors America can offer. To get to the point where they are sent on a highly dangerous mission like that, they need a mind made of steel. They need to be able to overcome the most horrific of situations. The way they broke down, the way they were downright unprofessional, was highly disrespectful to the real Special Forces.
The fact that you think PTSD is the soldier's fault for being too weak is more disrespectful to the armed forces than anything in the game.
I also did not feel bad for a single decision in the game. They did what needed to be done to get on with their mission. Anyone who is shocked by anything that happened in the game needs to open a history book about WW1 or WW2. Watch a video of the mountains of dead jews. That's true horror. This game was an insult and a pathetic attempt to manipulate the emotions of people.
The big point of the game is that "I did what I had to do" is a very flimsy excuse for committing war crimes. Walker kept repeating that he was doing what he had to do in order to get on with the mission, but his mission was reconnaissance. Walker states that at the beginning of the game, and the ending montage demonstrates just how far he'd shifted the goalposts since that point.
The argument the game is making is that Walker justified his increasingly disastrous actions by chalking it up to the nebulous "mission" he was on, but never really explained what the "mission" was. Instead of pulling out and reporting to command as soon as he was fired upon, he pushed forward because he wanted to be the hero. His "necessary" evils were just the consequences of that decision.
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