Spec Ops: The Line;I now have PTSD.

[Shpongled]

....

....

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.

Apologies for the wall-o-text.

Sorry, a lot of that post was aimed at the thread in general, you explained yourself clearly.

I think comparing it to the Walking Dead is a bit harsh, that game is an adventure game, it's based almost entirely around conversation, sure it's going to have plenty of intricate conversations etc. Spec Op's is a TPS, so there's only so much conversation to help add some more colour to Walkers personality before they may as well just make an RPG or adventure game or something, but that would defeat the whole deconstruction of the genre thing.

Anyway, i hate to say to it but, i do think you kinda missed the point if you think the point was to make you feel guilty. The game even says on loading screens "Don't worry, you aren't a bad person" or something along those lines. The point is just to make you think about what you're actually doing, ie massacring your way through scores of allies and civilians alike for reason other than you can. I guess for many people guilt is just a by-product of that thought, even if it is undeserved since it's only a game.

I don't know, unless maybe one of the developers said somewhere the point is to make you feel guilty, then i don't think that's point.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Read this, and your mind will find peace:

http://theshillinfield.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/spec-ops-the-line-is-a-bad-videogame/
http://theshillinfield.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/spec-ops-the-line-is-still-a-bad-videogame/#more-95

I've read those two articles, and while the author is entitled to his opinion...it's still a shitty, poorly-thought-out, incredible opinion.

For one thing, he seems to have read the game as a defence of war crimes and imperialistic conflicts. That's...I really don't have to say anything else, actually. That's wrong. That's not what the game is about, and I don't know how he could have read it that way.

I could break it down, but it'd be kind of pointless.

 

[Eppy (Bored)]

For one thing, he seems to have read the game as a defence of war crimes and imperialistic conflicts. That's...I really don't have to say anything else, actually. That's wrong. That's not what the game is about, and I don't know how he could have read it that way.

I wondered about that! I'm honestly curious as to how the guy even got that from the game. How can a game with a flagrantly psychotic American military protagonist be a defense of American war crimes? I R NOT UNDERSTAND.

 

[the clockmaker]

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.

Unfortunately, this blokes attitude is not uncommon. People think that a mental health injury that occurs due to warlike service is a failing on the part of the soldier. This is a toxic and bullshit attitude that leads to several effects
-A decrease in defence focus on treating soldiers with mental health injuries
-A increase in soldiers not wanting to come forward with their problems, fearing ridicule and exclusion. As a soldier what he fears most, most will likely say being left behind while their mates work, so if he thinks that they are going to think that he is weak, he is not going to seek help
-Capability loss stemming from untreated mental health injuries, soldiers who kill themselves due to lack of treatment cannot do their job. Soldiers who break down fully cannot do their job. Soldiers who act out cannot do their job. If mental health injuries are not treated, people cannot do their jobs.
-Ex-Soldiers filtering back into civilian life with issues that will affect them later in life (see British veterans of the Falklands and Australian veterans of peacekeeping in Rwanda)

Thinking that being a 'badarse' protects you from post traumatic stress syndrome or that suffering a mental health injury is a sign of weakness is bad for defence, bad for the country and bad for soldiers, past present and future.

As an aside, the modern Australian defence force is very good about this sort of thing. Soldiers are encouraged to come forward with their issues, mental health injuries are de-stigmatised, a book slamming the army for not caring for soldiers with mental health injuries in the past was made advised reading by the army and soldiers who have overcome mental health injuries are given multi-page stories in defence papers and their descriptions of their struggles are shown to all soldiers, to disuade the thinking that they are weak for having these problems.

TLDR, people who think that PTSS makes you weak or a bad soldier can get fucked.

 

[saintdane05]

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.

It's not railroading. You had a choice the whole game, most gamers don't even discover it.

You can turn the game off.
Really. You can turn the game off, preventing the whole damn thing from happening. Why are you playing this? Why are you killing innocent people? You know what you are doing! Turn it off, damn it!

 

[Catfood220]

Spoiler

Right there I almost threw up. I just felt like such a horrible despicable human being. Sure I've blown up planets in other games but to have it thrown in my face like that, wow. OP, I feel your pain.

To be fair, I would have felt a lot worse if the game had given me the option as to how to proceed in that scenario. If I had had the choice to fight through the enemy saving the civilians or just mortar everyone to death, I might have felt differently. But the game gave me one road and then tried to make me feel bad about it. Seriously fuck you game for trying to make me feel bad about something I never had any control over.

 

[Savo]

I didn't have quite the same experience as you, but I get where you're coming from. My blood ran cold during a couple sequences, such as the white phosphorus scene and the lynch mob sequence.

http://theshillinfield.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/spec-ops-the-line-is-a-bad-videogame/
http://theshillinfield.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/spec-ops-the-line-is-still-a-bad-videogame/#more-95

Um... I've heard some good arguments against Spec:Ops, but that wasn't one of them. In fact, both of those articles were quite terrible.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Spoiler

Right there I almost threw up. I just felt like such a horrible despicable human being. Sure I've blown up planets in other games but to have it thrown in my face like that, wow. OP, I feel your pain.

To be fair, I would have felt a lot worse if the game had given me the option as to how to proceed in that scenario. If I had had the choice to fight through the enemy saving the civilians or just mortar everyone to death, I might have felt differently. But the game gave me one road and then tried to make me feel bad about it. Seriously fuck you game for trying to make me feel bad about something I never had any control over.

I didn't think about other options, I saw that I had right there a powerful weapon that kills over a good area, it made perfect sense to use it. Thing is I'll use any kind of weapon against soldiers, I even shot the ones that were injured but not quite dead enough for my liking. My overenthusiasm though was what kicked my ass. That's why I felt bad, I jumped right to a sadistic weapon without even considering any consequences other than killing every soldier.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

I condemned 10 million corporate slaves to their death and got called a monster, this is nothing really.

Still it is a good setting to counter more hamfisted attempts towards pacifism in Gundam.

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.

Actually they did everything EXCEPT what needed to be done to get on with their mission

We have our orders. Locate survivors. Leave the city immediately. Radio command from outside the storm wall. They send in the cavalry, we go home.

And then Walker bears the curse of being the "Harbingers of doom" and the group that was responsible for countless servicemen dead on both sides as the troops walked into the storm wall, not realizing just how horrible humanity is.

 

[Catfood220]

Spoiler

Right there I almost threw up. I just felt like such a horrible despicable human being. Sure I've blown up planets in other games but to have it thrown in my face like that, wow. OP, I feel your pain.

To be fair, I would have felt a lot worse if the game had given me the option as to how to proceed in that scenario. If I had had the choice to fight through the enemy saving the civilians or just mortar everyone to death, I might have felt differently. But the game gave me one road and then tried to make me feel bad about it. Seriously fuck you game for trying to make me feel bad about something I never had any control over.

I didn't think about other options, I saw that I had right there a powerful weapon that kills over a good area, it made perfect sense to use it. Thing is I'll use any kind of weapon against soldiers, I even shot the ones that were injured but not quite dead enough for my liking. My overenthusiasm though was what kicked my ass. That's why I felt bad, I jumped right to a sadistic weapon without even considering any consequences other than killing every soldier.

But here's the thing, you shouldn't feel bad because the game doesn't offer you a choice. Yeah, you thought it was the best way forward, but what if you hadn't? Tough, you have to use the mortar to advance in the game no matter what. You have no choice if you want to see what the rest of the game has to offer. It goes "here use this to continue" and then it goes "look, look what you've done you monster".

If the game had of given you the choice to take the easy option and use the mortar and kill every living thing or take ther harder option and you take out the enemy one at a time as you had been for pretty much the entire game, it would have held a lot more emotional weight when you you took easy option and it turned out to be the worst option but for the game to go "use this to continue...awww look what you've done now, I can't take you anywhere" is cheap and manipulative. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game enough to platinum it, I just don't see the point of feeling bad about something I had no control of.

 

[Eppy (Bored)]

But here's the thing, you shouldn't feel bad because the game doesn't offer you a choice. Yeah, you thought it was the best way forward, but what if you hadn't? Tough, you have to use the mortar to advance in the game no matter what. You have no choice if you want to see what the rest of the game has to offer. It goes "here use this to continue" and then it goes "look, look what you've done you monster".

If the game had of given you the choice to take the easy option and use the mortar and kill every living thing or take ther harder option and you take out the enemy one at a time as you had been for pretty much the entire game, it would have held a lot more emotional weight when you you took easy option and it turned out to be the worst option but for the game to go "use this to continue...awww look what you've done now, I can't take you anywhere" is cheap and manipulative. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game enough to platinum it, I just don't see the point of feeling bad about something I had no control of.

Why is it important that the player have a choice?

 

[Stomperchomper]

I stopped playing shortly after the helicopter crashed, the game pissed me off too much to continue any further (gameplay wise, the story was very meh to me.) One thing I did notice though the bugged me, not sure why, was that how on earth did Walker doom the city?

They said there were 5000 people in the city. (a number that seems extremely low given the amount of people in Dubai) There were three water trucks (as far as I remember anyways) which probably didn't hold more than 27,000 gallons assuming they were all full.

Just never made sense to me.

 

[the clockmaker]

I stopped playing shortly after the helicopter crashed, the game pissed me off too much to continue any further (gameplay wise, the story was very meh to me.) One thing I did notice though the bugged me, not sure why, was that how on earth did Walker doom the city?

They said there were 5000 people in the city. (a number that seems extremely low given the amount of people in Dubai) There were three water trucks (as far as I remember anyways) which probably didn't hold more than 27,000 gallons assuming they were all full.

Just never made sense to me.

Had Walker followed his orders, pulled out on contact and called in assistance, there would have been basic humanitarian assistance in the city within a day and a full organised effort within a few days. Even if he had just died, the regular army effort sent in when he went missing, (shown in the end) would have been there in time to save the civvies.

His combination of not calling for help and destroying the water doomed the city.

 

[latiasracer]

*Spoilers*

Not as severe a reaction as you OP, but i was affected by Spec ops a fair bit, Especially the bit when you accidently burn your own soldiers and the refugees, that was baaad man...

Only harsh decision i felt that i made was mowing down the protesters after they hung lugo, and i did that for two reasons

1.) Lugo was a usefull teamate, much better than the black guy who had about as much marksmanship as a stormtrooper

2.) They clearly where not ever going to think rationally, and they had believed they where justified in what they did. For that, i just felt they deserved it.

I Didn't have too much of a problem with the others, the soldier guy was clearly in the wrong (turns out they where both dead anyway, oh well). I went with the soldiers in the end, they didn't deserve to be shot and i had already done a fair bit of freindly fire along the way...

All in all, i liked the game, But i do agree with some about the White phos. Scene, it doesn't make sense that the game presented me with tons of other decisions, and then this is just left to play out. And why the hell did my guys only like "y u do dis walker" once? Surely walker would atleast think about other options?

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

None of the actions you do actually have any consequences because it's a video game with imaginary characters.

Well, shit. Guess fiction shouldn't exist. I'll inform my local library; they'll be overjoyed about all the space you just cleared up for them.

 

[Saika Renegade]

I don't get why people feel like so horrible when playing that game.

None of the actions you do actually have any consequences because it's a video game with imaginary characters.

I'd hate to see you people in a real combat scenario.

Empathy.

Players who are especially affected can recognize and understand the emotional breadth what another individual goes through, whether that individual is a being of flesh and blood or a construct of electrons. That empathy, in a setting as obscenely horrific as Spec Ops, is emotionally upsetting to some players because, even for a moment, they can think to themselves, "Oh my God...what if I -really- did that?"

On that last point...I suppose I would rather have an empathic person in my platoon rather than a sociopathic one. There's a reason that most sniper cadres try to select -against- sociopathy in their ranks, after all; it's infinitely easier to instill rifle skills into a person without them, than it is to instill humanity in a person without it.

 

[IronMit]

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.

For me personally, I was projecting myself onto Walker (role playing) and as that immersed me it worked and had the effect it was supposed to.

However when it ended I realised that wasn't quite it....Walker mirrors/reflects the gamer but you aren't actually him.

Or the disconnect kind of happened at the white phosphorus scene...when Walker absolves all responsibility, reflecting the gamer blaming the game or is this where a disconnect between the protagonist and the player happens and you realise this is Walker's story and not yours?

A lot of people complain that they couldn't opt out of the white phosphorous scene so they are no longer role playing and seeing his actions as their own. I'm not sure if this is supposed to happen or if the desired effect failed here because those players weren't caught up enough in the ride to go along with it in the moment.

 

[IronMit]

I don't get why people feel like so horrible when playing that game.

None of the actions you do actually have any consequences because it's a video game with imaginary characters.

I'd hate to see you people in a real combat scenario.

On that line of thinking why would you watch any movie, tv show, read any fictional book and or play any game?

 

[the clockmaker]

I don't get why people feel like so horrible when playing that game.

None of the actions you do actually have any consequences because it's a video game with imaginary characters.

I'd hate to see you people in a real combat scenario.

Yep, their ability to link emotional responses to abstract situations ('how would I feel if that was me') as shown by their posting a few words on a website shows an inability to cope with stress situations. Personally, I feel that their feeling slightly sad after encountering a sad piece of media is an appropriate response (while I appreciated a lot of the themes and scenes in the game, they did not personally affect me all that much). Now, I hope the OP is engaging in hyperbole with regards to suffering PTSS, but I don't see people claiming to have taken up drinking, disengaging from social life, acting with increased risk and aggression or generally indicating anything other than the appropriate level of emotional response.

TO give a comparison easily understood in a civilian context, I felt very sad after reading 'on the beach' (very good book by the way), but was still able to cope actually suffering through a rapid spate of deaths in my family. There are graduated levels of response.

And I would hate to see 99% of people in an engagement.

 

[Catfood220]

But here's the thing, you shouldn't feel bad because the game doesn't offer you a choice. Yeah, you thought it was the best way forward, but what if you hadn't? Tough, you have to use the mortar to advance in the game no matter what. You have no choice if you want to see what the rest of the game has to offer. It goes "here use this to continue" and then it goes "look, look what you've done you monster".

If the game had of given you the choice to take the easy option and use the mortar and kill every living thing or take ther harder option and you take out the enemy one at a time as you had been for pretty much the entire game, it would have held a lot more emotional weight when you you took easy option and it turned out to be the worst option but for the game to go "use this to continue...awww look what you've done now, I can't take you anywhere" is cheap and manipulative. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game enough to platinum it, I just don't see the point of feeling bad about something I had no control of.

Why is it important that the player have a choice?

Because the game is trying to get a emotional response from you based on your decisions and for the most part it works. For example, just after the water tankers have crashed and you come upon the guy who had been running the operation trapped under one of the trucks. You have the option to kill him or walk away and let him burn to death. The time that I walked away and you can hear him begging for death and screaming as he burns made me feel like shit. Yeah the guy was a deluded fool, but he deserved mercy. The same goes for after the hanging of Lugo and you have the choice to shoot the crowd or scare them off. When I shot at the crowd and was walking through the little settlement and there were a few people huddled in their homes scared. I felt bad about that too.

Both these moments made me feel bad because I had made those choices and could see and hear the consequences of my actions. Well done game for making me feel bad.

However, the white phosphorus was a fixed moment, something that you could not change or alter in any way shape or form, I tried. Because there is no choice, because it is simply something that you have to do to advance the game, there is little emotional weight because it is something I had no control over. I think that if the game developers wanted that scene to have real impact, they should have given me the choice as to which action I took. Imagine how bad it would have been if you had of gone, well just bombing these troops is an easy option over going down there and shooting my way through...oh no there are civilians. That would have made me feel bad because I would have made that decision rather than have it made for me.