Spec Ops: The Line is the best (military) shooter ever

[Baldry]

Well as long as everyone else agrees that it's amazballs. Personally, though I enjoyed the gameplay and didn't find it to be shit but I wouldn't consider it the best military shooter mainly because I don't consider it to be one, I consider it a tragedy/horror but since our medium is focused on having our genres defined by military shooter/fps/etc I have to say it's a shooter even though I really wouldn't say it was. Though I still think it doesn't get enough praise and should be game of the year.

 

[BreakfastMan]

So... COD has put shooters back to where they always were? Wut? How does that make any sense?

Shooters were fun to play and even used to have a proper/interesting story every now and then (for instance the Jedi Knight series or even in the campy sense like Return to Castle Wolfenstein).

So things haven't really changed that much at all, since this statement still applies to FPS games nowadays. Gotcha.

EDIT: Also, the Jedi Knight series had completely crappy stories, don't even kid yourself on that one.

 

[Slash Joel]

Well no shit, given that the competition isnt even trying, that is a given. Noneless, its existance is apreciated even if i am not sure if the developers made their money back, because people were put off by the demo of the game and didnt want to play it.

How does one measure correctly the success of a game and not a movie? we know that movies measure it by the first week ONLY and other countries dont count.

Just bought it been waiting for a sale. Thanks for pointing it out and awesome profile pic.

 

[sethisjimmy]

Best story? Arguably, yeah.
Best overall? Nah. The gameplay is mediocre, and while I get that it's supposed to be to support the story in a way, the bottom line is that it's still mediocre.

 

[BreakfastMan]

So things haven't really changed that much at all, since this statement still applies to FPS games nowadays. Gotcha.

Yeah, they kind of have and I'd have to heavily disagree with you on that.

So, TB's rant on how the new Medal of Honor is crap, a game that pretty much everyone agrees is crap I might add, is proof positive that FPS games suck nowadays. Gotcha. You really have compelling argument after compelling argument, don't you?

 

[BreakfastMan]

snip...

Okay, so what you are saying is that it is only MMSs that you have a beef with, not all modern shooters (despite your definition of an MMS being incredibly suspect, what with titles like Crysis 2 and Killzone 3 on your list). That makes quite a bit more sense. I might have even agreed with you originally if you didn't frame your opinion so poorly at first (as in, referring to all modern shooters as MSSs when only some of them fit that definition).

Also, just because something gets deconstructed doesn't mean it is inherently bad. It just means it can be deconstructed. Might want to think on that.

And finally, I find it funny that you have games that were released as recently as this year on your "cherry-picked old awesome shooters from the 90s and early 00s" list. Really undermines your point there.

 

[Yelchor]

The gameplay in Spec Ops: The Line is terrible and repetitive, with an overall tiring effect. And this helps strengthen the experience's narrative significantly.

For me, the gameplay becomes great by being terrible. Because it helps you becoming further immersed into the stressed and disconnected feel of the setting that builds up from the first chapter until the very end. Because war, violence, killing other people, is not fun. And never will be. It's why it is so prefferable when your targets are just dots on a video screen to be wiped off with the press of a button, or just raving lunatics that attack you for no other reason than that they can, without any capability of appearing vunerable or emotional. If you could see the face of the person, or learn anything about who he is when you are about to aim your crosshair at him, it might not be as easy to pull the trigger. But then that is all you really need to do. No other effort is required apart from just pulling a trigger. Pull the trigger and it is over. A lifetime of experience cease to exist in a split second.

The feel of tiring repetition helps simulate Walker's desperate attempts at walling himself off from the fact that he is doing the opposite of what he was meant to do. The killing just becomes a chore, a routine from room to room, from building to building.

Get the job done. Just do it. Do not think about it.

Yet thinking is what the human mind cannot stop doing.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Okay, so what you are saying is that it is only MMSs that you have a beef with, not all modern shooters (despite your definition of an MMS being incredibly suspect, what with titles like Crysis 2 and Killzone 3 on your list). That makes quite a bit more sense. I might have even agreed with you originally if you didn't frame your opinion so poorly at first (as in, referring to all modern shooters as MSSs when only some of them fit that definition).

And finally, I find it funny that you have games that were released as recently as this year on your "cherry-picked old awesome shooters from the 90s and early 00s" list. Really undermines your point there.

The problem is that somewhere between 2006-2008 MMS or MMS-alikes pretty much became what people are thinking of when they think FPS or even making an FPS. Alternatively there were also "like Gears of War" TPSs, which also became and still are a thing.
Fresh and different games weren't the rule, but the very welcome exception which came up once every few years.

How is this any different from old times? I can list half a dozen Doom-alikes off the top of my head right now. The term "Doom-clone" exists for a reason. Developers draw inspiration from whatever is popular. And MMSs are popular now, so it is only natural that more of those types of games are being released. This hasn't changed.

 

[Gregg Lonsdale]

The story is in my top 3 of all games I've ever played, maybe even number one (though I haven't finished Silent Hill 2 yet) and the gameplay was pretty solid (meshed well with the story, too). It certainly could've gone the way of being one of those games with one amazing aspect being let down by the rest of it, but fortunately it managed to pull through. As for the best military shooter of all time... I'm not so sure. Does Crysis count as a military shooter? If so I would rate Crysis higher, mainly because I put more stock into games having inventive and fun gameplay than plot and intrigue. If Crysis doesn't count then MW1 (or possibly even BlOps 2, which I found to have a surprisingly fun campaign without being aggressively linear like the last few installments have been). Spec Ops certainly deserves a large amount of praise and recognition, and I doubt we'll see another game so strong in its narrative for quite some time.

 

[Matthewmagic]

I'm not a fan of military shooters. Mostly because I find it disgusting when I am asked to kill representations of people who actually exist. I try to keep a global mindset(not always with great success) to keep a global mindset, and understand these conflicts. So I find it really distasteful too start shooting people with real grievances.

That all being said I did after much recommendation pick up spec ops the line. I was really pleased with how it depicted the fictional conflict in Dubai. If this had really happened, I feel like the game was actually really fair too the subject matter.

I would have too say I hope this game takes off in a big way. Maybe we can have more military dramas as aposed too "Have fun shooting all the 'coloured' people".

 

[Callate]

I haven't played enough of the current generation of military shooters to say how SO:TL fared against them. Honestly, they don't interest me all that much, in part for some of the reasons SO:TL calls out.

But I will say it's a heck of an experience.

 

[archvile93]

The reason so many of us think so highly of Spec Ops: The Line is because it deconstructs the military shooter genre and it does so in a very effective manner. In this it is quite similar to Bioshock, a game, with average or slightly sub-par gameplay, which deconstructed storytelling in gaming in such an effective manner that its' twist scene is now infamous.

I somewhat agree, but that's an unfair comparison. Gunplay isn't the strongest point of Bioshock, but the game encourage creativity and experimentation. It's far from the generic, scripted gameplay of The Line.

By the way, I finished Bioshock today (yeah, after 5 years). Loved the plot twist.

I don't know why everyone seems to like that twist. It might have been more impressed if I hadn't seen it coming several hundred miles away. The second Atlas opened his mouth for the first time I thought...well I'll let Mr. Torgue handle this for me. "IS IT JUST ME, OR DOES IT SEEM LIKE HE'S GONNA BETRAY THE FUCK OUTTA YOU!?"

OT: I have considered getting that game, but I've heard the gameplay is underwhelming, which to me is infinitely more important than the plot.

 

[BreakfastMan]

It?s funny to think that one of the main reasons Spec Ops: The Line hasn't sold as well as it could have is because of series like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor dragging most of the Shooter genre (but especially the Military Shooter parts) to levels so low that one doesn't even expect a good story or anything deeper than mowing down whatever the game tells you are "terrorists" or "enemies" as I said previously.

You still haven't explained how this is different from the old FPS games beyond "I say so, so it is so, here is a bunch of links to other stuff that are only tangentially related to my point"...