The Time You Were An A-hole in Spec Ops: The Line

[blackdwarf]

Well, maybe if you accept that Walker was still alive at the moment he met Konrad. I believe Walker died at the first Helicopter crash and everything that is follows is just a flashback (life flashing before your eyes in your last moments) and that everything after the repeated scene of the helicopter crash, is just a illusion for Walker's mind to figure out the doubt he has about his own morale decisions. So the decision about who the shoot, is more a decision about taking responsibility for the actions Walker took in Dubai. I shot Walker, not to wash my hands of the whole thing, but because I realized that the monster I was targeting the whole game, was Walker and nobody else.

And most choices you make as the player are pretty meaningless in the end. They don't have any significant effect on the story. The only choices that matters are made by Walker. He decides to ignore his mission to be a hero. He decides to use the white phosphor. He decides the join the CIA in stealing the water. These decisions are what makes Walker his own character, but also morally questionable. We are just their being the driving force that allow Walker to do this deeds. We are, by playing this game, allowing Walker to do this.

You have no choice in this game, only the illusion of choice. Just like most other Modern war FPS's, the only difference that the you are not playing the Hero, but the villain in this battle.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

It's an interesting way to look at the game.

I can't say that I think it's the best way to play the game. For me, the game has its biggest impact if you go into it trying to be the hero. If you do that, then you've positioned yourself perfectly for the game to rip you a new one, and to shred your conceits in front of your eyes.

I think the majority of the subtext about modern military games is in the game regardless of how you play it. Certainly going into it with a violent mindset magnifies that subtext, but then is that really the game? Does murdering hookers in GTA Vice City add to the game's scathing satire of pop culture, or is that simply you punctuating comedic social commentary with your own acts of sociopathy?

No matter how you play Spec Ops, you'll always be the villain, not the hero, and I think that's where the biggest condemnation of modern shooters lies. A lot of the choices offered in the game, to me, seem to tie in less with the MMS criticism, and more to do with the idea of player agency. I guess military shooters tie into that in the way that they always try and portray you as the hero, but stuff like choosing which person to shoot seemed (to me) to be commenting on the fundamental paradox of offering choice in something as heavily scripted as a game. No matter what choice you made, it turns out it never mattered anyway. The only real choice the player has is deciding whether or not it's worth sparing the main character at the end of it.

Still, while it didn't exactly set sales records or anything, I hope SPOPS marks a turning point in military shooters. The likes of COD are getting downright offensive in their vulgarity and need to generate controversy. What was the point of the airport scene in MW2? What was the point of the family bombing scene in MW3? It makes me sad to see Spec Ops offer up such a brutal deconstruction of MMS tropes, then see the likes of Battlefield 4 go out and use those same tropes in their pre-release footage.

But on the positive, SPOPS has managed to create one hell of a tail for itself. Here we are not far off a year on, and people are still writing articles about its narrative and artistic value. That's more than the vast majority of games get, so I'm hoping this means SPOPS is turning into a bona fide cult hit. It's always nice to have a few proper cult games every generation.

Now I'm just waiting for Daystar to loudly march into the thread and tell us all how boring he found SPOPS for the gazillionth time.

The thing is MW didn't let us feel awful even though we were ready for it. We are a generation raised on 24, The Wire and the Shield. We won't mind being monsters but instead the developers feared controversy. We played psychopaths before, and I was not affected by such actions in the sense on "could I have saved them, no they are all already dying. I could not even let them die with dignity"

The only thing is SPOPS did everything straight...without anything to soften the blow.

 

[Jeffrey Beyerl]

Thank you for writing this article! While I do feel, as many have stated, that you should play The Line your own way the first time through, I feel that your idea would be great if your looking to replay the game. Its a new way to look at The Line that I hadn't really thought about, and feel that such an experience would really drive home the point of how awful the actions most modern day shooters ask you to take.

 

[octafish]

Wait...there is a Campaign in Battlefield? Nonsense. I don't believe you.

I tried to play Spec Ops: The Line, I really did, I just wish someone better at making games had made it. Maybe if the devs had not been forced to shoehorn in multi-player it would be better, I doubt it though.

As it stands Spec Ops is a terrible game, and just like Bioshock and Dead Space I will never finish it because the mechanics are too terrible, and this coming from someone who has played PS:T like twenty times. Maybe I am just intolerant of terrible shooters, because so many people can make good (or at least passable ones).

 

[HannesPascal]

"...Spec Ops: The Line, it's a game with a moral lesson, namely that shooting people in the face with guns is a bad thing."
And that is why you are awarded with an achievement if you kill 500 people with an assault rifle, shotgun, handgun or whatever.
A mechanic that annoyed me was that no matter what weapon you and your enemies used you got ammunition for your weapon by executing enemies. Was Walker a warlock capable of summoning ammunition by performing a blood sacrifice by killing is enemies (if so would killing a virgin summon a WMD)?
Another problem with the game is its fans that make it seem like the greatest game ever. But then you start playing it and the gameplay is dull and slow and you force yourself to play it to experience the story which goes over the top just for the game to prove its point.
Never finished the game (guess where I stopped playing) but doesn't surprise me that

Spoiler

Lugo died, since he never grasped the taking cover thing. Instead he just stood in front of enemy fire yelling of how we were taking heavy fire, getting wounded forcing me to send the other bloke to revive him, then the other bloke gets wounded because they were out of cover and then I die when I try to revive both of them forcing me to reload the checkpoint again and again until I succeed at babysitting Lugo (and it was always Lugo)

 

[Dfskelleton]

The game may not be as surprising now that everyone knows that it's a guilt trip buffet, but back when everyone thought it was just going to be another Call of Duty knockoff... oh God. How wrong we all were...

Also, just throwing something in about the Heart of Darkness thing going a few posts ago that I noticed, having both played Spec Ops and having read Heart of Darkness.
While at first glance, only the bare bones premise is based on the book (going into a hostile and unforgiving place in search of a mysterious figure), and everything else is different, but one major theme both works share is where the real adaptation part comes in. I am referring to the theme of decay and degeneration.
In Heart of Darkness, Marlowe starts out his tale recounting a mystifying, exotic adventure in the Congo, but as his story progresses, it constantly becomes darker and darker, and instead becomes a revealing tale about the brutality of English colonialism in Africa, and at a deeper level, the sheer, unbridled cruelty men can be capable of.
Spec Ops: The Line starts off with promise of an action packed, blockbuster hero shooter. Everything's set up for a story of action and adventure, but as the game goes on, the heroism quickly begins to bleed away, and instead becomes a story about a man who wanted to be a hero, but instead became a monster.

Swashbuckling adventure stories were popular when Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness, and seeing how popular the "realistic" modern war shooter is today, Spec Ops: The Line is doing something very similar.

Oh, and just another little comparison; In HoD, the gradual degeneration is symbolized through clothing; at the beginning, we have the company employees who are all squeaky clean and dressed up, and by the end we have Kurtz and his followers, who are wearing such tattered, minimal amounts of clothing that they may as well be naked.
Remind you of something similar?

Spoiler

 

[T3hSource]

I see what you mean by suggesting this way of play, but I've already taken the impact of the game's narrative. But if I play it again in the future I'll try to remember to be a ruthless killing machine.

 

[JudgeGame]

It's sad that in 2013 people are still using fun and mechanics as a yard stick for every game whether it is appropriate or not. TBH I don't really understand what there is to hate about the mechanics. I understand some games need these things but not every game. If Spec Ops had been more fun it would have been less enjoyable and that's the double truth, Ruth.

 

[JudgeGame]

Intentionally being an asshole misses the point with the game. You go in trying to be a hero, you want to be a moral compass opposing the heel, but ultimately your actions and outcomes are a gulf away from your intentions and desires.

Critical miss gets the point: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/10253-Every-Other-Game-Ever
The difference with Spec Ops is that you're the villian, and there's no hero.

Except that by modern shooter logic, being a hero and being an asshole are one and the same thing. There is no contradiction. That said, I think if you play the asshole it's true the appropriate ending is the one where Walker is driven away. If you honestly try to play like a good person, the appropriate ending is the one where you shoot into the air and the US soldiers kill you on the spot. Doing so gives Walker a true soldier's reward: "There?s a line men like us have to cross. If we?re lucky, we do what?s necessary, and then we die. No... all I really want, Captain, is peace."

 

[JudgeGame]

Err Spec tops: the line is just a rip off of apocalypse now. Colonel Konrad is a dead give away, he is Kurtz like character with the name of the writer of the book on which the film is based. John Konrad = Joseph Conrad

Have you watched or read any of them?

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Err Spec tops: the line is just a rip off of apocalypse now. Colonel Konrad is a dead give away, he is Kurtz like character with the name of the writer of the book on which the film is based. John Konrad = Joseph Conrad

The developers actually say that it's inspired by Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now. Keep up, son!

OT:
I think that while it is an interesting way to play, I feel the game certainly had more impact when I was in control. Mind you, that's part of the game I think. The multiple choices are there to give you the illusion of being in control, when really your only method of control over the game is to walk away.

The game certainly has more impact if you play along with it. You have to give into the power fantasy it's presenting you to get the most out of it, if you don't play along with that it's just an unremarkable game that's trying to bully you.

 

[JudgeGame]

I agree with Knight, you want the gamer to play as "themselves" making the choices they would have made. Unfortunately Spec Ops failed to do that for me, because I tried to avoid using white phosphorous on the civilians, but the game forced me to kill them to proceed.
Also, according to the devs, having Parker hand over the gun at the end makes no difference since he's at that point dying in the helicopter crash.

How did you know there were civilians before you shot the WP?

The devs said that they purposefully left the ending ambiguous. One interpretation is that everything after the helicopter crash is just Walker's dying dream, another is that everything you did was just a fantasy built by Walker who was in fact not sent to find Konrad but sent to evacuate Dubai 5 months ago, another is that after the WP Walker became insane and started hearing Konrad's voice even though he was long dead.

 

[mur'phon]

How did you know there were civilians before you shot the WP?

Because they were in one massive hemmed in cluster, not attempting to take cover or spreading out. None of the other soldiers you kill with the phosphorous does this, they are either moving, taking cover, or simply spreading out. Thus I thought they where civilians, or maybe POWs, or heck maybe even deserters. So I killed the tanks and soldiers, and then tried to exit the controls. The game refused, and I spent the rest of the game being pissed at the game, not myself.

The devs said that they purposefully left the ending ambiguous. One interpretation is that everything after the helicopter crash is just Walker's dying dream, another is that everything you did was just a fantasy built by Walker who was in fact not sent to find Konrad but sent to evacuate Dubai 5 months ago, another is that after the WP Walker became insane and started hearing Konrad's voice even though he was long dead.

Except that the devs let the game fade to black every time time passes, and white whenever Walker hallucinates. Maybe Walker survives the crash, but whatever happens after seems to be a hallucination.

 

[Lightknight]

Sooo... because the character is American (the target audience for the game and generally the world's police with military deployed all over the world) and white (78.1% of the US population, over half of which play games and so also make up the largest gaming target audience), it is racist for them to be in other nations where demographics are more diverse because...? I'm not so sure that belief isn't racist itself, like you're just looking for color. It's like being angry that a game set in Nigeria has a lot of black bad guys. It would be racist to make them white considering the locale.

It's quite a broad statement to say that military games are racist. Nationalist, sure, that's not a bad thing. And sometimes racist? Sure, sometimes, but not always.

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

This article is one of the most naive and biased pieces I've ever read. I'm sure at points the writer even gets confused with himself as to whether he is against the modern era of FPS or the US's current over-sea's agendas.

"We need to see the war game fucking suffer" also if your trying to put a serious message across, whats with all the swearing? Not easily offended, but come on, it's just put in there for the sake of it.

The morality and deep spiritual realizations your demanding of Call of Duty & Battlefield are neigh on idiotic. Did you go to the expendables and start screaming at Stallone "HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT!!! BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS!!!". Call of duty is the video game translation of the cheesy OTT Hollywood blockbuster movie and that's all right, sometimes you just want a simple sit down of, I'm a good guy, they are the bad guy, they have to be stopped. Any racist cogitations your placing on these games are your own. The major conflicts going on today for the most part western powers with the middle east, so our games, films etc reflect that to capture the minds and fears of the target audience. Just look how many god dam west vs Russia films were made during the cold war.

An then after critsising the lack of authenticity in these games you make the de-humanization of the enemy one of your focal points. Have you never heard the phrase "innocence is the first casualty of war", de-humanization of the enemy is about the only thing all fps games get correct, they don't brief squads of infantry that in some specilsations are dubbed "kill squads" by reminding them that the men they are fighting have hopes, dreams, morals, hobbies are just like them and have a family waiting for them at home. It would drive most to insanity. That's why names like kraut, Jerry, limey, frog, rag head have historically been encouraged to demonize and de-humanize the enemy and make them less than human.

The reason in my eyes why allot of games do not put you in a soldier and make you question the morality of your actions is because that's not what a soldiers job is. It's to follow orders, whilst maintaining to their country's laws/constitution and international rules on war (I know there has been some questionable stuff obviously but I'm talking majority). An it's a sad fact that there are allot of individuals out there that do have to deal with some of the horrible things they have been required to endure and/or purposely/accidentally do. Doesn't exactly sound like a great basis for a game your going to want to play time and time again. Hence why mass sales are always going to you more simplistic we are 100% good, apart from couple of these rogue spies we have to take down and them guys over there are the bad guys. The majority of the public want to place them selves in "band of brothers" fighting a morally just war against a wholly evil empire, being the hero. Not as Andrew Scott in universal soldier going bat shit an killing everything.

Seriously I've not played the game, it sounds like a great one off and I may pick it up at some point. But take it as it is, an individual piece that looks at an extreme situation the kind that a black ops team may find themselves in, an then dramatized. Don't place your expectations of, from the sounds of it a unique piece of gaming, that makes you ask real moral questions about a charter you can choose to be morally objectionable. I've made this point before there is more than one strain of shooter. It's the same as criticizing madden for not having enough puzzles in it, just doesn't make any sense. A more lucid argument would be simply stating that you prefer this strain of shooter more and why.

 

[metal mustache]

when your cia ally gives you his evolver with one bullet so you can shoot him, i tried to shoot but missed, and then i walked away and pretended like i did it on purpose