Zero Punctuation: Spec Ops: The Line

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
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To be honest I'm not impressed with what I hear about the story, with all the QQing about shooters, the violence, and of course the increasing rise of anti-americanism, it's not surprising we'd see something like this appearing about now.

Frankly I think the problem right now is that war games, and media in general, come in two basic flavors. One of course is the cartoony "GI Joe" set up with clear white hats and black hats drawn by military affiliation, and duelling soldiers, and the other are games that try and cram in an anti-war message even if it's hippocritical, really what we're seeing here is simply an extension of what "Modern Warfare" did with it's anti-nuke message, or the whole no-russian mission, albiet extended throughout the entire game.

I've been of the opinion for a while that what we really need is something of a middle ground between the two extremes. That is to say a very clear definition of right and wrong, but one that exists in a "big picture" sense as opposed to a personal one. The thing is that with wartime atrocities and crimes people are taught that wars can be fought without those things, and typically with the context removed except "it's bad" or someone going insane/over the top as a motivating factor, rather than being shown that this is simply what war is, but sometimes it's a nessicary evil. We'll know you have the definitive war experience game, when you can exterminate an entire village of civilians and have it portrayed as a good thing and have the situation lead into properly so that the player begins to see how things are and that war is both hell, and sometimes a nessecity.

An example of what I'm talking about would be the World War II hero "Bomber" Harris. The guy bombed the crap out of the Axis during WWII, hitting both military and civilian targets for purposes of crippling infrastructure and morale. The guy was known to the Germans and their allies as "Butcher" Harris. The guy was not only totally sane, but also awarded pretty much every medal that could be thrown his way, including awards from the US (he was a Brit). He's known for quotes like "Right now I value the remaining population of every german city less than the life of a single British Grenadier" (or something very close to that). The guy is a war hero because we arguably won because of men like him, and arguably given his decorations and his adventures we might very well have lost without him since he was big time. The guy had kahunas of steel. AFTER the fact while we're all sitting down nice and safe behind our computers, WW II has been over for decades, and the only actual "wars" we've really known have actually been police actions (if long ones at times) against third world countries, without martial law being declared it's very easy to be critical and say what guys like this did were not appropriate or that we could have won without them, etc.

Basically when they finally make the game where you have normal combat interspaced with a message about the lack of differance between civilians supporting a nation/millitary and the actual military, the truth of a "if your not with us, your against us" mentality in these situations, and where you take down "soft" targets with the same predjudice as "hard" ones as part of the storyline without any kind of degenerative, monsterous "heart of darkness" type message, we'll have finally gotten to the point where it's being done right. A game that can convey (on the ground or otherwise) why a guy like "Bomber Harris" was nessicary and why he was awarded so many medals and honors, will capture the message I think we need to see. The basic truth being that one side's war heroes, are the other side's war criminals, it's just that the winners get to write the history books, and ultimatly what we want is to make sure that it's the good guys (or closest to it from your perspective, which generally means your side) in the big picture (as opposed to the smaller, on the ground picture) that do the writing when the smoke clears. Small scale morality, and ethical engagement doctrine are irrelevent, in a real war it's all about winning, since nobody cares about your moral position when your dead, the guys who killed you are going to present you as the devil anyway, and three generations down the road people are going to take it as gospel. Nobody remembers if you sacrificed a strategic target to spare a village/town of people who hated you because they weren't military, or how you didn't demoralize the enemey by targeting civilian factories/food production/etc... to put pressure on the enemey to surrender and cut overall supplies (there is massive strain when you have food riots by civilians while the military is trying to fight, or people swarming for protection when the military simply can't protect the populance in general due to the numbers, which crushes morale and ties up enemy resources keeping their civilians in line when they are running from you), nobody is going to care after the fact, the winner is not going to say "well, we're the bad guys", if nessicary they will just lie and say you murdered everyone anyway, and put it down in history that way. Even electronic records can be changed over a period of generations, and the winners might not believe in freedom electronically like we see now (censorship even on the internet is a big deal because like it or not, goverments CAN censor the internet if they aren't prevented from doing so through civil liberties and a guaranteed freeedom of speech, what can be done over a period of a few decades is shocking).


At any rate, I'm rambling, I know many people disagree with me. The point here is that having the "Apocolypse Now"/"Heart Of Darkness" of video games isn't surprising given the recent rambling about the state of war games over the last few years. I suppose that's pretty compelling if you have an overall attitude like Yahtzee's (where he goes off about pro-US war/shooter games, almost every time one comes up), but overall it's just par for the course. Time will tell if we ever see the media cover the reality of war properly. As much as people here might disagree with me, done properly I think a game or even a movie could frame what I'm saying in a way that makes it a lot more thought provoking, and the point I'm aiming at better, than one guy on the internet can do.
 

w00tage

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Feb 8, 2010
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And the flood of Hollywood wannabe writers, directors and producers into the game industry tries for its next Academy Award. /pass
 

caballitomalo

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Aug 12, 2009
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Well, guess what game sales figures are going to, unexpectedly, sky rocket in the next few hours. This is Pain Killer all over again.

If I were cynical enough I would suggest checking on to see if there were any heavy money transfers between Yahtzee and the publisher of this game. But I'm not.

(Crossing my fingers for this game to be on steam)
 

Ph33nix

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Jul 13, 2009
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I finished this game about 30 minutes before watching this and damn he basically said exactly how i feel. I feel depressed now, that game was amazing but depressing.
 

Clearing the Eye

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Jun 6, 2012
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Game's a pile of wank and failure; boring story that fucks around in circles for half the game, terrible graphics, player decisions that aren't explained until much later, after you've been forced to decide with no idea at all what it is or why you're doing it, and bland, samey, unoriginal and utterly sleep inducing gun play.

Game: "Murder everyone or turn the game off -- those are your two options."

Player: "Okay..."

Game: "Oh my god! How could you! You killed all those people! Don't you just feel the emotion weight on your soul."

...
 

MonkeyPunch

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Feb 20, 2008
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I thought SOTL did a valiant effort with the story. It's what sets it apart from other shooters of its ilk. Sure the gameplay is really nothing to write home about, but that can sort of be forgiven.
I'm still playing through it at the moment, but I do enjoy the story.
Delicious Anathema said:
It amazes me how the brown shooter still hasn't died.
Oh well, maybe next-gen.
I still hear this comment made over and over again... (ironic in a way) but I don't see how a game like this could get any more colourful without turning ridiculous.
The scenery is actually fairly colourful and varied, but what do you want them to do apart from that? Make the sand pink? Have soldiers wearing neon orange camouflage?
There's a point where wanting a bit of colour in your games is fair request and there's a point where asking for more colour comes across as being a little pedantic.
I feel many people request colourful games automatically without thinking and regardless of the subject matter.
 

MB202

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Sep 14, 2008
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I couldn't help but notice that Yahtzee... paused quite a few times, sometimes mid-sentence...

ANYWAY, an FPS that actually effects you emotionally? I'd totally be all over that if I actually liked FPS's.
 

Terratina.

RIP Escapist RP Board
May 24, 2012
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Not as grim as Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter then? Seriously, that series got darker and darker as it when along. It's amazing how that game wasn't rated a 16+ because of all the grim darkness in it.
 

SnakeoilSage

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Sep 20, 2011
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I hereby recommend all hardcore hyper-realistic shooter fans go out right now and play this game in its entirety. The ones that resist will be clamped to their game-controllers with their head in a vice Clockwork Orange-style and the ones that get just a little to into it will be quietly led into the back and gassed with the meat being served to food pantries in the New York area alongside the 750 or so geese they euthanized because it interferes with the airport that wasn't there first.

Because if a game makes people depressed, guilty, shameful and physically ill, it should be the target audience. Enjoy your video gaming equivalent of plastic truck nuts, you miserable misanthropic tea-baggers.
 

roostuf

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Dec 29, 2009
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one-this review surprised me, now i want to buy the game thanks yahtzee.

two- MUST BUY NEW FUCKING BOOK!
 

Racecarlock

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Jul 10, 2010
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Well, there you go folks. You've got your nice introspective shooter about the horrors of war and blah blah blah. Now will you stop trying to make me feel guilty about enjoying halo please?
 

Dfskelleton

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Apr 6, 2010
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Now I almost feel kind of bad for looking over this with such mere disregard when Steam told me of it's arrival. I'm actually interested. In a war shooter, of all things.
Oh, and I loved Apocalypse Now, and I'd like to read Heart of Darkness once I get through the 10 or so unread books sitting on my shelf.

EDIT: YAHTZEE HAS A NEW BOOK!?
Fine, take my money.
 

Guffe

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Jul 12, 2009
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A NEW BOOK!!!!
So excited, also great review, seems like a game I won't be playing :p
 

Canadamus Prime

Robot in Disguise
Jun 17, 2009
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DVS BSTrD said:
canadamus_prime said:
DVS BSTrD said:
canadamus_prime said:
DVS BSTrD said:
canadamus_prime said:
Oh so it's another dull grey brown... wait you kill Americans in this one? SOLD!!
.
.
.
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I'm kidding, don't hurt me.
HA! I knew you damn maple leafs had it in for us!
It's time we settled this once and for all!
http://www.9wsyr.com/media/lib/17/1/0/a/10a3a245-4515-4580-a805-a8a4eb8e5bea/Story.jpg
Oh that calls for epic theme music.
I've got the perfect song!
<youtube=IhnUgAaea4M>
I was thinking something more like this:
Well if you lot are going to take credit for what the British did, we'll take credit for BEATING you!
<youtube=50_iRIcxsz0>
British my ass!
Well whatever, we're still bigger than you.
 

KICdude

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May 29, 2012
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Matt King said:
KICdude said:
Wow I have only one question. Was it really that gruesome? It has that much of a guilt element? That a plus but dang I don't have the money.
oh fuck me is it a guilt element, it is seriously the first time i have ever felt guilt playing a game, mainly because of how your squad react to you and while it may not be that bad while playing when you get to the end and everything you have done get's revealed and the truth and misery becomes apparent (aswell as the short little sequence after the ending) you will feel so fucking guilty and will lose any feeling of being right or just
Man maybe its a message .... or something that will make us figure out that shooting people is bad. I mean how many Russians have we killed and not felt sympathy. It might be a turn in the right direction
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

I never asked for this
Sep 8, 2011
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The game does have a good story. Too bad it's only a 6 hour long campaign, but it does have some replay value. I had a feeling he would like the game. It is based on Heard of Darkness after all.
KICdude said:
Man maybe its a message .... or something that will make us figure out that shooting people is bad. I mean how many Russians have we killed and not felt sympathy. It might be a turn in the right direction
It is definitely a turn in the right direction. I wish more games did something like that. We should be able to feel guilty when we kill a bunch of people. Another brilliant thing Spec Ops: The line did was letting you execute wounded enemies. It feel right because they are suffering, but it is also gruesome and hard to watch because even though they can't be saved they still want to live.