War is Hell
Review
Spec Ops: The Line (PS3), Yager Development
“Let’s do this by the book,
boys…Think of it as a paid vacation.”
Abstract: Spec Ops: The Line is a
game that should not be missed. Spec Ops
weaves a dark military narrative that explores the true devastation of war:
from the innocent victims of combat to the psychological toll soldiers’ pay. In
that regard, the team at Yager have produced a title that takes a huge leap
forward, moving video game narrative to a more mature, thoughtful place. Spec Ops takes full advantage of the
narrative foundation other military shooter games laid before them, and
subverts expectations in fascinating ways. The only element working against Spec Ops is the bland moment-to-moment
third person shooter gameplay. Spec Ops
is a game I am so glad that I finally got around to playing. For its bold,
bleak take on video game military violence alone, I give Spec Ops my highest recommendation. Spec Ops: The Line is a seminal experience in gaming, and I hope
its innovations continue to influence the industry as a whole. We could use
more games that experiment with narrative and character exploration like Spec Ops.
When it came to writing my
first game review on TIF, I was faced with a dilemma: what game do I choose?
Should I write about some of the best games I played in the past month or so,
like Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor,
Luftrausers, or Thomas Was Alone?
I ended up deciding against these, as I felt I was too far away from my time
with them to give good insight. So I then looked to new releases, only to find,
well, there really aren’t any. January is often the slowest month for new game
releases. Video game makers and publishers make a big push to take advantage of
the holiday shopping rush, getting more of the “big” games out between October
and December. January is devoid of these big releases, as the more casual
consumers have likely already spent their allotted game budget. This makes
January a great time for smaller, indie releases. Indie titles released in
January can take full advantage of a slower news cycle, and pick up potential
buyers from the pool of devoted game enthusiasts with nothing new to play. So,
as we entered January, I was excited to have my first review be about some
spectacular smaller release. Two titles in particular that were set to release
January 2015 missed the January release window. These two were Apotheon and Axiom Verge. Darn. I am still very much still looking forward to
these, but I’ll have to wait until February and beyond. It was at this point
that I decided to look into my colossal backlog of games for my first review.
Then serendipity struck. The Playstation Network had a sale on 2K published
games which, combined with my 10% “sorry we were DDOS’d on Christmas” discount
from Sony, allowed me to pick up Spec
Ops: The Line for $4. Not a bad deal. Spec
Ops was a game that got a good deal of praise when it was released in 2012.
I now (finally) have gotten around to playing it, and I am so happy I finally
bit the bullet and purchased Spec Ops.
I could not have had a better first game to review. So let’s get into it.
Spec Ops: The Line was developed by Yager, published by 2K, and released
on the PS3 in 2012. In Spec Ops, you
play as Captain Martin Walker, a member of the US Army’s Delta force. Walker,
along with his squadmates Lugo and Adams, are sent on a rescue mission to
Dubai, where devastating sand storms have crippled the city, the local
population, and the military contingent that stayed to help evacuate survivors
(the “damned” 33rd). Colonel John Konrad, a war hero whom Walker had
worked with previously during a mission in Kabul, leads the 33rd. What starts
off as a simple task, identify survivors and evacuate what remains of Dubai,
quickly becomes a hellish ride into the darkness of war, and the darkness
within ourselves. Spec Ops succeeds
by completely subverting player expectations: it bucks game conventions at
every turn, whether thematically or from a game design standpoint. It uses
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as
an excellent thematic foundation, and tactfully brings its themes of violence
and madness into a video game setting.
First and foremost, Spec Ops is the one of the only military
shooters I have played that depicts the evil of war. The fact that it does so
tastefully, surprisingly, and with narrative finesse is just icing on this
already tasty cake. The game opens with Walker describing his endeavor as “a
paid vacation.” The rescue mission in which Walker planned to partake quickly
becomes an all out war. At every turn, the player (as Walker) is forced to take
on huge groups of enemies, killing hundreds upon hundreds by the end of the
roughly 8 hour campaign. Unlike most other military shooters, however, Spec Ops takes the time to really show
the player the collateral damage a war inflicts. The dead bodies of civilians
litter the landscape, seen charred laying in alleyways or hanged from street
lights. Civilians often find themselves caught in the crossfire between you and
your enemies, with catastrophic consequences. Evidence can be found throughout Spec Ops of torture and unnecessary
brutality. Because this is a shooter game, you feel the compulsion to kill your
enemies. Spec Ops acknowledges this,
and uses it as a vehicle to show the player the devastation that kind of
violence begets. Spec Ops
acknowledges the conventions of the shooter: that killing your enemies has a
positive outcome. That, despite the evil you’re committing, the price you pay
is worth it. This is not the case in Spec
Ops. By the very act of you, the player, being there, thousands of lives
are put at risk. The blood of hundreds stains Walker’s hands. This is portrayed
narratively and visually. Throughout
the game, Walker is injured: cuts, burns on his face, etc. In so many games,
this cosmetic damage is transient, lasting the only the length of the sequence
or chapter. In Spec Ops, every injury
Walker sustains is persistent. By the end of the experience, Walker is in
tatters. The evolving character model is subtle but powerful, reinforcing the
inescapable damage of war. Finally, Spec
Ops is, in no uncertain terms, a “grey area” kind of game. The motivations
of your enemies are fluid, resulting in chaotic warfare in which you are never
sure if you’re fighting the right people. Spec
Ops smartly avoids the convention of “random evil terrorist/Soviet” enemy,
and creates a compelling opposition force that makes a tremendous impact on the
player.
 |
| Spec Ops: The Line depicts the gnarly, brutal consequences of war. |
Hand-in-hand with its novel
approach to narrative in a military shooter, Spec Ops wholly subverts gameplay conventions standard to the
genre. The most immediately impactful design choice is that of your enemy:
former U.S. soldiers. The 33rd has taken control of Dubai and, in
their attempt to bring order to chaos, have taken authoritarian steps to
achieve their goal. The presence of Walker and company threatens this uneasy
balance, and Konrad and the 33rd do everything in their power to
stop him. Military shooters so often create this evil “other” to fight against,
resulting in trope-ridden jingoistic drivel. Spec Ops uses its game design to show the player that evil is
within us all, and using former US soldiers as your enemy is a powerfully
simple way to get this point across. Bombastic set pieces are another tried and
true convention of the military shooter that Spec Ops does away with. In the course of the game, there are maybe two or three total set pieces. Not
only that, but each set piece comes with a narrative weight that converts them
from “fun” wanton destruction to reflections of the increasing evil Walker commits
in the name of war. I don’t want to get into too many details, but the
consequences and motivations of each set piece are clearly distinct from the
“Hollywood blockbuster movie” style, characteristic of games like Call of Duty. Further, in Spec Ops, your companions are more than
just filler NPCs. Lugo and Adams acknowledge the death and destruction you’re
causing, and do not idly stand by your every order. In many other games, your
protagonist is a one many army, and your companions act as hollow extensions of
yourself. Spec Ops creates compelling
companions in Lugo and Adams, and their dissent reinforces key narrative
moments. In so many ways, Spec Ops
challenges your expectations, and the game is better for it.
Walker’s descent into madness
is perhaps the best aspect of Spec Ops. As
Walker encounters more and more brutal violence, and bears witness what amounts
to near total destruction of Dubai, he completely devolves. Decisions Walker
makes as the game progresses become increasingly antagonistic to player choice.
For example, Walker is presented with a scenario in which he must kill one of
two criminals. Despite it looking like you can avoid the choice entirely, the
game (Walker) forces you to take one of the lives. Towards the end of the game,
Walker’s rage and madness result in heinous violence, disconnecting the player
from his character. This creates an interesting and unique dynamic, as so many
games work to make you feel like you are the protagonist. Walker’s journey
towards insanity is smartly reflected in his in-combat chatter, as well. The
game begins with Walker yelling things like, “Tango down!” when you kill an
enemy. By mid-game, Walker utters lines like, “Target is fucking eliminated.” And, by the end, Walker is screaming things
like, “Killed that motherfucker!” every other kill. Mid-combat lines like this
are often static and irksome, and Spec
Ops cleverly takes this trope and innovates upon it. Speaking of tropes and
Walker’s madness, let’s talk loading screen messages. Traditionally, messages
pop up during loading screen that offer combat tips or reinforce the current
plot. In Spec Ops, loading screen
messages reflect Walker’s growing madness. These messages taunt you, or
resemble thoughts Walker is having trying to come to terms with his actions
(like “This is your fault”). Similar to these loading screen messages, Walker
and company have moments where they break the fourth wall. For example, late in
the game a character mentions, “What is this, a video game?” The few instances
like these add to the feeling of the bizarre reality Spec Ops takes place within, and reinforces the feeling of losing
your mind. Finally, the color blue is used to great effect to hint at Walker’s
madness. Physiologically traumatic events are punctuated by an overwhelming
blue-ness in the game world. Walker’s growth throughout Spec Ops is powerful, and lasted with me long after completion.
In Spec Ops, pretty much everything is great. Which makes me all the
sadder to report that that most unfulfilling aspect of the game is the actual
gameplay itself. Removing the story and characters from the equation, Spec Ops plays like any standard third
person shooter. This isn’t to say the gameplay is bad, but it is nothing special. Guns feel fine, but have a distinct
lack of impact evident in both the low recoil and wimpy sound design. The cover
system works well most of the time, but often I struggled to get Walker to
enter cover as fast as I would like. Moving between cover was often clunky. Spec Ops also falls victim to another
fault of most shooters: you simply face way
way too many enemies. My kill
count by the end of the game must have been in the 1000+ range. While every
game does this, it detracts more powerfully from Spec Ops. When the game is trying to get across the price you pay
by participating in war, each death should feel meaningful. Therefore, the
gameplay acts in cognitive dissonance with the narrative, and I would have
liked to see less total enemies encountered. There are some nice touches to the
gameplay, though. I enjoyed that you could use the sand to your advantage. Sand
barriers can be destroyed to take out enemies, and grenades thrown into the
ground cause sand clouds that blind opponents and allow you to move forward. Your
companions were used well in combat, and ordering them to take out hostiles
worked as expected. Lastly, while this may not be true at every difficulty
level, I enjoyed the low health for protagonist and enemy alike. Taking down
any combatant (except the obnoxious heavies) takes only a few bullets, but you’re
downed just as fast. It’s a nice change from the often bullet-spongey nature of
shooters, used to artificially inflate the difficulty. The low health adds to
the tone Yager set for the game and was a welcome design choice.
 |
| I wish the combat innovated more. Everything works, but the end result is a bland experience. |
In the end, Spec Ops: The Line is a game I
regretting not getting to sooner. Spec
Ops took narrative risks that I had not really seen in gaming, and tried in
every capacity to move the shooter genre forward. The characters have depth,
the violence has meaning, and the game is content to live in a narrative grey
area. As Walker, you journey into the depths of human evil and discover an evil
within yourself. You see the cost of war, whether it is the collateral or
psychological damage. Spec Ops is a
game unlike any other I’ve played: the most similar experience I’ve had is The Last of Us (my second favorite game
of all time). I want Spec Ops to be a
foundation upon which military shooters take inspiration, though I am not
hopeful (it’s been nearly 3 years since its release and I see few steps forward
from other shooter IPs). I was torn when it came down to giving a final score
to Spec Ops. In the end, the gameplay
missteps feel insignificant to the impact the whole experience had upon me. I
give Spec Ops: The Line my highest
recommendation.
Spec Ops: The Line
5/5
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