To kill for yourself is murder. To kill for your government is heroic. To kill for entertainment is harmless.Welcome back to another TA Playlist Wrap-Up, this time for November’s Game of the Month. In honor of Veteran’s Day (or Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, or other local holidays dedicated to military veterans), the November Playlist poll offered up four war-themed games that deal with some of the real consequences and aftermath of war in unique and poignant ways. No game exemplifies those themes better than November’s TA Playlist game, Spec Ops: The Line.The nominees included Battlefield 1, This War of Mine: Final Cut, and Valiant Hearts: The Great War, but despite the fact that it can no longer be purchased digitally, Spec Ops: The Line won the poll handily, something that none of us on the TA Playlist team really expected.Deadly Moves said:Why on earth would you have a de-listed game as a playlist option?Honestly, it just fit the theme too well to leave it out, even if we didn’t think it really had a chance at winning. But Spec Ops the line has been subverting expectations ever since it was initially released back in June 2012. Developed by Yager Development and published by 2K Games, Spec Ops: The Line was ostensibly the seventh title in the “Spec Ops” series of tactical shooter video games, which started in 1998 with Spec Ops: Rangers Lead the Way for PC, and carried on through the Dreamcast and original PlayStation generations. The series was put on hiatus after 2002’s Spec Ops: Airborne Command was met with poor reviews and low sales and spent the next few years languishing in Take-Two Interactive’s IP catalog. In 2006, Yager Development pitched their idea for a futuristic cover-based shooter to 2K, who passed on Yager’s initial concept, but instead offered Yager the chance to reboot the Spec Ops series, giving them creative freedom to use their own ideas and not requiring any existing elements from previous games in the franchise.While the resulting game wasn’t able to buck the series’ trend of poor sales, it did impress critics, and has since gone on to achieve an almost cult-like status among gamers who appreciate the thought-provoking story, dark themes, and genre-critiquing meta-narratives that challenge the player to think beyond the typical combat hero fantasy associated with more popular military shooters like the Call of Duty and Medal of Honor series. Spec Ops: The Line may not have been a commercial success in 2012, but now, over a decade later, you’d be hard-pressed to find a game that has spawned more analysis and commentary, on par with some of the best works of modern literature.tuhin94 said:This was an outstanding game. Mechanics are a bit clunky, and progressively so with each passing year. But the story and set pieces make up for its shortcomings to provide a challenging and engaging game.In fact, a large portion of the discussion this month was devoted to some of the analysis and literary critiques that have already been done on this game, making this probably one of the best examples of TA Playlist as a “book club for video games” in our nearly eight-year history.Allgorhythm said:Have you seen the movie Apocalypse Now or read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness? The game was influenced by both works. Apocalypse Now was kind of a reimagining of Heart of Darkness—the film being set in 1969 during the Vietnam War and the novel in the 19th Century African Congo.One can see the parallels between Walker in the game and Captain Willard in the movie—played by Martin Sheen. Also, similarities between Colonel Konrad in the game and Colonel Kurtz in the movie—played by Marlon Brando. Kurtz is also the name of Conrad’s ‘antagonist.’Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now are considered all-time classics in their respective media, and the subject of endless critical and scholarly commentary, and Spec Ops: The Line has gotten some of that treatment as well.ChiflaGoodluck said:[…W]e’ve never gotten a game like this before or after its release, its plot analysed in a way that I would consider to be reminiscent of more traditional media or, alternatively, historical texts like Shakesphere’s plays. Not like it doesn’t deserve that analysis with how perpetually relevant it is to society[….] Would recommend the video Jacob Geller recently made about the game.HiddenJaguar25 said:I’d also recommend the State of the Arc podcast. They did a 4+ hour plot analysis discussion last year (broken out into 4 episodes) on this game that was great. Long story short, if you were/are into the standard follow-the-action shooter games like COD, Battlefield, etc., this game was a foil to those games and designed to make you sit with the uncomfortable feelings games like those would logically present.BS Bloopa said:I already earned all of the achievements, so instead for the Playlist, and in honor of one of my favorite video games ever, I’m going to read through ‘Killing Is Harmless’ by Brendan Keogh (2012), a critical analysis of Spec Ops and its immediate impact as “video game art” and satire. It’s been on my reading list for over a year since I fully completed the game and there seems no better time than Veteran’s Appreciation Month for this published, 100-page essay. Feel free to join me if Spec Ops: The Line was a life-changing video game for you!In addition to the Jacob Geller video and the State of the Arc podcast mentioned above, there are literally dozens of videos on YouTube examining the plot, themes, and imagery from Spec Ops: The Line, and along with Brendan Keogh’s book, “Killing Is Harmless,” the game has also been the subject of many online essays, analyses, and even scholarly dissertations. SiegfriedX said:Fantastic game. I never played it when it came out, but kept hearing about it from time to time. Years later I finally decided to play it and was very surprised with a different take on war compared to other games like Call of Duty. Gameplay is the usual, nothing new here, but the story will surprise you and some parts will stick in your memory, no doubt about that!So, how did Yager take a forgotten IP and turn out one of the most-discussed games of all time? It’s all about the story, and there’s really no way of avoiding discussing major plot details for the rest of this article. I don’t usually do a full plot summary as part of these Wrap-Up article, but in this case, the step-by-step progression of the plot is a big part of the discussion, so it feels necessary to go over it in more detail. BEWARE OF SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON!TymanTheLong said:It’s important to play Spec Ops: The Line spoiler free and without a walkthrough! Spec Ops: The Line is entirely unique in this regard among games. You get one chance at this experience, don’t blow it!After a short on-rails action opener where you’re in a helicopter shooting other helicopters with a minigun, the game flashes back to set the scene. Six months ago, the city of Dubai was virtually destroyed by an apocalyptic sandstorm. Most politicians and elites managed to evacuate, but thousands of regular citizens were left behind.Returning from Afghanistan, Colonel John Konrad volunteered the U.S. Army’s 33rd Infantry Battalion, the “Damned 33rd,” to go into the city to provide relief and evacuate the citizens. Konrad was ordered to stand down, but he defied orders and led his troops in anyway, resulting in the entire 33rd Battalion being listed as deserters. The 33rd lost contact once inside the stormwall, but two weeks ago, a repeating message from Konrad was received on the outside”This is Colonel John Konrad, United States Army. Attempted evacuation of Dubai ended in complete failure. Death toll… too many.”Enter your character, Captain Martin Walker, who has been dispatched to lead a three-man Delta Force squad into Dubai to investigate. In an opening narration, Walker calls Konrad a war hero, an honorable soldier who once saved Walker’s own life, a man who would do the right thing, no matter the cost. Walker’s orders are to get inside the stormwall, look for signs of survivors, then exfiltrate and radio for a full evacuation team if they find anyone alive. But right from the start, you get the sense that Walker really wants to be the hero by saving Konrad’s life in return. This may not be the objective the military gave us, but it does seem to be Walker’s objective.When Walker arrives in Dubai, along with his heavy-weapons specialist First Lieutenant Alphonso Adams and sniper/translator/tech guy Staff Sergeant John Lugo, the mood is at first pretty light. Lugo is cracking jokes as the squad slowly walks down a highway clogged with broken-down vehicles covered in sand, with the shining Dubai skyline ahead of you in the distance. You’re introduced to the game’s cover-based tactical shooter mechanics and squad commands, which are pretty standard for military shooters of the time.In fact, this rather bland, cookie-cutter third-person shooter gameplay is probably the biggest criticism people had for Spec-Ops: The Line. To some extent, this is just a sign of the game showing its age:HawkeyeBarry20 said:Most of my deaths were due to my lack of patience and going too fast. The gameplay is average but I think due to the age of the game you just need to get used to it. The story is great and I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes the genre.Guidality said:I couldn’t stand the gameplay but did enjoy the story. Gameplay almost ruined the experience for me and I am surprised how highly rated this game is. I feel the gameplay is overlooked quite a bit when people reflect back on their experience but it could just be meFor others, the story wasn’t enough to redeem the game’s somewhat clunky controls, and if the story doesn’t grab you, then there’s really not much to set this game apart from some of the more well-known names in the military shooter genre.Flumptigan said:Completely average on almost every level. It’s like playing Army Of Two whilst you’ve got Apocalypse Now playing in the background. Nothing particularly wrong with it but nothing you’ve never seen beforeHurn Weasel said:The plot of Apocalypse Now with the mechanics of the most bog standard basic third person shooter you’ve ever seen equals an utterly average game for the easily impressedWhile many share this criticism of the gameplay in Spec Ops: The Line, some see the generic gameplay as a necessary part of the storytelling itself; by lulling you into the “been there, done that” feeling of being the same as any other Call of Duty knock-off, the game is only setting you up for that feeling to be completely subverted later on. This is a bit subjective, depending on how well the story grabbed you, but for many commentators I’ve seen, the lackluster gameplay is almost a feature of the game, not a bug.Piston Toyota said:This is definitely a game I think of when I think of “artistically important” titles of the era. So much of the game was designed not with smooth and fun gameplay as a priority, but rather to deliver on its message and themes, which is a risky thing to do in what is ultimately a mass-media product. Overall, it’s not the most fun game I ever played by a longshot, but boy is it memorable.As your squad continues exploring the wreckage from the sandstorm, they find a recently-killed American soldier, putting them all on edge. This city has supposedly been dead for six months, and you expected any survivors to be helpless refugees, with the remnants of the 33rd trying to help them. So who killed this soldier? Before you have time to process this new information, they are confronted by a group of armed local militants. Lugo tries to speak to them in Farsi, but there’s no negotiating a solution here. Either you fire the first shots, or they’ll eventually open fire on you. You have no choice but to defend yourself.Your squad moves forward, facing more armed militia, until they receive a distress call from Alpha Squad, who are pinned down in the fuselage of a crashed airplane and are requesting assistance. You fight through several waves of insurgents to reach the soldier, but he’s mortally wounded and fading fast. With his dying breath, he tells you that the insurgents captured his squadmate and took him to a place called “The Nest.” Adams points out that pushing further into the city is outside their mission parameters, but Walker says that he won’t leave another soldier behind; they have no choice but to press on.As you fight through more insurgents on your way to the Nest, rock music starts playing, and a DJ on the radio announces that, due to an unprovoked attack on the 33rd, the ceasefire is over. It seems that Walker and his squad have stumbled into the middle of a full-blown war between the 33rd and these insurgents, which reinforces Walker’s resolve to find Konrad and rescue him. Adams suggests they should try talking to the insurgents again – they did come here to rescue these people, after all. But things take a turn when they find that the hostage is being held by a CIA agent who’s working with the locals. We rescue the hostage, but the soldier doesn’t seem grateful – if anything, he’s suspicious. We follow him to meet with his commander, but it’s a trap, and they open fire, forcing us to kill these American soldiers instead. It was self-defense… we didn’t have a choice.From this point forward, you no longer fight the local insurgents – it’s your squad against American soldiers. Walker realizes that the 33rd must have gone rogue, but he still believes that John Konrad wouldn’t have been responsible for any of these atrocities, because he’s an honorable man. Eventually, though, Walker realizes that Konrad may not be the hero he believed him to be, and his motives turn from rescue to revenge. We have to clean up the mess that the 33rd has made of Dubai. We don’t have a choice.Sensing a theme yet? Each new objective seems like a reasonable next step, one that you obviously have to take, but in the space of just the first few chapters, we’ve gone from a simple recon mission to rescue survivors, to killing armed insurgents, to slaughtering American soldiers. The craziness of the situation is not lost on Walker, Lugo, and Adams, who repeatedly remark that they can’t believe they’re shooting the very people they came to save, but when everyone is trying to kill you, what else are you supposed to do? Where do you draw the line?Allgorhythm said: Spec Ops: The Line starts out, ostensibly, as humanitarian aid to victims of a sandstorm. Yet, factions emerge each with its own agenda. We find out, prior to the relief efforts, that power brokers evacuated the privileged from danger and, in so doing, made the situation even more dire for the have-nots. Walker would like to believe Colonel Konrad (a nod to Joseph Conrad) is a force for good. Later, we find out, as Walker abandons accepted norms, that this morality is an illusion and that Walker’s Konrad is a fiction of his imagination. None of the multiple endings is good. Each one depicts Walker—whether alive or dead—as alone and feeling betrayed.Spec Ops: The Line adds an additional dimension in exploring its themes. As a game, it directly questions the players who must make moral decisions of their own within the contents of its scenario. It’s not just Walker who descends into darkness but the player as well. Unlike a book or a movie where the audience is a spectator, game players interact with the medium and make conscious choices. Thus, we ask ourselves, “Is war a game?” “Are we complicit in reducing human suffering to a form of entertainment?”At no point in the game is this theme made more explicit than in Spec Ops: The Line’s most infamous scene in Chapter Eight – The Gate. Faced with an entire army’s worth of soldiers between you and your objective, Walker decides to use a mortar to drop white phosphorus, a devastating incendiary weapon, on the enemy position. Lugo strongly objects, but Walker doesn’t see any other choice. You transition to a black-and-white, top-down targeting screen, displaying the enemies as white silhouettes who futilely search for cover while you bomb the tanks and turrets blocking your path.This is another convention that’s used in many military shooter games. The top-down mortar strikes are usually a way to break up the gameplay a little bit and let the player feel powerful by blasting away at enemies that couldn’t be taken out with assault rifles and grenades. And you do get that feeling here, for a minute. But rather than just moving on to your next objective, Spec Ops: The Line does something that most other games don’t… it forces you to rappel down and walk through the aftermath of the white phosphorus attack, with acrid fumes obscuring your vision and burning soldiers writhing in pain all around you. And at the end of the path, the final twist; these soldiers weren’t trying to kill people, they were protecting a refugee encampment full of innocent men, women, and children who you just incinerated.ROBBERT DHT said:This was a hidden gem to play. Didn’t know about the awfulness of white phosphorus until this game. Despite playing this years and years ago this game did stay in my memory.HawkeyeBarry20 said:That white phosphorus scene really was a turning point in that game. Story wise that’s when you knew you were playing something a bit different. I really liked the multiple endings in this game. You’re trying to wrap your head around things and once you have all the facts at the end you can decide who you want to be.This scene is probably one of the biggest turning points in the game, and the scene that appears to “break” Walker psychologically. In order to avoid dealing with the emotional fallout of the white phosphorus attack, Walker rationalizes that he had no choice, the 33rd forced his hand, they’re really the ones to blame.Cristi said:Started pretty generic and kept growing on me and by the time of the phosphorus attack I knew this will be one of my all-time favorite games storywise although I’m not a big fan of the third person camera. 10/10The point of the white phosphorus scene was not only to show the “horrors of war,” although that’s certainly one of the effects of the sequence. According to the game’s Lead Writer, Walt Williams, in a 2012 interview with Jordan Garland of GamingBolt.com, the team’s ultimate goal was to make the player question their own actions as the ones who literally “pulled the trigger.”Jordan Garland: To anybody who has completed Spec Ops: The Line, the stand-out scene in the game has to be White Phosphorus. That scene was both compelling and mortifying in equal measure, what challenges did you face when depicting something so horrific?Walt Williams: There are 3 challenges when trying to create a scene like “White Phosphorus.” The first, and to me this was the biggest challenge we faced throughout the game, was making it feel organic. It would have been very easy for a game like Spec Ops to fall back on exploitation and shock value. But we made a choice early on that every horrific moment in the game had to be earned. If it wasn’t the obvious result of cause and effect, and if it wasn’t absolutely key to the narrative, then we threw it out.The second challenge was getting the Player to take part in such a terrible act. This is where the brilliant designers at Yager had the idea of mimicking the “Death From Above” mission in Modern Warfare. The idea was that we, as gamers, have been trained to disconnect from a game when the gameplay experience drastically changes. We stop thinking about the enemies as Soldiers and instead see them as glowing dots that need to be turned off. Once the Player disconnects from the reality of the situation, something truly horrible happens. And it hits Players in the gut, because now they have to face the consequences of their actions. They don’t get teleported to the next location. They have to face the human cost of their actions.Finally, the third challenge is animation. Writing a scene for an actor is very different than writing it for an animation team. Walker’s reaction to what he has done is told almost entirely through his facial expressions. Again, that we were able to pull this scene off is due entirely to the amazing animators at Yager. […]JG: Did you ever consider making the mortar scene optional, like other instances further down the line?WW: It is optional, to an extent. The Player can open fire on the Soldiers using their normal weapons, but they are severely outnumbered. The Player will eventually run out of ammo and be overcome. Is that necessarily fair? No. But it’s not until you’ve used the mortar and seen the consequences of your actions that you start to wonder, “Could I have done something different?” And the answer is no. It was your only real option. To which you might say, “That’s not fair.” And I’d say, “You’re right.”That’s a real emotional response and I can guarantee it’s exactly what Walker is feeling in that moment.The choice isn’t “Do I use the mortar or not?” The real choice is “Can I keep going, knowing what I’ve done?”JG: After that scene, you’re thrown straight back into the action and I for one was totally bewildered, was this yo-yoing of emotion something you wanted to explore?WW: It is. We didn’t want the world to cater to the Player’s desires. In that moment, you wanted to digest what just happened. But there are other people in the world and they want to kill you for the same reason. In many ways, this is what “The Line” is all about. Some people think it means “The Line you don’t want to cross or have to cross.” But really, it’s The Line between expectations and reality. As gamers, we expect a game to embrace us… to yield to us and our actions. Spec Ops, however, opposes you. It subverts your expectations and reminds you that you are not in control. And that was entirely by design.Having laid the blame for this entire mess squarely at John Konrad’s feet, Walker decides he has no choice but to stop Konrad and the Damned 33rd, whatever the cost. After passing through the gate, your squad teams up with CIA Agent Riggs to cripple the 33rd’s control of city by capturing the city’s water supply, once again justifying that this is the right thing to do for the innocent civilians caught up in this conflict. However, after stealing the tanker trucks full of water, Riggs drives the trucks wildly through the streets under heavy fire, until the trucks are destroyed.Konrad appears to a dazed Walker, telling us that the people of Dubai will start to die from dehydration in a few days, and it’s all our fault. Walker realizes that Riggs wasn’t concerned with getting the water to the people; he just wanted to destroy the water supply entirely, ensuring that no one would make it out of Dubai to tell the story of what happened here. The CIA believes that if word got out, the entire Middle East would declare war on the USA in revenge, and Riggs is willing to kill himself, the 33rd, and everyone in the city to keep that from happening.Reconnecting with Lugo and Adams after the crash, Walker decides they have one last chance to save the remaining people of Dubai – they have to find a way to get a signal out to radio for an immediate evacuation. To do so, they’ll need to take command of the Radioman’s broadcast tower, which also happens to be under heavy guard from what’s left of the 33rd. You make your way across the rooftops to reach the tower, but you’re starting to see more and more signs that Walker is losing touch with reality. Mannequins move by themselves during a shooting sequence, a downed soldier looks just like Adams before you execute him. But if you’ve been paying attention, these are not the first signs that not everything is as it seems.Cylon 118 said:A great detail about this game is no matter how far into it you go you may realise that you are always descending, as if heading towards hell itself as your character’s madness grows deeper and deeper. It implies the white phosphorous scene is what sent him over the edge, but he feels off from the very start in my opinion. I mean a never ending sandstorm doesn’t sound very natural at all!But there’s more than just the in-game cues that things have gone a bit sideways. Even the title screen and loading screen tips change as the story progresses, sometimes confronting the player directly with tips like “Do you feel like a hero yet?” and “How many Americans have you killed today?” Some seem like sarcastic echo’s of Walker’s point of view (“There is no difference between what is right and what is necessary,” “You are still a good person.”), while others directly blame Walker – and by extension, you – for what has happened (“This is all your fault,” “If you were a better person, you wouldn’t be here.”).An Alphy said:I’ve always loved it when games (or any media, I guess, other examples I can think of how the OPs change in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure ) change and adapt to what is currently going on in the story. Like how the title screen eventually changes to a desolate view of the city with the American flag torn up, and of course the infamous loading screen “tips”Most games go to great lengths not to break immersion, but these loading screen tips are designed to just that – taking the player out of the mindset of a desperate soldier fighting in the desert, and reminding us that we are safe on a couch with a controller in our hands. Has the game forced us to take these actions? Or is it our decision to keep playing, keep indulging in the slaughter? What’s the line between the player and the character?Armstrong x360a said:I finished this game years ago, but remember it fondly. Great character development over the slow march of the story progression. Some neat set points and a few “wow, I can’t believe they did that” moments with the internal struggles of the protagonist. Great story game overall! The game play was a bit janky at times compared to its contemporaries in the genre, but I’m glad I didn’t sleep on this one!You finally reach the tower, with the Radioman taunting you all the way, goading you with the results of your actions in burning civilians and destroying the water supply. When you arrive at the radio room, however, the Radioman doesn’t fight you; in fact, he helps Lugo boost the signal to broadcast to the entire city. After which, Lugo – the once-lighthearted sidekick who balked at the use of white phosphorus – shoots the Radioman right in the face. These experiences are taking a psychological toll on the entire team.Walker, Adams, and Lugo become visibly injured throughout the game, with more wounds and bandages appearing after each major encounter, and the vocal performance reflects the increasing strain on the characters. At the beginning of the game, Walker issues commands to his squadmates calmly, but by the end of the game, he’s barking orders wildly and screaming at the enemy combatants.Spa1h said:So I now successfully overcame the FUBAR challenge, and hell this requires a lot of patience. Like the characters in the game, I progressed from no emotion in failing till the point I shouted at my screen and smashed my fists on the table towards the end of the game.So, I really liked the unique character progression of your squad from doing a normal recon mission, until accepting war crimes and going insane. Also how the voices and appearance and even loading screen change as you progress… I haven’t seen that anywhere else.Your squad escapes the radio tower via helicopter, putting you back in the on-rails minigun scene you saw from the beginning of the game – a fact that Walker seems to recognize. He quickly shakes off this feeling of déjà vu, though, and the scene continues as before until the helicopter crashes. When Walker awakes (or does he…?), he finds himself alone and on the verge of a complete mental breakdown. Konrad speaks to him as if in a vision, with all the people who have died appearing to remind Walker of the consequences of his actions as the Burj Khalifa tower burns like the Eye of Mordor in the distance.Konrad – “There were over 5,000 people alive in Dubai, the day before you arrived. How many are alive today, I wonder? How many will be alive tomorrow? I thought my duty was to protect this city from the storm. I was wrong. I have to protect it from you.”Walker is pulled back to reality by the voice of Adams calling over the radio. You fight your way through more enemy soldiers to reconnect with the Lieutenant, then go in search of Lugo. You find the Sergeant, but it’s too late… a group of civilians captured Lugo and, in retribution for all the damage your squad has done, they hanged him. You’re presented with another moral choice here – do you gun down the unarmed civilians in revenge, or do you fire over their heads to chase them away without harming them?TymanTheLong said:So this post is my explanation as to what is absolutely unique about Spec Ops: The Line, if any other game has done this I don’t know about it. And given that it’s turned the achievements into its own meta game or rather made them part of the narrative, I think it should be particularly interesting to those on this site. Spec Ops: The Line basically reflects its subversive story in the achievements. It’s been a long time now but when my friends and I were playing it initially we had no idea what was going on. The first hint was basically a “Press X to headstomp/execute” cue and then one of our AI companions saying “WTF?! He was surrendering!”.But I’d done the video game thing of “this is what it wants me to do” and the achievement for headstomping, and thus my choice, was unlocked on my profile.It didn’t matter if I went and got the other one, the opposite achievement for refusing to kill the enemy, my achievement was now a public statement about what I had done with a timestamp to prove it.I was playing Spec Ops: The Line with friends, so comparing what we each had done quickly became the meta game.When the angry civilians attacked in all the smoke and I couldn’t see crap (the game doesn’t want you to) and my companions are screaming in my ear “shoot them!” it never occurred to me to try to shoot over their heads. It did occur to my friend: we had different unlocks on that choice.This is why playing Spec Ops: The Line with a walkthrough ruins the game. It’s also why a completionist single playthrough also doesn’t work (though completing a mop up playthrough wouldn’t ruin anything).I no longer recall exactly how far into the game we figured it all out, I just remember we did and not looking ahead for hints and seeing what each of us did as we all arrived at each section quickly became one of my fondest gaming memories.But the game is brutal. I do not have a background in combat or any kind of training in war, but I grew up in an era when everyone was very tense about increasing media violence and the glorification of war (Vietnam wasn’t that far past and I suspect we all dreaded making the same mistake again, which America did, just not in the way we expected). With that personal history the criticism of video games, of glorifying “heroics” wasn’t foreign to me, but Spec Ops: The Line was the first effective piece of art mocking its own medium and its sins which I had run into.Many have said that Spec Ops: The Line is a game that wants you to “feel bad” for playing it, and there certainly is some element that is a critique of military-shooter-as-entertainment. Should you have “fun” playing a game that has you just killing other people? But, according to Williams in that GameBolt.com interview, these choices were set up to provide memorable moments, but the game very intentionally doesn’t impose moral consequences for your decisions. Whether you shoot the civilians or let them flee, Walker and Adams move on without any major change to the story. But that doesn’t mean that the moral consequences don’t play out in the mind of the player.JG: Spec Ops: The Line’s various flash-points provide gamers with split-second decision points, where the most obvious route ‘out’ is arguably the most objectionable. How did you want players to react in these desperate situations?WW: Believe it or not, we had no specific desire for players to make one choice over another. We tried very hard to remove any judgment from those scenes. Our hope was that players would follow their own hearts… whether their heart was feeling vengeful or merciful, that was entirely up to the Player.Lugo’s death is the final straw for Adams, who now openly blames Walker for getting them into this situation. Walker continues to deflect the blame, saying we didn’t have a choice, that Konrad forced our hand, that it’s not our fault, but Adams is having none of it, and Walker seems to be having trouble even convincing himself at this point. Still, they press on through more waves of 33rd soldiers, with reaching Konrad as the only objective left to them.Walker and Adams get pinned down and surrounded, and Walker is ready to surrender, figuring that’s the only way he can get into the tower, but Adams just wants it to be over. Pushing Walker clear of the fight, Adams turns to hold off the approaching troops, sacrificing himself to allow Walker to make the final push to Konrad’s tower alone. Walker enters the tower, where the last remnants of the 33rd surrender without any further fight, directing walker upstairs to Konrad’s apartments. During their final conversation, Walker blames Konrad for everything that happened, but Konrad counters that none of this would have happened if Walker had stuck to his mission and radioed for an evac as soon as he found the first survivors in Dubai. And, oh yeah, Colonel John Konrad has been dead for weeks, having taken his own life after failing to lead a caravan out of Dubai and getting many civilians killed. Konrad – “It takes a strong man to deny what’s right in front of him. And if the truth is undeniable… you create your own.”The Konrad we’ve been dealing with is entirely a manifestation of Walker’s fractured psyche, leaving us to wonder just how much of what has happened over the course of the game is real. To end the game, you get to decide whether to break the delusion and take responsibility for your actions, or deny the evidence before you and continue to blame Konrad for everything that’s happened.GhostDivision V said:Spec Ops the line ending still shocks me to this day.Allgorhythm said:The game provides several endings. The movie [Apocalypse Now] and book [Heart of Darkness] have only one but the themes represented by the game’s different endings are all explored in book and movie.I haven’t come across Fight Club cited as an influence on the game—Chuck Palahniuk’s book &/or the movie starring Edward Norton as the book’s anonymous narrator and Brad Pitt as Tyler. Nevertheless, the game’s ending has definite parallels with book and movie insofar as the Konrad with whom Walker conversed in the game was a construct of Walker’s deranged mind—the real Konrad having committed suicide before Walker’s mission even got underway.In short, as you say, the ending is shocking. It is one of those intense dramatic reversals that delivers a visceral gut punch—similar to the acclaimed BioShock ending.Of course, the impact of this ending relies largely on whether or not you knew it was coming. Back when the game released, it didn’t make a huge splash, largely because the first couple of hours of gameplay don’t do a whole lot to stand out from the bigger names in the military shooter genre. But over time, as the game’s narrative was discussed and debated, it became infamous for its subversive critique of the genre. This makes it harder and harder for new players to come in and be completely taken by surprise.Bitz said:One of the writers, Walt Williams authored a book called Significant Zero. It was a good read, but I had read this prior to playing Spec Ops the line, coupled with years of general internet commentary talking about what a cult classic game this is, I went into this with pretty high expectations. I felt let down, finding a cover based shooting gallery without different ways to approach encounters. The game felt limited and dull. Once I knew what made the game unique compared to others in the genre there isn’t much else to enjoy. Might have a different opinion of the game if I played blind near the time of release. Perhaps ruined by recommendations of its narrative, I wanted to enjoy this far more than I did.This was somewhat my experience as well. After hearing about how much Spec Ops: The Line broke the fourth wall to get its message and meta narrative across, I was expecting a bit more of a twist. Luckily for me, that didn’t ruin the experience, because the twist I was looking for was quite different from the one that I found.Allgorhythm said:Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now, and Spec Ops: The Line are all denunciations of the abuse of power—at some point what starts out as support and aid degenerates into exploitation. All 3 works explore the moral ambiguity facing their respective protagonists and show how easy it is to slip across the grey boundary between right and wrong. I think most of our forum commenters seemed pretty well dialed in on the themes that Yager wanted to get across. More from the GamingBolt.com interview:JG: Is Spec Ops: The Line a comment on the shooting genre, rampant glorification of war depicted with very little consequence, was this something you consciously wanted to address?WW: “War is hell” isn’t just a saying. It’s true. You’d probably find it difficult to find someone who disagrees with the statement. And yet, we have allowed war to exist strictly as entertainment within video games. No other medium treats war strictly as a spectacle. With Spec Ops, we weren’t trying to make people feel bad about playing shooters, although that certainly is one reaction people are having. Our goal was simply to make people think—about the games they play and the reasons they play them.JG: Was the player’s experience always intended to mirror Walker’s? You enjoy the killing and destruction as much as he does, so did you desire for the player to also feel guilty?WW: Absolutely. On the surface, Spec Ops can be classified as a military game—you are a soldier in conflict against soldiers. But really, Spec Ops is a story about who we are as gamers… about the entertainment we choose to consume and our reasons for doing so. Walker comes to Dubai, wanting to feel heroic and powerful. He wants to overcome obstacles and save the day. Just like us, every time we sit down to play a game.TymanTheLong said:It’s not so much debated these days but there was a long running argument as to whether video games could be art or not. To those critics of old, I think Spec Ops: The Line settles that question. I can’t strictly say the game was fun (even if my friends and I were able to create extra fun by actively comparing our choices) but honestly Lord of the Flies is not actually a very fun book to read, nor is 1984 or a whole host of other obviously important novels. Note: not every classic novel is unfun, The Time Machine is still fun to read as is War of the Worlds, The Machine Stops, and a whole pile of others, I’m only saying fun isn’t a pre-requisite element of art, even in video games. I think this is very true, and one of the reasons why TA Playlist is so interesting. By its nature, the games chosen for Playlist tend to be these sort of narrative-heavy stories, with themes that aren’t necessarily “fun,” but can be a lot of fun to discuss. And this has been another great month of really interesting commentary and analysis from our TA Playlist forum contributors. Thank you all for continuing to take time to play along and give your thoughts on these games… we really appreciate your support!The stats for the month of November were fairly low, but that’s not a surprise given that the game is now only available by picking up a used physical copy from Gamestop or eBay, after it was removed from digital stores last year due to “expiring partnership licenses,” presumably due to some of the licensed music. This, unfortunately, made it so that many people couldn’t play along this month.BigBanjo K said:Only 110 participants in the playlist this month. [Note: this was posted on November 12] Lowest I’ve ever seen. I’d participate if it was available digitally. Haven’t played the game since the videogame rental daysBad Playlist choice for availability reasonsCertainly bad from a stat standpoint, but so many people had so much to say about Spec Ops: The Line, I still think it was a worthy inclusion. But yes, only 249 gamers unlocked achievements in Spec Ops: The Line during November, with 107 tracked gamers starting the game for the first time, and 27 players getting the full completion. In total, 3,298 achievements were unlocked in November, worth 61,535 Gamerscore and 84,987 TrueAchievement score – a ratio of 1.38 for the month.The most commonly-unlocked achievement in November was “They Live”, an unmissable 1.00 ratio achievement for completing the prologue. The least unlocked achievement, at just 22 unlocks during the month, was “MFWIC”, which is awarded for completing the game on FUBAR difficulty – a 3.36 ratio achievement that’s only been unlocked by 8% of the game’s tracked players overall.Despite only 249 tracked gamers earning achievements in Spec Ops: The Line during November, there were 12 people who made it onto the November 2024 Shout-Out List. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is nearly 5% of the total amount of participants for the month… nearly the same percentage as the 269 Shout-Outs we had for Hellblade II in October, which is a far easier game to complete than Spec Ops: The Line on FUBAR difficulty. So much respect to these 12 gamers, led by WICKB0LDT, who completed the full game in 38 hours and 19 minutes at the beginning of November. And that, finally, will wrap it up for this extra long wrap-up of the November 2024 TA Playlist game, Spec Ops: The Line. It is my New Year’s Resolution to get caught up on these Playlist articles, so I will try my best to have December’s wrap-up of Psychonauts 2 out by the end of January! In the meantime, check out this month’s TA Playlist game, Metro: Last Light, and drop a comment in the Spoiler-Free and Spoiler Discussion Threads. See you there!
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