Spec Ops: The Line - Heart of Darkness with guns

[Dexter]

I didn't cared about this game enough to even feel butthurt at all

[...]

I had more fun while eating an hamburger than playing this thing.

[...]

i wasted my time with a piece of crap

[...]

I was curious wasn't about if the game was crap or not, I was already certain of that

Your taste in games is fucking horrible only surpassed by your love of useless tech like Oculus Rift.

As was said very early in the thread, presentation, story and reactivity with a bit of good level and sound design is quite enough to lift this game from the mass of Call-o-Doody or modern Battlefields and make it an above-average Single Player shooter. Gameplay being mediocre, by design or not doesn't really change that and isn't the only possibility to make a game stand out from the mass, gameplay was fine enough for purpose. It would be great if you actually played the game and had anything substantive to say about it other than, Nuh-uh it sux cause I watched a 2 minute YouTube video.

Oh yeah, and it's gonna be a sweet "I told you so" when the new VR stuff will take off big in 2-3 years time and provide for amazing presence/immersion that will blow a lot of people away and possibly provide many new gameplay experiences, yet again something that would be improved upon even with the basest idea or experience of what you are actually talking about before forming an opinion on it.

 

[Mangoose]

lift this game from the mass of Call-o-Doody or modern Battlefields and make it an above-average Single Player shooter

You want some pepper on that horse dung? It'll taste above average!

 

[tuluse]

gameplay was fine enough for purpose.

 

[AngryKobold]

I hate every single aspect of this game. I'd rather have no shooters at all than crap like this. Seriously: government says "ban satanistic shooters", I say "OK, good riddance".

- Story:
A game about shooting things in desolated city. With a deep message on how people are dicks to each other. Featuring as the main character a well trained murderer... who's traumatised for life and posesses serious emotionally- cognitive disorders. And at the end gonna realize he's the biggest murderous dick in the city of dead and starts weeping. Yeah, that's gonna work. Can't see how it cannot collide with actual gameplay! Fits it perfectly.
WHY I SHOULD EVEN REMOTELY CARE ABOUT FUCKING PHOSPHORUS I WAS- WATCH IT- FORCED TO FIRE! WHAT ABOUT THOUSAND OF CANNON FODDER BOTS SLAUGHTERED BEFORE? MAYBE THEY'RE INNOCENT CANNON FODDER BOTS WITH FAMILIES AND CHILDREN!

- Gameplay:
Corridor cover shooter. It's impossible to make a good game of this genre. If it amuses you, just shoot yourself. Be sure the caliber is big enough to produce a mortal injury.

- Graphics:
Completely ruined by shader effects... glow... HDR... whatever it is. If this thing does not repulse you, I hope it will fucking hurt your eyes. And your LCD backlight. Actually I don't have to hope for the latter, because it's a certainty.
If it's somehow possible to completely turn this crap off, it certainly will be still ruined. Effects added in such intensity are probably to hide really nasty graphical glitches.

Questions whether Spec Ops is any form of counter- culture towards CoD "war is fun" establishemnt, is meaningless. The only point of military shooters is to provide cheap fun. The audience consists solely of howling idiots. That's possibly the last "culture" a sane man would like to waste time on opposing to. But it's all fault of game jurnos. They're overthinking it. The majority of jurnos is made of half- illiterate morons with no knowledge and nothing to say. They must be so happy to jabber about the CONTENT instead of GAME.

Developers are no better, possibly far worse. Worthless female singers show tits. Game developers with nothing to offer come out with some "deep stories", "deconstructions", etc.
"Hey! It's deep! We make so many refences to Heart of Darkness, it's almost a rip- off! We even named one of characters 'Konrad', to make it clear!". Applause to Yager Development for their wits.

And there's the worst thing of all: people who played it and then felt smarter. So they have to vomit their overintellectualized bullshit over the net.

 

[chestburster]

And there's the worst thing of all: people who played it and then felt smarter.

So which is worse and why:

(a) people who played it and felt smart;
(b) people who didn't play it and felt smart nonetheless by talking bad about it;
(c) people who played it and felt smart by talking how much they're disgusted about it;
(d) people who spent six hours completing it and felt mildly entertained by what it is;

and bonus option:
(e) people who spent three and a half hours watching Apocalypse Now Redux and felt whatever they felt.

 

[Mangoose]

And there's the worst thing of all: people who played it and then felt smarter.

So which is worse and why:

(a) people who played it and felt smart;
(b) people who didn't play it and felt smart nonetheless by talking bad about it;
(c) people who played it and felt smart by talking how much they're disgusted about it;
(d) people who spent six hours completing it and felt mildly entertained by what it is;

and bonus option:
(e) people who spent three and a half hours watching Apocalypse Now Redux and felt whatever they felt.

You forgot option (f) people who pirated it and uninstalled it after two hours.

Also option (g) people that keeping going on about Apocalypse Now and never mention Heart of Darkness.

 

[sexbad?]

And there's the worst thing of all: people who played it and then felt smarter.

So which is worse and why:

(a) people who played it and felt smart;
(b) people who didn't play it and felt smart nonetheless by talking bad about it;
(c) people who played it and felt smart by talking how much they're disgusted about it;
(d) people who spent six hours completing it and felt mildly entertained by what it is;

and bonus option:
(e) people who spent three and a half hours watching Apocalypse Now Redux and felt whatever they felt.

option a

 

[sexbad?]

addendum: because it is computer game design philosophy homeopathy. it uses basic truths about single player third-person cover shooters with cinematic setpieces (for instance, you would be a terrible person for killing so many people in real life) and then piles see-through bullshit on top.

 

[Dexter]

- Story:
A game about shooting things in desolated city. With a deep message on how people are dicks to each other. Featuring as the main character a well trained murderer... who's traumatised for life and posesses serious emotionally- cognitive disorders. And at the end gonna realize he's the biggest murderous dick in the city of dead and starts weeping. Yeah, that's gonna work. Can't see how it cannot collide with actual gameplay! Fits it perfectly.
WHY I SHOULD EVEN REMOTELY CARE ABOUT FUCKING PHOSPHORUS I WAS- WATCH IT- FORCED TO FIRE! WHAT ABOUT THOUSAND OF CANNON FODDER BOTS SLAUGHTERED BEFORE? MAYBE THEY'RE INNOCENT CANNON FODDER BOTS WITH FAMILIES AND CHILDREN!

The story is only superficially about "war is bad" and I don't get how some people can't get over it, I already stated this very early in the thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-darkness-with-guns.73595/page-7#post-2433441 . I actually thought the famous "phosphorus scene" was one of the worst in the story-telling of the game since it felt forced and choreographed too much as to what would happen and the player is coerced into doing it and has no choice (I actually tried shooting the soldiers down there to see what happens and they all turn towards the player and shoot at once with even Mounted Machine guns on the trucks shooting back). It would have been better if it was less choreographed as to what would happen and the player was given a choice as if to take the "easy way out" or "fight through" imo but the developers said they needed it as a breaking point for the main character. I viewed the game more as a psychological thriller where the main character descends into madness. At the beginning of the game you have a "disciplined" Special Operations squad that has the mission to check what happened and as the game progresses they get madder and more violent, their barks descend from "Understood sir" into "Kill those motherfuckers RAAARAAGHH!", their clothes are more and more in tatters, the main menu gets crazier as the game progresses and the fourth wall breakage during the loading screens and menus increases. There are also other gameplay elements that are used towards that goal, for instance the rock music that starts during some of the more violent scenes and later lets you visit the radio tower reminiscient of Vietnam-movies

, the fade-to-white or fade-to-black on cutscenes that are either likely hallucinations or real, objects inside the game that degrade and decay if you turn your back to them and stare at them again etc. The fun thing about it is trying to make out what exactly is happening in the story with and to Walker and what is real or his imagination.

- Gameplay:
Corridor cover shooter. It's impossible to make a good game of this genre. If it amuses you, just shoot yourself. Be sure the caliber is big enough to produce a mortal injury.

Gameplay is good enough to carry the story and the rest, one of the worst things I disliked about it is actually the aiming with the mouse, it seemed like it emulated a controller or something since you couldn't often point directly onto someone's head with precision. The other thing were some of the on-rails shooting experiences that come up at some points but thankfully not very often (the shopping mall possibly being the worst). Also the checkpoint system kinda sucked somewhat and the squad commands didn't always work very well.

As people have already said, there's enemies with knifes running towards you, heavies that are harder to kill, grenades are being thrown quite often and you have to switch positions. There were a bunch of levels where you had enough space to move around and had to plan how to kill the incoming enemies properly, for instance I remember the boat in the sand near the end to be one of them.

For a 6-8 hour long SinglePlayer campaign it did it's job. It doesn't need to be the best balanced or best made ever to tell the story, it isn't Tribes or Jedi Knight or Quake 3 or Soldier of Fortune or Left4Dead or whatever that you'll play Online for hundreds of hours and get frustrated at every little fault. The gameplay in The Walking Dead for instance was almost non-existant, it still managed to tell a rather interesting story comparable with the TV series that was worth a playthrough.

- Graphics:
Completely ruined by shader effects... glow... HDR... whatever it is. If this thing does not repulse you, I hope it will fucking hurt your eyes. And your LCD backlight. Actually I don't have to hope for the latter, because it's a certainty.
If it's somehow possible to completely turn this crap off, it certainly will be still ruined. Effects added in such intensity are probably to hide really nasty graphical glitches.

This was posted before, the game makes apt use of every color in the spectrum, the level design was resourceful (after a certain point when you reach a skyscraper you just keep descending and descending and descending and the game keeps getting crazier around you), there were even a few levels with sandstorms etc. It is one of the better or best games out there when it comes to the graphics department, atmosphere and sheer variety of it.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

http://deadendthrills.com/gallery/?gid=65

Compare with various shades of grey or brown of some of the other famous games out there:

No, these are not the same game: Gears of War, Homefront, Call of Duty 4, Medal of Honor, Battlefield 3, Resistance 3, Killzone 3 etc.

Spoiler

It was a welcome distraction from the "heroic marine kills hundreds of infidels (alternatively aliens) in grey-brown setting without question" games so prevalent nowadays.

"Hey! It's deep! We make so many refences to Heart of Darkness, it's almost a rip- off! We even named one of characters 'Konrad', to make it clear!". Applause to Yager Development for their wits.

I read Heart of Darkness and liked it, watched Apocalypse Now and liked it and still enjoyed Spec Ops: The Line, just as I read Lord of the Flies and enjoyed it, watched the movie adaptation that was okay, watched Lost that started off good and got shittier near the end and would still enjoy a good game adaptation of a similar story etc. it has nothing to do with being "deep". Apply the same for Lord of the Rings and similar.

 

[Mangoose]

The gameplay in The Walking Dead for instance was almost non-existant, it still managed to tell a rather interesting story comparable with the TV series that was worth a playthrough.

Can we move this to GD since we are done talking about games?

 

[Dexter]

The gameplay in The Walking Dead for instance was almost non-existant, it still managed to tell a rather interesting story comparable with the TV series that was worth a playthrough.

Can we move this to GD since we are done talking about games?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-walking-dead-spoilers.71587/

And, surprise surprise, Metro seems to be shitting up the thread.

 

[sexbad?]

The story is only superficially about "war is bad" and I don't get how some people can't get over it, I already stated this very early in the thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-darkness-with-guns.73595/page-7#post-2433441 . I actually thought the famous "phosphorus scene" was one of the worst in the story-telling of the game since it felt forced and choreographed too much as to what would happen and the player is coerced into doing it and has no choice (I actually tried shooting the soldiers down there to see what happens and they all turn towards the player and shoot at once with even Mounted Machine guns on the trucks shooting back). It would have been better if it was less choreographed as to what would happen and the player was given a choice as if to take the "easy way out" or "fight through" imo but the developers said they needed it as a breaking point for the main character. I viewed the game more as a psychological thriller where the main character descends into madness. At the beginning of the game you have a "disciplined" Special Operations squad that has the mission to check what happened and as the game progresses they get madder and more violent, their barks descend from "Understood sir" into "Kill those motherfuckers RAAARAAGHH!", their clothes are more and more in tatters, the main menu gets crazier as the game progresses and the fourth wall breakage during the loading screens and menus increases. There are also other gameplay elements that are used towards that goal, for instance the rock music that starts during some of the more violent scenes and later lets you visit the radio tower reminiscient of Vietnam-movies, the fade-to-white or fade-to-black on cutscenes that are either likely hallucinations or real, objects inside the game that degrade and decay if you turn your back to them and stare at them again etc. The fun thing about it is trying to make out what exactly is happening in the story with and to Walker and what is real or his imagination.

....

Gameplay is good enough to carry the story and the rest, one of the worst things I disliked about it is actually the aiming with the mouse, it seemed like it emulated a controller or something since you couldn't often point directly onto someone's head with precision. The other thing were some of the on-rails shooting experiences that come up at some points but thankfully not very often. Also the checkpoint system kinda sucked somewhat and the squad commands didn't always work very well.

As people have already said, there's enemies with knifes running towards you, heavies that are harder to kill, grenades are being thrown quite often and you have to switch positions. There were a bunch of levels where you had enough space to move around and had to plan how to kill the incoming enemies properly, for instance I remember the boat in the sand near the end to be one of them.

For a 6-8 hour long SinglePlayer campaign it did it's job. It doesn't need to be the best balanced or best made ever to tell the story, it isn't Tribes or Jedi Knight or Quake 3 or Soldier of Fortune or Left4Dead or whatever that you'll play Online for hundreds of hours and get frustrated at every little fault.

Fair enough (at least a little) if, as you say in that post you linked to, you prefer to focus on the protagonist's descent into madness rather than the more retarded gaming commentary garbage, but that's still far from something worth defending. The white phosphorous scene, with its perfectly posed and lit camera shot of a mother holding her daughter, isn't the only bit in the game that's so heavily choreographed to try to make wimps cry. The ~little bits~ like combat dialogue changing over the course of the campaign are negligible in effect to any hypothetical thing that could have actually been done through clever manipulation of the game's systems. The only part that I could possibly consider giving such an accolade to is that one room where you sit behind a desk, the screen starts flashing, and a heavy gunner teleports around in place of different mannequins.

How about the part where you're given two bound men to choose between and your hallucinations give you some silly choice you'd find in an ethics textbook? How about the part where your dead buddy resurrects as a heavy gunner and yells, "You left me to die!" even though you didn't leave him to die, while he fires in the direction of your belly even though the only thing exposed by your impenetrable cover is your juicy head? How about the part where all of a sudden fire people run at you with the dedication of Serious Sam enemies? None of that is madness. These things are all far too easy for anybody with an affinity for shooters to file away as trivial.

By the point of the two bound men, I had already determined that choice in the game doesn't count for shit (except for my cheevos!). For me, when Lugo respawned as a heavy gunner he went immediately to the "retard with big gun" category. The people on fire, likewise, went immediately to the "retard with the bright idea to run straight at you" file. No cutscene or nice audiovisual nuance can change my perception of what should have been traumatic events to the protagonist that ended up functioning the same as the rest of the game's dumpster mechanics.

And the mechanics really are dumpster. Even by the standards of Call of Duty 4, Gears of War and whatever other bland crap participated in the orgy to which this schlock owes its existence, it is so technologically incompetent. When it's not just bland, bad (as is standard for) third-person cover shooting, enemies will stick to the wrong side of cover or even run straight into your line of fire. In areas with mounted machine guns, some enemies would even move out of the space where I could fire, only to run right back into my fucking bullets. Those melee enemies that you kind-of-sort-of tout as (I suppose) adding variety, whom a loading screen calls something like "close quarters combat experts," are so smart that they'll run at you in a straight line. Heavy enemies are even worse, because even though they take sustained headshots to kill, they just saunter over to you and aim at your most likely impenetrable cover and nothing else; even when they're on top of you, they'll just fire at the cover and try to mope around it eventually. Also, it is quite silly to see enemy ragdolls despawn in a range from immediately to fifteen seconds after you kill them. This crap isn't "good enough to carry" any sort of game or story. It's one big, messy joke that near constantly fails at the simplest of tasks.

Also, the level design is a straight line.

 

[nil]

The white phosphorous scene, with its perfectly posed and lit camera shot of a mother holding her daughter

The importance of that scene is that's where the man character really broke. That's where he goes from "wtf is going on" to "Konrad is the bad guy and we are gonna make him pay". The shot of the mother is also what Konrad is painting in the ending, so the perfect composition might very well be only in his mind.

How about the part where you're given two bound men to choose between and your hallucinations give you some silly choice you'd find in an ethics textbook?

The point of that scene is that you can very easily defy Konrad (shoot the ropes or walk away) and feel like a badass, but the whole thing is subverted when you find out it was exactly as artificial as it felt. Stories usually use such situations to show the reader/player that the villain is a bad guy, and give the main character a chance to show that he isn't willing to play along and that he is better than the villain. But here it was really aimed at the main character, not the player. The timing of that scene isn't random either, it happens right after Walker decides that Conrad is the villain.

I never watched Apocalypse Now (or read the book), but I imagine the main purpose of all the similarities is that it feels familiar and you don't question it (of course most people probably have doubts), the same way the main character doesn't question whether Conrad is a bad guy or not . "Oh, it's an apocalypse now situation! I get it!", instead of "wait. Isn't Conrad a US soldier? Then why is he hanging people? And why are his men following his insane orders?", just like how Walker doesn't question the situation that he find himself in where only he can be the hero.

And no, choices aren't supposed to matter. Maybe make you think a little, but any choice you can make is insignificant, every important thing is decided by the plot, just like every important choice for Walker is decided by his insanity.

NOTE: I don't think Spec Ops is high art or a great masterpiece, but I found it to be by far one of the most interesting games I've ever played.

 

[Dexter]

How about the part where you're given two bound men to choose between and your hallucinations give you some silly choice you'd find in an ethics textbook? How about the part where your dead buddy resurrects as a heavy gunner and yells, "You left me to die!" even though you didn't leave him to die, while he fires in the direction of your belly even though the only thing exposed by your impenetrable cover is your juicy head? How about the part where all of a sudden fire people run at you with the dedication of Serious Sam enemies? None of that is madness. These things are all far too easy for anybody with an affinity for shooters to file away as trivial.

By the point of the two bound men, I had already determined that choice in the game doesn't count for shit (except for my cheevos!). For me, when Lugo respawned as a heavy gunner he went immediately to the "retard with big gun" category. The people on fire, likewise, went immediately to the "retard with the bright idea to run straight at you" file. No cutscene or nice audiovisual nuance can change my perception of what should have been traumatic events to the protagonist that ended up functioning the same as the rest of the game's dumpster mechanics.

I actually liked the C in C&C (there's very little C stemming from C) as stated here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-darkness-with-guns.73595/page-8#post-2433626

There are a few peppered throughout the game: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2782579 and while some are alluded to e.g. "shoot the soldier on the left or shoot the civilian on the right" there were various other choices like simply walking away or trying to shoot the snipers or the rope etc. I believe there were at least 5-6 slightly different outcomes for that scene alone that were entirely embedded in the gameplay and weren't "Press A for this, Press B for this" kind of choices. Sometime later in the game you are surrounded by civilians that won't let you pass and there's also various ways to deal with that like employing the "No Russian" way, meleeing them to ground or simply shooting in the air and scaring them away. There were also a few NPCs and certain events that could be pre-faced by not letting them say much and shooting them in the head or presumably engaging in friendly fire and the game didn't employ the "You aren't allowed to do that!" game over.

I admit there was very little actual meat to the approach and there weren't really much of any Consequences, but in most modern shooters you are often left with little more than following the "objective marker" and it was refreshing even though I wished that they would've taken all of that somewhat farther than they already did. It might just all reflect much more on the state of other shooters overall.

I don't remember all the intricate details of a lot of the other stuff you are talking about since it's over a year now that I've played it but I filed it away in the "enjoyed very much" drawer.

 

[chestburster]

reminiscient of Vietnam-movies

Spot on. Other than being set in the desert, this game evokes the same feelings I felt when watching Apocalypse Now and Platoon.

 

[Metro]

 

[LundB]

Gameplay is good enough to carry the story and the rest, one of the worst things I disliked about it is ... you couldn't often point directly onto someone's head with precision.
...
As people have already said, there's enemies with knifes running towards you, heavies that are harder to kill, grenades are being thrown quite often and you have to switch positions. There were a bunch of levels where you had enough space to move around and had to plan how to kill the incoming enemies properly, for instance I remember the boat in the sand near the end to be one of them.

We really must have been playing a different game or something. I never actually had trouble with the aiming controls, popping moles in the head was pretty easy. As for the rest, I don't even know where to start. I can think of maybe two firefights in the entire game where movement and serious planning were actually encouraged. Every single other one was settled by simply staying behind one piece of cover until every mole was dead. Knifemoles were slow as hell, ran at the player in a straight line, and were invariably popped in the head before they could get close. Heavymoles were even funnier, as you simply had to wait until they walked near enough to your cover to be within your sticky grenade range, and so long mr. heavy (I used them to kill every heavy I encountered, and not once did I run out). In contrast to other games, enemy grenades almost never forced me out of cover, generally just sliding along it a bit. That boat in the sand fight was one of the ones where I barely needed to move.

That's just plain bad popamole third person covershooter design. Not 'ok', not 'good enough', truly bad, even compared to its fellow popamole. Compare it to an alright third person cover shooter like Bindary Domain where the enemy variety actually DOES force movement and a bit of planning, or even better, something like Vanquish where you're constantly maneuvering, and the difference is like night and day.

If you think the mediocre story (decent for a game maybe, but nothing to write home about by the higher standards of just about any other medium) and sprinkles of c+c are enough to make up for the actual game being garbage, that's great for you I guess, after all some people would love a cake made of icing alone. At least you won't have to wonder to yourself why you wasted a few hours of your life on it.

 

[Mangoose]

reminiscient of Vietnam-movies

Spot on. Other than being set in the desert, this game evokes the same feelings I felt when watching Apocalypse Now and Platoon.

Spec Ops is the Citizen Kane Apocalypse Now of gaming.

 

[Mangoose]

This was posted before, the game makes apt use of every color in the spectrum

 

[chestburster]

reminiscient of Vietnam-movies

Spot on. Other than being set in the desert, this game evokes the same feelings I felt when watching Apocalypse Now and Platoon.

Spec Ops is the Citizen Kane Apocalypse Now of gaming.

For a game whose developers EXPLICITLY stated that they were ripping off Apocalypse Now, yes.

So thank you Captain Obvious.

 

[Mangoose]

reminiscient of Vietnam-movies

Spot on. Other than being set in the desert, this game evokes the same feelings I felt when watching Apocalypse Now and Platoon.

Spec Ops is the Citizen Kane Apocalypse Now of gaming.

For a game whose developers EXPLICITLY stated that they were ripping off Apocalypse Now, yes.

So thank you Captain Obvious.

You are welcome, easily pleased citizen.

 

[Konjad]

Spec Ops: The Line Will No Longer Be Available in Online Stores, 2K Blames Expiring Partnerships​

One of the most important games of the 2010s walks into the sunset.​

By Will Borger

Yesterday, IGN reported that Spec Ops: The Line had been delisted from Steam. Today, we updated that story with reporting that the game had also disappeared from other digital storefronts, including Fanatical, Gamesplanet, and Nuuvem. And now, we have confirmation from 2K themselves: one of the most important video games of the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation is disappearing from online storefronts for good.

2K Games sent IGN the following statement confirming The Line's delisting:

Spec Ops: The Line will no longer be available on online storefronts, as several partnership licenses related to the game are expiring.
Players who have purchased the game can still download and play the game uninterrupted. 2K would like to thank our community of players who have supported the game, and we look forward to bringing you more offerings from our label throughout this year and beyond.

While 2K hasn't provided specifics as to what partnerships are expiring, Spec Ops: The Line contains several pieces of licensed music, including Jimi Hendrix's iconic rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Expiring music licenses have been the reason for many delistings in the past, and that would seem to be a probable reason here.

https://www.ign.com/articles/spec-o...online-stores-2k-blames-expiring-partnerships

 

[Cologno]

Surprised this one ever got made, TBO. Not because of the anti-military/military adventurism overtones, that was a yawner long before this got made, but all the digs made at Obama.

 

[Modron]

No big loss Binary Domain was better.

 

[PsihoKekec]

One of the most important games of 2010s? It was fine enough game (especially liked the firefight in the Warhammer room), but nothing groundbreaking.