The general “gameplay” of Spec Ops: the Line is nothing special but it by far makes up for this and then some. In a traditional sense it isn’t going to blow your mind and regardless of my personal feelings towards the game it is indeed very short, around four hours and the multiplayer is utterly pointless so don’t even bother thinking about that.
No what you are going to play Spec Ops for, if anything is something most video games still struggle to pull off; a very compelling narrative with well written characters and a story that grabs you by whatever vulnerable body part you’d like to envision for this analogy and doesn’t let go. Regardless what things it throws your way you will want to see it to the end. Unless of course you are easily put off by its very dark tone and increasingly more unpleasant subject matter as the grim experience unfolds.
I never, and I mean never sit down and play a games campaign to completion in a single sitting so I hope it says a lot when I say I could not stop playing Specs Ops until I was done.
I’m sure many people have already played the short somewhat misrepresentitive demo by now and jumped to the assumption that all the hype, as it were behind what this game does is exactly that; hyperbolic over exaggeration but I don’t think it can ever be over-stated how powerful an effect this game can have on people.
This is indeed a game most people will never play but many parts of it will have a lasting effect on the industry in the long term.
I for the longest time thought myself incapable of feeling the kinds of emotions I would usually only expect from film or TV while playing a game and while some have come close Spec Ops was the first that really accomplished this. I didn’t feel a sense of joy or child-like wonder as is normally the case from playing a shooter. Spec Ops is not that at all, do not for a second think this is about moments of “fuck yeah” and “shooting people is fun”. Spec Ops does what no shooter, nay, what no game has done thus far; it makes you feel guilt, guilt for murder. And that is what you are by this stories end, a murderer.
Although you spend most of your time gunning down enemies of various shooter cliché types; the regular rifle guy, the knife guy, the shotgun guy, the heavy armor guy but unlike other games they don’t just go down and that’s it. The human enemies in Spec Ops are often left writhing in pain after you have dealt with them, in some cases moaning and crying; clinging to whatever part of them is bleeding profusely. It is unpleasant and uncomfortable at best.
You will deal with this by either running to your next objective as soon as possible, trying to ignore the fact you just took the lives of several soldiers who are simply doing the job that was asked of them and as is the case in real war; left suffering as their lives begin to fade or by executing them to end their misery.
Either way you won’t be looking forward to encounters or at least won’t be enjoying the fact in order to continue this game murder is your only option. Many people inside and outside of gaming have long desired for a game to do this and now that it’s here I think it actually scares some people because it is exactly the not so subtle self-aware commentary we need more of if games are ever to grow and evolve outside of their traditional childish image.
The horrors of war are more often than not glossed over completely in games because the reality of war is something many people would rather not think about and anything people don’t want to think about is bad for marketing regardless of the medium you are working with. The simple fact Spec Ops exists at all is a testament to the artistic integrity of developer Yager and their will to do something with this medium of entertainment most studios simply wouldn’t.
Some people say Spec Ops has simply gotten away with hitting a natural nerve in peoples sensibilities, doing shock for shocks sake but I don’t agree. The content in this game (with the irony of our label for these things being in full swing) is difficult to experience, especially since by far the worst part of this is caused by you; the player but I believe that was the entire point.
War is not something that needs to be treated seriously all the time but since games began there have been few titles to even try to cover it in this way without avoiding or censoring the horrible elements the true reality of war brings and it’s about time a game finally came along at last and did this, and did it well.