Spec Ops: The Line Review

    I heard someone say that games like Spec Ops: The Line and Hotline Miami should be called “worst-person shooters.” That's a clever and apt description. They both have “line” in the title too, make of that what you will. Despite the rhyming description, Spec Ops is not a first-person shooter, it's a third-person cover based shooter a la Gears of War. At least that's what I'm going to compare it too as it's the only other cover based shooter I've played.

     The control scheme is fairly standard for a game of this sub-genre: I pretty much knew how it operated just from the few times I've played Gears. The left analog stick controls movement and the right controls where you look, like an fps. L3 toggles crouching on and off. Cross snaps you behind cover. It is also used to make you start running. You can hold it down when running to slide into cover. L1 switches you to aiming mode: If you are in cover you pop halfway out and now have an aiming reticule. If you aren't in cover, you can walk slowly in this mode. R1 fires your weapon. Holding R2 shows you a grenade's trajectory and releasing it throws the grenade. Tapping square will make you reload your weapon. Holding square down while standing by a weapon will switch your current weapon for the one you are standing next to. Triangle switches you between the two weapons you are allowed to carry. Pressing circle while in cover vaults you over to the other side. Circle is also your melee button and used to trigger an execution move on downed but not out enemies. Pressing up on the directional pad toggles alternate firing modes on your weapons. R2 is used to issue commands to your squad. You can hold it down and release when your reticule is on an enemy to have your squad target a specific enemy. If one of your squadmates is injured, you can tap R2 to have the other heal him. If you get pinned down by a lot of fire, you can tap R2 to have your squadmates throw flash grenades to hopefully give you a reprieve. All of these contextual control functions are shown to you with onscreen prompts that give you the info you need without getting in your way, so nice job on that.

     Spec Ops tells the story of a team of three Delta Force operatives sent into Dubai to rescue a lost army unit. But this is not the Dubai we know in the real world. It's a destroyed city that has been cut off from the outside world by massive sandstorms. Many of its skyscrapers have been buried under mountains of sand. Others have been half destroyed by the violent storms. Some are in pretty good condition, including an alternate version of the iconic Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, which is often hovering impossibly high on the distant skyline looking like it shouldn't be able to climb to such heights (just like real life). The unique setting is comparable to Bioshock's underwater city of Rapture. It's has that same unique feeling. You can be inside buildings only to realize that you are actually under the sand. There is so much luxury inside the posh apartments and high-end stores you'll visit, but much like Bioshock's Rapture it's all been ruined. The storms have ravaged everything, as have the people left in the city.

     The city has been declared a no man's land (which means no one is supposed to go there), and the sandstorms make it near impossible for anyone to get in or out. But Delta Force is sent in when a distress signal is received from the famous General John Konrad, who led his army unit, the 33^rd, into Dubai against orders to try and provide relief aid and organize an evacuation. Delta's mission is to find and rescue Konrad and the rest of the 33^rd, along with anyone else they might find. The three operatives are Walker, the captain and player character, Lugo, the sniper and translator, and Adams, the heavy weapons specialist.

      I won't go into any specifics about where the story goes from there. Even who you end up fighting and why is better left to be discovered by the player. The game is heavily story oriented. It's partially based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the Vietnam era movie Apocalypse Now, which is itself based on Heart of Darkness. It starts out like a somewhat standard videogame story, although with particularly good writing and voice acting. But it ends up as anything but a standard story, in a really good way. It's a challenging story that goes places a lot of other games don't care or dare to go. In a world of shooters with throwaway stories and gung-ho cookie-cutter protagonists, Spec Ops stands out as a story with a totally different direction and theme than most games. Not to be too down on shooters as I know some of them do have good storylines.

     What happens in the game and how the game interacts with the player is pretty unique. I can only really compare it to some of the stuff a Metal Gear game might throw at you. Hopefully I haven't said too much. Bottom line is you should play this game as blind as possible as far as the story is concerned. Just have faith like you would with any story that you know will be good and avoid spoilers at all costs!

     What I can talk about is the gameplay. It took a little getting used to for me, but I eventually started to really enjoy it, especially as I replayed the game on harder difficulties. You pretty much get shredded if you aren't in cover. Moving from cover to cover and picking your targets before popping out and taking some shots at them becomes second nature after awhile. You can aim using a large reticule while in cover so that your cross-hairs will be nearly lined up when you pop out of cover. Your squadmates constantly chatter during battles, which is cool for flavor reasons (I loved this in the 2d shooter Philosoma), but in this case it serves a very useful purpose too. They tell you what they see, and it's useful information that you don't get visually. The first time they yelled out “Sniper on the balcony!” and I looked over to the balcony and there was a sniper there, it was a revelation. I started really listening to them after that; they are a real resource. They often tell you when dangerous soldiers appear and where they. And when you give them orders, the voice acting is impressively detailed. I was really surprised when I ordered the squad to target a soldier and Walker yelled out “Take out the gunner by the piano!”

     On harder difficulties, you are often forced to abandon your safe spots and your current tactics in order to adapt to what the enemy throws at you. I mean this literally, as they throw lots of grenades at you to flush you out of cover. You will also grow quite good at using grenades to drive people out of cover and to blind them by detonating grenades on sand, which causes a big cloud of sand to erupt out of the ground. On harder difficulties, you will often be forced to abandon safety to try and rescue your squadmates when they get in trouble. If they become wounded, they bleed out until you patch them up, and if you wait too long they will die, causing a game over.

     I loved it when the hardest mode forced me to use positions of attack I would never have thought of and forced me to switch between laying low and being aggressive if my squadmates needed my help. Having to redo a level over and over can be frustrating, but in this game, many times I enjoyed learning enemy tactics as I got a little further in the battle each time I played until I finally got the best of the enemy in some unique way.

     The great weapon set also requires you to use different tactics as you will be constantly switching between different types of weapons as you run out of ammo and try to scavenge for the optimal load out for your situation. Assault rifles are great for general fire fighting. One has a silencer for stealth kills that don't alert other soldiers to your presence, the other has three-round burst mode for precision shooting and ammo conservation. Sub machine guns are great for situations where you'll have to fire while moving as their reticule is available even while moving at normal speed. Shotguns are great for close range fighting. And the mighty automatic shotgun you can find in a few spots is so much fun. There's an RPG launcher, a heavy machine gun, an assault rifle with a grenade launcher attached, and a few other weapons rounding out the arsenal. You can also use stationary turrets, although typically you have to liberate them from the enemy first, which can be difficult due to the shield guarding the operator. Sniper rifles and the few other weapons with long-range scopes seemed a little difficult to use for me. I found it easier in some instances to just shoot at long-range enemies with a normal weapon. The scope only gave an advantage in my opinion against enemies at extreme distances and in situations where you can camp without much expectation of return fire.

     Between skirmishes, the story is revealed as your squad talks as you walk around and also through cutscenes. The voice acting is top-notch for most of the major players. I didn't care for the voice-work of one or two characters you hear for a few levels, but the main three Delta Operatives are all really, really stand out. The good voices combined with the well-written dialogue and the interesting story add up to a very compelling experience. The background of the story is also revealed through intel items you can find lying around during the game's quieter moments. A handful of these are quite interesting, although I didn't get much out of the majority of them.

     The game is short, but I found it highly re-playable as the higher difficulties add a lot of fun twists to the gameplay and the multiple story-based choices you get to make through-out the game along with the multiple endings keep the story element of the game fresh as well. The trophies are pretty well done. I played through three times plus a few extra levels to get the platinum. The only one that is a little tricky is the one where you have to drop sand on someone. I swear I did this a few times and it didn't pop. It definitely works in level 10 though. I enjoyed my three playthroughs, but it's a shame you have to unlock the hardest mode by playing the next-to-hardest mode. I usually play games on normal first and then skip to the hardest mode, so I didn't like being forced to play through an extra time just to unlock the hardest mode. 

     The graphics are really great. My only complaint is a pet peeve of mine. The texture pop-in is crazy in this game. Almost every time you come in from a loading screen, everything will be low-res and then texture will add in slowly. They'll pop like 5+ layers in before they're complete and you're seeing the good graphics. This can be ignored in most situations, but it can't be ignored when the first thing you see in a few of the cutscenes is a close up of someone's face. Before the textures pop, they literally look like a PSOne person. It's a crazy thing. The load screen really needs to be a few seconds longer so we don't have to see that. There is even pop-in on the title screen and difficulty select screen.

     Checkpoint placement is a little wonky: in certain places the checkpoints really needed to be after a cutscene so I don't have to skip it 20 times as I die over and over on hard mode.

     The music in the game is pretty great. A few awesome licensed tracks make it in, and they fit in perfectly. They are piped in through the radio add quite a bit to the experience, kind of like Bioshock's soundtrack. I don't want to spoil them, but two of the licensed tracks are especially great. The game's original music works well too.

     Apparently this game has multiplayer, although you might not notice. From what I hear, the studio that made the single player game was not involved in this part of the game and did not approve of it. I haven't had the opportunity to try it out.

     I want to call out how awesome some of the graffiti and artwork that you see on the walls is in the game. It's crazy good. There is one area with some amazing underwater fantasy scenes on the wall, and they are stunning, especially the turtle, so keep an eye out for that.

     Overall, the game is a great game, tier 2. The story is amazing. The gameplay is fun. The graphics and music are really good. There are a few hiccups in all of these elements, but the good outweighs the bad in a big way. Even if the gameplay was mediocre or even bad, this game would be worth playing to see its story and themes play out. The fact that it's also fun to play makes it a really great experience.