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Spec Ops: The Line on PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Spec Ops: The Line couldn't have been less interesting to me pre-release. A
military third person shooter set in the Middle East starring Nolan North as a
white dude with a shaved head? Lord spare me. But then, reviews started coming
out, claiming that the game had a spectacular plot, wonderful characters, and
excellent acting. I set my sights on the game, but still felt skeptical. In wait
for a price drop, the game appeared as a free download for Playstation Plus, and
I decided to finally pick it up. After completing the game, I had no idea why I
had waited so long to play this wonderful game.
The Line starts off as your typical dude-bro military shooter. Captain Walker
and his troop members Adams and Lugo travel into Dubai to investigate
"insurgents" who have overtaken the battalion known as the Damned 33rd, a group
led by John Konrad. These men were the first into Dubai in an attempt to rescue
civilians from a series of sandstorms that had killed and trapped many citizens.
Walker and his men defy their original orders to go deeper into the city and
investigate just what happened while Dubai was cut off from the world. They
progress through Dubai, and are subject to one of the most brilliant
deconstructions of modern gaming I've ever seen.
I can't stand most modern shooters. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor,
and the countless imitators all bleed together as generic, boring, blatantly
stupid games. Every plot is "Hoo-ra! Shoot those ambiguously foreign terrorists
before they destroy America!" every environment is as brown as dirt, every game
has the same cast of boring, loud-mouthed American badasses. Spec Ops begins
with basically all of that. Generic character archetypes, from the no-nonsense
leader to the annoying "funny-man", a desert setting, and the shooting of
masked, Middle Eastern men with rifles. Blah, blah, blah. I actually stopped
playing for about a month before I started over and gave the game another shot.
The beginning of the game is a very slow burn, and is far more appreciable once
you get to the end.
About mid-way through the game, the story takes some very interesting turns,
turns I refuse to spoil in this review. Suffice to say, the game near-directly
calls out the modern shooters I hate with a passion, and cleverly satirizes
every trope in the book. The dialogue is all-around excellent, but the combat
and enemy dialogue is particularly good. Several sequences have enemies just
talking before you engage them, and it builds excellent sympathy for what are
usually faceless, nameless bullet sponges. The combat dialogue of Walker, Adams,
and Lugo also changes over the course of the game, making them feel like more
desperate, more beaten up, angrier characters. Very rarely, you have the option
to make choices through the narrative. These aren't moral choices in the vain of
say, Mass Effect, but are more like The Walking Dead, where the lines are
greyer. I also enjoyed moments where the game gives you a "choice," but puts you
into an impossible situation so you are forced to make an "evil" decision.
One consistent thing through the game is the gunplay. SO:TL plays like a generic
third-person shooter, and that might be my biggest complaint about it. You run.
You go into cover. You shoot. You occasionally throw grenades. It all works
perfectly well, but it's never outstanding. I frequently felt bored when nothing
story related was happening, but it honestly might be intentional that the
gameplay is so joyless.
The graphics are mostly like the gameplay, simple but effective. Characters look
fine, but the brightness is so harsh a lot of the time that people look like
they're glowing. Animations look rushed and simplistic. The environments,
though, are usually very pretty, making the best of it's surprisingly unique
setting.
All-in-all, Spec Ops: The Line is a surprise more than anything. It's surface is
bad, but like a Hostess Snowball, the core is incredible. This is not the best
looking game of 2012. This is not the best playing game of 2012. This might not
even be the best story of 2012, what with Persona 4 Golden and The Walking Dead
coming out that year. But, if you're as disgusted at most modern military
shooters as I am, this is definitely the most worth-playing game of 2012. Heck,
even if you aren't, just give it a shot. I swear you will not be disappointed.
8.5 out of 10
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