Spec Ops: The Line released last year to reasonably good sales and rave reviews from critics. The game, developed by Yager and published by 2K, is not your average military shooter. In fact what the game says and does in its story is likely to step on some peoples toes and cause upset, especially if you're somebody who believes that the military is never wrong.
You play as Captain Martin Walker, a member of the U.S military, alongside two squad members named Adams and Lugo. You have been sent in to find survivors in Dubai, which in the last 6 months has been hit by ferocious sandstorms and has fallen into a state of war, to find survivors of a military squad that under the command of a Colonel Konrad went into Dubai to rescue civilians. I cant say much about the game without giving potential spoilers away but the game quickly descends from a simple rescue mission to one wrapped up in betrayals, morally questionable actions and severe mental illnesses brought about by being in warzones.
Spec Ops goes into some dark places and only gets darker, there are no heroes, the action is never glamorous and there is no happy ending for anyone involved, not even you as the player feel good about what you have been made to do in this game.
The game plays much like a Gears of War-esque 3rd person shooter, the cover mechanics are handled mostly with one button and cover is what you will spend most of your time hiding behind in Spec Ops due to the games punishingly unforgiving hit detection, even on the lowest difficulty you will often find yourself throwing your controller in frustration due to being unfairly killed by enemy A.I. The games shooting mechanics don't do anything new or special, you'll find the various assortments of licensed real life weapons littered around the landscape which you must point at the 'enemy' and fire in order to progress. No weapons do anything special and none are particularly exciting, its a war simulator what do you expect?
One of the games most interesting mechanics is the ability to cause sand crashing down on your foes in order to quickly dispose of them or to progress through to the next area, however this is vastly underused and something only of novelty standard, nothing that will change the face of shooters forever.
The game looks pretty good, nothing ground breaking but its pretty nonetheless. Lighting is probably one of the best features of the game with sunlight literally blinding you and often becoming something of a hindrance in combat. War torn Dubai is a spectacle to behold especially during some of the night time sequences. Textures are a major problem though, the game doesn't have loading screens besides if you are re-loading a checkpoint or because you dies and therefore the game pre-renders itself before you go in, which is all fine and dandy until you need to reload the checkpoint or you die. The game suffers from awfully slow loading times, almost as bad as Duke Nukem Forever's at times and the game will always take another 30 seconds or so to load the textures in once you begin playing again.
The sound design is good though with some great voice acting from all cast members and some awesome rock music to accompany your battles giving the game a great atmosphere.
Spec Ops: The Line has some pretty big issues such as the loading times, the texture pop-in and the seemingly unfair death system however its biggest problem, at least in my eyes anyway, is actually in the games selling point. Its story. Now Spec Ops has something we have never seen in gaming before, a military shooter with a deep and engaging story that essentially sticks its middle finger up to modern warfare shooters that populate the market and forces its consumers to endure some real horrors, however all these tricks have been done before in film and literature. Not a single part of Spec Ops's story is original in any way if you do your research about what the game has links to, films such as Apocalypse Now are pretty much just put into game form before your very eyes, now whilst this may not be a bad thing for some and though the story is very good, I expected something more than just recycling.
Spec Ops is a game, despite its problems, every military shooter fanboy should play if just to knock some sense into them. It is one of the only real adult shooting games available, something that will leave you thinking after the end not just wanting to jump into some copy & paste online multiplayer mode (even though Spec Ops does contain some copy & paste online multiplayer mode). Its something that will leave you questioning society, entertainment, war and even yourself once you finish the games 6 hour campaign and something everyone should have to endure, if they have the balls to.
Spec Ops: The Line – 8/10
+Great Story
+Satisfying Gunplay
+Ruined Dubai
-Recycled Story
-Can Feel Unfair
-Loading Times & Textures
