[OVERVIEW]
Spec Ops: The Line is a third-person shooter video game developed by YAGER and published by 2K Games in 2012. The game takes place in a post-cataclysmic Dubai that has been engulfed by a giant sandstorm. You play as Captain Martin Walker, the main character and leader of the three man team known as Delta Force. Your mission is to extract war veteran John Konrad from the ruined city of Dubai.
From the cover art, Spec Ops: The Line presents itself as a generic modern warfare shooter akin to the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. Both of which share the common theme of glorifying the military and vilifying non-Americans. In fact, when Spec Ops: The Line begins, it subverts players' expectations by making the first mission a bland routine killing of foreigners to rock music.
It doesn't take long before the game throws this concept out the metaphorical window and goes from being a generic shooter to a deep and compelling character study. The mission stops becoming the focus and the game becomes ripe with difficult decisions and moral ambiguity. Loosely based on Joseph Conrad's book Heart of Darkness, the same story that inspired Apocalypse Now, the game goes so far as to reference Conrad directly and play the song Valkyrie during a helicopter sequence.
Due to the nature of these two stories, Spec Ops is not an easy game to play. By no stretch of the imagination can the game even be considered "fun". So why choose or even play a game that isn't fun? Well, Spec Ops provides one of the best examples of a narrative and story ever delivered in a video game. The game-play might be stale and boring but the tremendous amount of emotion, symbolism, and narrative makes Spec Ops: The Line one of the best video games I have ever experienced. That's right, Spec Ops is a memorable experience. It's tactful ability to use game mechanics and player interaction to tell a story make it more emotionally powerful and effective than any other medium could possibly deliver. I strongly recommend at least checking the game out.
From the cover art, Spec Ops: The Line presents itself as a generic modern warfare shooter akin to the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. Both of which share the common theme of glorifying the military and vilifying non-Americans. In fact, when Spec Ops: The Line begins, it subverts players' expectations by making the first mission a bland routine killing of foreigners to rock music.
It doesn't take long before the game throws this concept out the metaphorical window and goes from being a generic shooter to a deep and compelling character study. The mission stops becoming the focus and the game becomes ripe with difficult decisions and moral ambiguity. Loosely based on Joseph Conrad's book Heart of Darkness, the same story that inspired Apocalypse Now, the game goes so far as to reference Conrad directly and play the song Valkyrie during a helicopter sequence.
Due to the nature of these two stories, Spec Ops is not an easy game to play. By no stretch of the imagination can the game even be considered "fun". So why choose or even play a game that isn't fun? Well, Spec Ops provides one of the best examples of a narrative and story ever delivered in a video game. The game-play might be stale and boring but the tremendous amount of emotion, symbolism, and narrative makes Spec Ops: The Line one of the best video games I have ever experienced. That's right, Spec Ops is a memorable experience. It's tactful ability to use game mechanics and player interaction to tell a story make it more emotionally powerful and effective than any other medium could possibly deliver. I strongly recommend at least checking the game out.