Yager and 2K Games have managed to add a rebellious and subversive title to the vast library of military and tactical shooters. Framed in the built of sand dunes, dusty surroundings further filled with sparkle of hundreds of rifles glinting in sun – Spec Ops: The Line is a stunning and gripping third-person military shooter that challenges players’ ethics and integrity by putting them in the middle of intricate situations where impossible choices affecting human life must be made.
While it’s shooting mechanics may be basic, but Spec Ops: The Line fancifully covers the moral dilemmas of war. The Line’s original claim to fame was that it was being postured in Dubai; that enormous city of glass outlined by the desert that never really looks like it should belong. The city has been invaded with huge massacre sand storms that are devastating everything in their path. The team of three, controlled by you have been sent in to try and find out what happened to the 33rd company that was sent there to organize an evacuation. Players fly into Dubai’s unforgiving sands as Captain Martin Walker, interpreted by fan-favorite voice actor Nolan North who’s in almost every game nowadays. Walker is joined by fellow Delta team members John Lugo and Alphonso Adams; the trio gets little time to talk after reaching their destination before the squad is attacked and character evolution is engross to the demands of action.
A couple hours into the game, the dilemma of emotions starts which really separates the game from typical war time shooters. Facing a series of escalating nightmares, you come across dead men hanging from ropes. You see innocent women and children being murdered; others being mutilated, oppressed and persecuted. Everyone is helpless, even you are not able to gratify anyone. And then comes the hardest part as you’re going to have to join in on the travel along this morally difficult turf. As your team fights back, you will have to take the unforgiving decision of shooting your own former brothers in arms. It starts to wear down on your psyche, ego and the teamwork between your fellow men. You start to flinch and recoil from danger at the violence. You start to go a little mad.
The game is at its best during intense fire-fight sessions around and after halfway through campaign. Designed with a lot of character-less violence as enemies who blend into one another becomes the one in the scenes that truly work are the ones that drive your character and maybe even yourself deeper into understanding the brutal cost of war and allow for multiple campaign playthroughs as you make different decisions with no easy answers.
However character less violence is one the greatest weakness of Spec Ops. There are a few times when the game starts to get a bit repetitive. You enter a room, quickly take cover, and kill the enemies, it really gets boring after a while. By the time the game had begun its emotional and psychological genre, it was ready to stop with these kind of inclusive shooter episodes.
The multiplayer portion of “Spec Ops: The Line” is pretty barefaced although the sand elements that play a role in the campaign are often a part of it as well as sandstorms can blow in and you can sometimes blow out windows, dumping the stuff on the enemies. Other than the setting, it’s a typical and average multiplayer and perhaps even a bit sub-par in its map design.
The Line agitates you with dark questions, asks about your role in the forced collision that sustains games like it. It’s still a monotonous array of shootouts, ammo roundups and flashy set pieces; albeit one that delivers a message. The character design is strong, the enemy animation is rational, but it’s the environments that are the most dexterous. The way light and shadow plays through this ambushed city – it’s going to be one of the most memorable game settings of the decade.
The game can’t really be compared to Call of Duty and other brain dead FPS games. From a start, played from a third-person viewpoint, and cover is a major issue. On normal difficulty you can be killed by just a few shots, although you can always wait for your health to regenerate, the game is made a bit more interesting with the inclusion of stronger and armored enemies. As with Ghost Recon: Future Soldier or Gears of War, its two closest points of comparison, you need to be fully aware of your surroundings, of where you can find cover and where you’ll be exposed to incoming fire. What’s more, ammo is in painfully very short supply, so there’s not a lot of room for just crouch down until all your enemies are killed off, either.
Spec Ops: The Line has some intense game play issues. Players might take it as a boring title due to repetitive combat, story filled with plot-holes, awkward check-pointing and the most important of all issues, the dilemma of emotions which is dragged in a war time shooter game. However it has a good story and character moments are though-provoking and unique. The graphics’, colors and sound is up to the standards which makes it a fine game but incomparable with Call of Duty and the like.
Techdeviile awards Specs Ops: The Line with 3/5 stars.
