Review | Spec Ops: The Line

    Spec Ops: The Line is a gritty, "realistic" third-person shooter the follows in the footsteps of all the gritty, "realistic" third-person shooters that came before it.  In this case, however, the "gritty" part is literal, because you play the captain of a three-man recon squad sent into the city of Dubai - which is inexplicably cut off from the rest of the world via months-long impenetrable sandstorm.  Your goal after penetrating the impenetrable sandstorm is to find what happened to the populace and the battalion of American troops sent in as a relief effort, and the course of the game descends through the spiraling decay of the city and the characters within.

    The gameplay is competent, but derivative: the same cover-based, health-regenerating squad tactics we're all used to, with a simple-but-effective squad orders system that harkens back to "Freedom Fighter" pasted over top.  There are many weapons available, and you can only carry two, but limited ammo thankfully prevents the "pick two for the whole game" situation that results from other similar systems.  There's the mandatory explode-y things you can shoot in combat, a few types of grenades, and a "shoot-the-thing-holding-sand-precariously-above-your-foes-so-it-falls-on-them" mechanic that feels too scripted to work in any immersive way.  The technical design is similarly mixed.  The engine is fine, the AI is fine, and the voice acting is great, but the game frequently loads textures way too close to the camera, and the lip synching is distractingly terrible.

    But the real value in Spec Ops: The Line is in its narrative arc.  The unoriginal gameplay is at least partially forgivable because it serves as a comfortable framework within which to slowly deconstruct the modern FPS genre.  As the game progresses, familiar narrative conventions slowly peel away and twist into something much more challenging, until the game itself is little more than a vehicle for weighty questions regarding the morality of war, patriotism, and even the enjoyment of the video games that depict them.  The success of the game hinges on how effectively it makes the transition between a Call of Duty clone and something greater.  Thankfully, it does very well despite a few hiccups.

    The beginning of the transition near the middle of the game makes for the weakest point in the narrative.  A few too many characters are introduced too quickly, and lots of necessary radio chatter goes down in the middle of firefights which makes following the plot developments difficult.  Some of the narrative set-pieces intended to set off the transition appear ham-handed, as the game narrows to such one-dimensional linearity that you can practically see the rails you're being pushed along.  But things get smoother as events push out well past the moral event horizon, and several of the narrative set pieces are powerful enough to stand out even outside the context of the game (strobe lights and mannequins come to mind).  The best part of the game is certainly the last third, and there are some powerful emotional moments to be found, even surprisingly in some loading screen "hints" that break the 4th wall in somewhat disturbing ways.

    The game's biggest weakness seems to be its unnecessary attempt at breadth.  The middle of the game features campy dialogue with a villainous personality reminiscent of Portal 2's Cave Johnson.  Self-reference and knowing irony abound, which breaks immersion somewhat.  There's a multiplayer component - which is just so completely outside the scope of what makes this game worthwhile it's hard to believe it ever got put on a to-do list.  Little meters show up that appear to suggest an RPG-like stat system wherein you level up your rifle competency, but they're actually indicating how close you are to getting a Steam achievement for punching 30 guys in the face.  None of these elements are necessarily poorly done - they're just in the wrong game.  This is really the sort of experience that would benefit from hiding achievement pop-ups and stripping out as much of the GUI and HUD as possible.  Unfortunately, that's not what was shipped.

    The closest to a damning truth I have is that everything this game does well is done better elsewhere.  If you want psychological trickery in a first-person shooter, play F.E.A.R or Condemned: Criminal Origins.  If you want critique of heroism vs. necessary evils and the effectiveness of propaganda, play Freedom Fighter.  If you're looking for a treatment on the horrors of war, World at War will hook you up. But if you've played all those and are looking for more, Spec Ops: The Line is the first package I've seen attempting to address all of these elements at once, and it gives them a hell of a try without really dropping the ball anywhere.  Spec Ops will be most effective against people who don't know what they're in for, but it's worth a play even if you do.

7/10 - Worthy