Spec Ops: The Line (PC) Review

Spec Ops: The Line (SOTL) is one of those games from 2012 that garnered a lot of attention due to its story. So naturally, I had to play it.

First and foremost, if you want my general comments about the game without any spoilers, this is my suggestion: go play Gears of War. And if you're still hell bent on finishing SOTL, then set the difficulty to Easy so you can steam roll the pedestrian gameplay.

Now, onto the review! Once again, because the story is the one thing in this review I can rant about forever, I'll leave it till the end. SOTL is a third-person shooter much in the same way my beloved Gears of War is. The levels are linear, the level design is ordinary (despite all the sand mechanics) and the guns are so-so (until the last 10 minutes of the game). If you thought that sentence was boring, then you've got the general idea; SOTL is not going to win accolades on game design. It is your stock-standard third-person shooter which by 2012, has already been done by everybody and done much better from a design point of view.

The gameplay likewise is not awe-inspiring. The AI leaves much to be desired and the gun play is simple.  There is nothing groundbreaking about SOTL gameplay, except that for once you shoot the Americans. The highly touted sand mechanics factored very little in the single player. I haven't had a chance to play the multiplayer in SOTL, but I can see how the sand mechanics might bring something slightly different to competitive multiplayer; that is, the ever elusive environmental mechanic. But I feel too much effort has been made to make this one mechanic work instead of innovating on the other mechanics, like gun play or AI, which made the game jarring and unimpressive.

Game presentation is commendable: Small nuances such as the flag gradually disintegrating on the title screen as you progress through the story line are a nice touch. The environments look believable, from the lavish lobbies of Dubai hotels, to the refugee slums in the streets. However, these environments are recycled far too much and don't even get me started on all the convenient chest-high objects littering civilian areas. As mentioned before, the sand mechanics are well made and when the sand comes crashing through the freshly destroyed window, it looks believably destructive. What confused me is when you would seemingly be walking in the middle of the desert, drop into a ditch, which was apparently the balcony of one of the tallest buildings in Dubai. I feel this was a wasted opportunity to explicitly showcase the destructive nature of the sandstorm that engulfed Dubai rather than doing so implicitly.

Now, the story. And be warned, from this point on there will be spoilers. Firstly, let me just say that if Fight Club had not become such a cult classic, SOTL would be winning Best Story awards left, right and centre. Unfortunately, it did so in 1999, and I most definitely still remember what happened at the end. I think I'm right in saying the exact same thing happened to Captain Walker, however it isn't alluded to whether this is brought on my mental instability, or caused by the intense Dubai environment.

The story in SOTL is structured so you have a series of choices to make, and your bumbling sidekicks are naturally at polar opposites of the moral and ethical scale, giving them lots to argue about along the way. Unfortunately, the choices seem to have little long term effects as they only serve to drive the story or to effect a moral response from the player. Regarding these choices, I respect what Yager has tried to achieve in this game; the idea of the anti-hero is thoroughly explored in the game, whether it's trying to make the hard choice that will save more people or choosing between which captive to kill judged on their crimes. This is a refreshing twist on the standard "heroes make hero choices", however I think it takes this a step too far.

There is a point in the game where you have a "choice" to use white phosphorus to destroy a battalion on troops which are blocking your progression. However, this is not actually a choice; you must use white phosphorus to progress. Using white silhouettes as references, you commence bombing the living hell out of anything that moves. What appears to be "one last Humvee" is also situated next to a large concentration of white dots that you can identify as human. Now I'm not stupid; I can work out that these are probably refugees. There is no way to voluntarily stop bombing, so I tried to bomb next to the Humvee, to no avail; only a direct hit would suffice. So I hit it, in the process roasting 40-50 helpless civilians, as the in game characters work out shortly after. And this is my peeve: there was no choice there. If the civilians were inside the Humvee, it would have been a surprise, but I think it would have been the reaction Yager was looking for. However, having to knowingly kill those civilians for no good reason was horrifying and gave me a horrible taste in my mouth afterwards. It's comparable to the controversial level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 where the player has a choice whether or not to shoot civilians in the Russian airport. Except there is no choice.

The ending to the game is pleasantly well presented, with the story reaching its drawn out conclusion. Admittedly I felt the story was insanely one dimensional up till this point, so this was a nice surprise. And thinking back on everything you went through in the game, it does give you that Fight Club "oh yeah!" moment. But unfortunately, it was exactly the same "oh yeah!" moment with exactly the same flashback and that for me sums up SOTL; a game comprised of moments and components from different games and movies which culminate in a less than stellar game.

Spec Ops: The Line (PC) Review - Scuba Score 4/10