Spec Ops: The Line

[fistfulofmetal]

25 bucks on Amazon right now for the PC version.

It's about 4-5 hours long.

It's a 3rd person cover based shooter

However there is a pretty well told story throughout. It handles the "atrocities of war" better than any of the recent shooters of its kind. The best aspect is how you and your team slowly become more on edge and violent. Early in the game you'll hear your dudes shouting out "reloading!" and "covering fire!" but later on when shit is getting bad they'll be saying things like "slowing me the fuck down!!" and "fucking cover me goddamnit!" and "killed that motherfucker!" all with a very savage tone. The group dynamic also becomes frayed.

I found the story to be very affective and worth the journey.

[Joe Molotov]

I'm still debating whether to pick this up.

[fistfulofmetal]

well you have until the 4th to get it for half off. and you can activate it on steam. then again there's a change it may be either the same price or cheaper when the steam summer sale rolls around.

[naff]

Guess I will be picking this up. What's the multi like? Always liked Spec Ops. Made my first ever thread here about this game

http://www.thebore.com/forum/index.php?topic=33661.msg1073130#msg1073130

[Stoney Mason]

 I played about an hour of it so far. Right now I would say its basically the textbook definition of a completely average game although its still early. I don't mean that as a diss.


Just that its pretty standard stuff on the gameplay side.  Its competent. Just nothing really interesting or unique or exceptionally well done on that side. Maybe the story stuff as I go on will pull me in. It should not be $60. So picking it on a big sale is mandatory in this case. And they will wonder when it tanks in the sales department why it didn't do better. 

The MP looks like shit from what I've seen and no one will be playing it in a month.

[naff]

Sounds like a fun rental

[BobFromPikeCreek]

yeah, I've played maybe an hour or so and so far it's a snoozer, but it sounds like it picks up later.

[fistfulofmetal]

There is one specific scene involving white phosphorus that turns from a generic 3rd person shooter to a really fucked up story.

agree'd

spoiler (click to show/hide)

When you're doing the COD4 style overhead stuff and dropping the phosphorus I knew that the big bunch of people at the end was going to be civies. I just knew it didn't seem right. The scene itself is really well done IMO.

[close]

[MyNameIsMethodis]

u guys jsut made me buy it

[Sho Nuff]

Interested now

[fistfulofmetal]

Echoing others, I would recommend giving it chance even though the beginning is pretty standard fair. As it goes on and things start getting ugly, it gets better and better.

[cool breeze]

Sounds interesting as a rental or for <$10.  When you say it's ~5 hours long, doesn't get interesting until a ways in (relative), and only does as the story picks up, it's a faint recommendation.

I played the demo a few weeks back and it seemed alright to play.  I saw someone here call it Call of Duty + Gears and felt that's an appropriate description of the demo combat.

[Sho Nuff]

Ah poop this isn't available at Redbox. Hmm must wait for sales

[MyNameIsMethodis]

game is actually pretty fucking awesome. lovin it. worth it. looks and runs great too.

[MyNameIsMethodis]

This game is really fucking awesome

[MyNameIsMethodis]

just beat it. was a pleasant surprise.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

wish they took the eternal darkness stuff one step further

[close]

[Brehvolution]

Did you get the FUBAR edition?

[Stoney Mason]

Finished it this evening.

It's interesting on the story front. There is no doubt about that. Even when it stumbles on that front which it does in some areas at least its heart is in the right place for what its going for. The reason to play this game is for the story and to see what happens. That's the only real reason to play it because the actual gameplay is aggressively average.

If you love story in a game then I can understand really liking this game. I think for me shooters are one of those genres where I don't really go into it for that personally. I more like tight controls, fun set pieces, good moment to moment combat.  I like the mechanical side of it more. So I like it less in that regard than other shooters but I understand the appeal of it in a genre that doesn't really do much with the story part.

I contrast  this to say that last Medal of Honor game. A lot of forum types really got in that one which I never understood. I thought the mechanics were average and the story and immersion were boring and average. Praising this game in that manner though seems appropriate. The story and characters are actually interesting and unique despite the gameplay never really being anything special.

It starts off like your typical military shooters but story wise it departs that pretty quickly and isn't really about that at all despite the fact that the combat situations are the exact same. It could have been an amazing game maybe if they treated the gameplay in the different manner that they did the story.

[The Sceneman]

rented this for 360 and beat it in one sitting. Fantaaaaastic game. Loved it. It's the first game I've played in a long time which actually has a very unique, intense, and emotional narrative. Other games this gen like Dead Space 2 and Bioshock have attempted to engage players like this but have failed miserably imo. It's essentially a modernisation of Apocalypse Now.

The points where you had to make choices were some of the best I've seen. So many games try and integrate some kind of morality choice system which is typically cut and dry good vs. evil stuff (e.g in Infamous it's like will I give the food to the people? or steal it and kill them?). The choices you have to make in this game are pretty much all negative and are very difficult to make.

An amazing story, with images that will stay with me for awhile. Art direction was great. Last game I played that left me saying "whoa" after I beat it was Killer 7, like 7 years ago.

Gameplay wise it's your typical b-tier cover based third person shooter. Which is fine, I enjoy the genre, and the mechanics in this game were fine. I think the level design and cover placement is not so good after coming off Mass Effect 3, with it's well designed maps.

Anyway I'm off to play it again on FUBAR difficulty and make some different choices and collect the intel pieces that I missed. (achievements baby)

GOTY contender imo 

[The Sceneman]

There is one specific scene involving white phosphorus that turns from a generic 3rd person shooter to a really fucked up story.

agree'd

spoiler (click to show/hide)

When you're doing the COD4 style overhead stuff and dropping the phosphorus I knew that the big bunch of people at the end was going to be civies. I just knew it didn't seem right. The scene itself is really well done IMO.

[close]

yeah that was the high point of the game imo

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I liked it how you could see Walker's face reflected on the screen of the mortar targeting system, that was a nice touch. And from the game zooming into the computer screen going into the the COD4 style minigame, then leaving it and looking up and seeing the intense aftermath of what you just did... masterful.

[close]

[The Sceneman]

beat it on FUBAR difficulty. The last couple of chapters were frustrating and had to do a few retires but overall it was fairly easy.

I was a little worried because the x360a forums were saying that the mode was crazy hard, and harder than CoD on Veteran. All bullshit. Typical achievement whores getting upset when achievements actually require skill. The problem is so many games these days label the highest diffuclty as "ultra extreme insanity mode" when the difficulty level is something like "lucky charm cereal mode: you may die once or twice and it's not that hard really"

[The Sceneman]

1000/1000 under the belt. Amazing game