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[Domenique]

Well, I just finished it, gotta say, it's short, but the story is way better than anything I've seen in shooters before. I didn't have any hopes for this game, no hype, because I don't read the news on video games anymore, so my expectations were pretty low and were statisfied. In terms of writing, I'd put it in the same section as Morrowind or Kotor 2.

[fenrif]

See, that's the thing though. I was in no way expecting "The Great Gatsby" or "The Brothers Karamazov" when I played it. Yeah, it was a bit ham-fisted and rather schlocky. But I'm not gonna ragequit just because it isn't perfect, which is what the reviewer in that article seems to have done. That mindset doesn't make any sense to me, in the same way that I don't angrily toss my breakfast cereal across the room every morning because it isn't a five-star omelet. I still managed to get something out of the whole thing. He just seems really angry that the game wasn't what he expected it to be, and decided to judge it on those merits anyway. Was that one part really a choice? Well, no, not one that gamers are used to. The 'choices' weren't there to influence the story in a big way so much as to try to say something about the player themselves, so far as I can tell. I guess I can see why that would make some people mad, but I'm not sure if/why he was somehow expecting ME-style "morality" mechanics. Roundly condemning it for not having mechanics that you personally want, and for failing to be the best story in the history of ever, seriously guys, why isn't this a Karamazov/Apocalypse Now orgasm-sandwich, feels too disingenuous for me to take seriously.

The problem the reviewer had with the game isn't that the game wasn't what he expected it to be. It's that the game wasn't what the games developers/advertisers/the gaming media explicitly said it was. The game isn't deep or well written or meaningfull or insightfull, it's just "War is hell/ press A to murder civillians/See? War is hell, we told you so." If you look at the pre-release hype for this game stuff like "morality mechanics" were exactly what was being promised. Places like RPS were falling out of their chairs in a rush to fellate this game for it's super poigniant moral choices that would deeply impact the story (as a direct result of the marketing basically saying thats what the game was). Nearly every time you see this game mentioned you'll see the words "well it's shooter mechanics are kind of boring, but (narrative/choices/morality/etc) make it one of the standouts." Obviously not those exact words, but the general feeling was "this is kind of a mediocre game, but it's made great by ____" And then ____ isn't actually present in the game. This is a very valid thing to have a problem with, and painting it as "ragequitting" or "tossing your breakfast cerial because it isn't perfect" completely misses the point of criticism, or even what criticism is as a thing people do.

The idea that a game is trying to somehow say something about you as a player, when it never really in any real way engages with the player as an entity at all, seems like a huge copout to me. How does making a meaningless choice in a piece of escapist entertainment say anything about me? The game isn't well written or deep enough to pull of any insightfull commentary like that. I guess you could argue that it points out that theres an audience for any piece of crap shooter as long as it's pretentious enough? If it were to have any commentary about the player, then it'd need to go deeper than surface level binary choices. Or faux pretend choices. Allthough that one with the bridge and the snipers was genuinely a decent choice, because the secret third option wasn't thrown in your face. The problem being that it's rendered moot by the plot and accomplishes nothing during gameplay. It's like chosing the colour of your gun in terms of gameplay impact and narrative repercussions.

Though I'm always willing to be proven wrong. If this game says something about the player, by all means, explain this to me. How do the mechanics, narrative, characters, etc all mesh together to commentate on me as a person? Does it have different things to say about different people, maybe reacting to what you do in the game as you play it? Or is it a general message to mankind as a whole? Does each choice say something different about the player?

People literally said this was "Heart of Darkness" the shooter. Including the people who made this game. That's a huge comparison to make for your "press A to murder civillians... YOU MONSTER HOW COULD YOU!" generic coverbased shooter. Of course people are going to be disapointed, this is the fault of the games advertising and the gaming journalists who made this comparison. Not the people playing it for having too high expectations.

[Cthulhu]

I haven't gotten around to playing it yet.  When I read the description I kind of rolled my eyes, it's starting to feel like Heart of Darkpocalypse Now is the go-to homage when you want your shooter to have some ham-fisted morality (I'm talking about you, Far Cry 2). 

I don't listen to gaming journalism at all so I don't have to worry about being overhyped, and I accepted long ago that game developers were nearly to a man incapable of formulating a meaningful thought, so my standards aren't very high for this kind of thing.

[lavenders2]

See, that's the thing though. I was in no way expecting "The Great Gatsby" or "The Brothers Karamazov" when I played it. Yeah, it was a bit ham-fisted and rather schlocky. But I'm not gonna ragequit just because it isn't perfect, which is what the reviewer in that article seems to have done. That mindset doesn't make any sense to me, in the same way that I don't angrily toss my breakfast cereal across the room every morning because it isn't a five-star omelet. I still managed to get something out of the whole thing. He just seems really angry that the game wasn't what he expected it to be, and decided to judge it on those merits anyway. Was that one part really a choice? Well, no, not one that gamers are used to. The 'choices' weren't there to influence the story in a big way so much as to try to say something about the player themselves, so far as I can tell. I guess I can see why that would make some people mad, but I'm not sure if/why he was somehow expecting ME-style "morality" mechanics. Roundly condemning it for not having mechanics that you personally want, and for failing to be the best story in the history of ever, seriously guys, why isn't this a Karamazov/Apocalypse Now orgasm-sandwich, feels too disingenuous for me to take seriously.

The problem the reviewer had with the game isn't that the game wasn't what he expected it to be. It's that the game wasn't what the games developers/advertisers/the gaming media explicitly said it was. The game isn't deep or well written or meaningfull or insightfull, it's just "War is hell/ press A to murder civillians/See? War is hell, we told you so." If you look at the pre-release hype for this game stuff like "morality mechanics" were exactly what was being promised. Places like RPS were falling out of their chairs in a rush to fellate this game for it's super poigniant moral choices that would deeply impact the story (as a direct result of the marketing basically saying thats what the game was). Nearly every time you see this game mentioned you'll see the words "well it's shooter mechanics are kind of boring, but (narrative/choices/morality/etc) make it one of the standouts." Obviously not those exact words, but the general feeling was "this is kind of a mediocre game, but it's made great by ____" And then ____ isn't actually present in the game. This is a very valid thing to have a problem with, and painting it as "ragequitting" or "tossing your breakfast cerial because it isn't perfect" completely misses the point of criticism, or even what criticism is as a thing people do.

The idea that a game is trying to somehow say something about you as a player, when it never really in any real way engages with the player as an entity at all, seems like a huge copout to me. How does making a meaningless choice in a piece of escapist entertainment say anything about me? The game isn't well written or deep enough to pull of any insightfull commentary like that. I guess you could argue that it points out that theres an audience for any piece of crap shooter as long as it's pretentious enough? If it were to have any commentary about the player, then it'd need to go deeper than surface level binary choices. Or faux pretend choices. Allthough that one with the bridge and the snipers was genuinely a decent choice, because the secret third option wasn't thrown in your face. The problem being that it's rendered moot by the plot and accomplishes nothing during gameplay. It's like chosing the colour of your gun in terms of gameplay impact and narrative repercussions.

Though I'm always willing to be proven wrong. If this game says something about the player, by all means, explain this to me. How do the mechanics, narrative, characters, etc all mesh together to commentate on me as a person? Does it have different things to say about different people, maybe reacting to what you do in the game as you play it? Or is it a general message to mankind as a whole? Does each choice say something different about the player?

People literally said this was "Heart of Darkness" the shooter. Including the people who made this game. That's a huge comparison to make for your "press A to murder civillians... YOU MONSTER HOW COULD YOU!" generic coverbased shooter. Of course people are going to be disapointed, this is the fault of the games advertising and the gaming journalists who made this comparison. Not the people playing it for having too high expectations.

So sorry to resurrect this thread, but I looked for one after I finished the game, and then found this comment. You make good points, but I think you missed the point of the game entirely. WARNING: If you haven't finished the game yet, you may want to refrain from reading this. It contains spoilers to the very end of the game!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The point of the game wasn't to force you into a "War is hell/ press A to murder civilians/See? War is hell we told you so" sort of mentality. While it is accurate to say that the game did force you into seeing that war is hell, that is actually the point. In many shooters today like Call of Duty, we often have a large feeling of control because we feel like a super soldier. We don't feel like war is hell because we have so much control and power that we don't see hell, and see war as more of a playground. In this game, you as a character have no control. There is no "good choice/bad choice" morality, it is simply bad choices, and there is nothing you can do about that. In the end, you can't save those civilians from the white phosphorous, but you can certainly try. No matter what you do, you will have to kill these civilians. It isn't fair by design, and you realize that war isn't fair much like in real life.

Speaking of not fair, the game takes your situation and continually makes it worse. You are originally set out to find survivors and Konrad, then evacuate Dubai. Then it becomes a mission of hunting down Konrad. Then it becomes a mission of survival. Then it becomes hopeless. You seem to frequently start a level on the high ground, then descend the level vertically (a level design that portrays the idea of physical and mental sprial). Your characters look more beat up with every mission. The survival aspect is amplified further by the ammo mechanic, and the fact that you always seem to be low on ammo. You aren't some fully equipped super soldier, you are equipped with enough to keep yourself alive.

So why do you keep fighting? That is a question that the player is taxed with towards the end of the game. You kept fighting, you kept on trekking, you kept playing the game, yet you knew it was hopeless. There was no way you could save yourself or the civilians, you became a mess with PTSD the size of Manhattan. You killed your entire squad, you became completely outnumbered, your mission was a failure. So why did you even bother? Why did you play this game knowing the conclusion was going to be in vain? Why do we, as players, want to play this? All these questions commentate on you as a person, because it makes you ask yourself the big question, why do we play these games? Walker comes to Dubai, wanting to feel epic, heroic and powerful. He wants to save the day. Just like us when we sit down to play these games.

Captain Walker is messed up by the end of the game. He suffers from PTSD, has hallucinations, gets 47 innocent people killed including his entire squad and has a dissociative disorder to rationalize the actions he performs throughout the game. The ending shows Konrad, and at first he appears to be the one behind all this mess. He seems like an evil bastard, and sounds like your typical bad guy. Then you find his dead corpse on the chair. Konrad then appears as a figment of your mind, explaining the events that happened. Walker had the choice to leave Dubai, but he didn't. He wanted to be a hero. Then you see Konrad pointing a gun at you and counting to five. There are two copies of you and Konrad. It is a mirror, but Konrad is in the reflection. You are Konrad, the very thing you set out to destroy. You wanted to destroy evil, but you became it, you did these horrible things. You then tried to rationalize it by trying to be a hero and putting the blame on another, but Walker can't escape his own consequences. So why is this all significant?

You are Captain Walker.

You as the player did not have to continue on playing the game, but you did. Despite the horrible things you did, the horrible things that happened as a result and the horrible things that continued to happen, you strode on because you wanted to win the game. You wanted to save the day, to be the hero. You rationalize this goal by trying to be the hero, yet you can't escape your consequences. You had no control of the situation, you couldn't make it better, but you tried anyway. This is the true comment on you as a person. You are killing for your own entertainment, you want to be powerful and you want to be the hero, despite the fact that the game gives you none of these things. You don't feel powerful, and you are no hero. So the only rational way of wanting to play this game is because you want to kill people. You can't make good choices in this game, you only make bad ones, yet your mind is still set on playing this game to finish it. To end the story and be the hero, yet you know this goal is seemingly impossible.

In conclusion, you as a person will play shooters like Call of Duty because you want to intentionally remove yourself from reality and place yourself in an unmoral and unrealistic place because you want to be in control and to be a hero. There are many more underlying themes and layers to the game, but with this information I will leave you with this:
Many players commented on the fact that the game itself was boring but the story made up for it. If you knew the story was bleak, you were continually making bad choices and continually killing people, and you knew that in the end you did these horrible things and had no control to stop, then why did you play this game? Why did you continue?

It seems the only logical explanation is because you as a person wanted to kill.

[fenrif]

So sorry to resurrect this thread, but I looked for one after I finished the game, and then found this comment. You make good points, but I think you missed the point of the game entirely. WARNING: If you haven't finished the game yet, you may want to refrain from reading this. It contains spoilers to the very end of the game!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The point of the game wasn't to force you into a "War is hell/ press A to murder civilians/See? War is hell we told you so" sort of mentality. While it is accurate to say that the game did force you into seeing that war is hell, that is actually the point. In many shooters today like Call of Duty, we often have a large feeling of control because we feel like a super soldier. We don't feel like war is hell because we have so much control and power that we don't see hell, and see war as more of a playground. In this game, you as a character have no control. There is no "good choice/bad choice" morality, it is simply bad choices, and there is nothing you can do about that. In the end, you can't save those civilians from the white phosphorous, but you can certainly try. No matter what you do, you will have to kill these civilians. It isn't fair by design, and you realize that war isn't fair much like in real life.

Speaking of not fair, the game takes your situation and continually makes it worse. You are originally set out to find survivors and Konrad, then evacuate Dubai. Then it becomes a mission of hunting down Konrad. Then it becomes a mission of survival. Then it becomes hopeless. You seem to frequently start a level on the high ground, then descend the level vertically (a level design that portrays the idea of physical and mental sprial). Your characters look more beat up with every mission. The survival aspect is amplified further by the ammo mechanic, and the fact that you always seem to be low on ammo. You aren't some fully equipped super soldier, you are equipped with enough to keep yourself alive.

So why do you keep fighting? That is a question that the player is taxed with towards the end of the game. You kept fighting, you kept on trekking, you kept playing the game, yet you knew it was hopeless. There was no way you could save yourself or the civilians, you became a mess with PTSD the size of Manhattan. You killed your entire squad, you became completely outnumbered, your mission was a failure. So why did you even bother? Why did you play this game knowing the conclusion was going to be in vain? Why do we, as players, want to play this? All these questions commentate on you as a person, because it makes you ask yourself the big question, why do we play these games? Walker comes to Dubai, wanting to feel epic, heroic and powerful. He wants to save the day. Just like us when we sit down to play these games.

Captain Walker is messed up by the end of the game. He suffers from PTSD, has hallucinations, gets 47 innocent people killed including his entire squad and has a dissociative disorder to rationalize the actions he performs throughout the game. The ending shows Konrad, and at first he appears to be the one behind all this mess. He seems like an evil bastard, and sounds like your typical bad guy. Then you find his dead corpse on the chair. Konrad then appears as a figment of your mind, explaining the events that happened. Walker had the choice to leave Dubai, but he didn't. He wanted to be a hero. Then you see Konrad pointing a gun at you and counting to five. There are two copies of you and Konrad. It is a mirror, but Konrad is in the reflection. You are Konrad, the very thing you set out to destroy. You wanted to destroy evil, but you became it, you did these horrible things. You then tried to rationalize it by trying to be a hero and putting the blame on another, but Walker can't escape his own consequences. So why is this all significant?

You are Captain Walker.

You as the player did not have to continue on playing the game, but you did. Despite the horrible things you did, the horrible things that happened as a result and the horrible things that continued to happen, you strode on because you wanted to win the game. You wanted to save the day, to be the hero. You rationalize this goal by trying to be the hero, yet you can't escape your consequences. You had no control of the situation, you couldn't make it better, but you tried anyway. This is the true comment on you as a person. You are killing for your own entertainment, you want to be powerful and you want to be the hero, despite the fact that the game gives you none of these things. You don't feel powerful, and you are no hero. So the only rational way of wanting to play this game is because you want to kill people. You can't make good choices in this game, you only make bad ones, yet your mind is still set on playing this game to finish it. To end the story and be the hero, yet you know this goal is seemingly impossible.

In conclusion, you as a person will play shooters like Call of Duty because you want to intentionally remove yourself from reality and place yourself in an unmoral and unrealistic place because you want to be in control and to be a hero. There are many more underlying themes and layers to the game, but with this information I will leave you with this:
Many players commented on the fact that the game itself was boring but the story made up for it. If you knew the story was bleak, you were continually making bad choices and continually killing people, and you knew that in the end you did these horrible things and had no control to stop, then why did you play this game? Why did you continue?

It seems the only logical explanation is because you as a person wanted to kill.

I can't honestly remember what is spoilers and what isn't for this game. I can't really remember any specific things about the narrative. Fair warning though: There might be spoilers ahead.

I get that this game is trying to make a "war is hell" point. The problem is it entirely falls flat entirely because of all those questions you asked. "Why do you play this game?" The same reason I play any game: because it's fun (Though I actually stopped playing this once I realised how bad of a game/terribly written it was). It intentionally breaks your suspension of disbelief because it's trying so hard to make a point about you the player but it's doing it by making extremely blunt and obvious points about the character in the game. This is accomplished by essentially taking you control away from the character you're playing. So the end result is that it's trying to say something about the player by having the character do things that the player didn't tell them to do. It's not even like he's put in unavoidable situations where your control is forced by the situation. It's literally that the character in the game just does things without your consent, and then the game tries to make you feel bad for it. It's like if at the end of the Star Wars prequels Lucas tried to make you personally feel bad because Anakin slaughtered the younglings in some wierd commentary about how you're watching it so you're entirely responsable. There's a huge difference between you as a player having no control and you as the character having no control. This game gives the player no control but pretends like you're in control of everything and it's the character's actions that are being limited. It's intellectually dishonest.

You aren't Captain Walker because the game keeps going out of it's way to take away your control of Captain Walker. It makes a point of doing this repeatedly. It's even set in third person to further distance you from your character. Not that you can't identify with characters in third person games, but generally speaking it's a lot harder. This is what I mean when I say the gameplay works against what the game is trying (and in my opinion failing) to do. The gameplay is generic 3rd person shooter, but they're trying so very hard to have you become Walker. But that doesn't work because of very basic things like the camera choice. You can identify with him, but that is a far cry from having his character being analogous to you the player. The writing is assuming that you are walker, but you're distanced from this by the very basics of the game itself.

You mention that Walker had a chance to leave Dubai, but didn't... If the game wanted him to be a stand-in for the player, and wanted it's "war is bad" message to have any poignancy, it would've given that choice to the player. You could've chose to leave Dubai, and it would've rewarded you with a "You win! Good job!" cutscene. Player agency and the core message of the narrative all tied up in one little cutscene. They didn't of course, because if you as the player had any agency over the character you're playing then the whole narrative falls apart.

So yeah, I compleetly understood what the game was trying to do thematically, and how it was going about it. I just thought that at best it was doing a terrible job, and at worst it was being wholly pretentious and dishonest about how it went about conveying this. It also doesn't help that the game apparently was designed as a generic third person shooter, and then had this whole plot/theme/message thing draped over it. Almost as if the gameplay and the plot were completely divorced from each other in their conception (as well as in their execution). It's not a particularily well made game, but it's trying to pretened it's better than it is by being "deep" but it's doing so in an extremely superficial and forced way.

It's not that these aren't worthwhile themes, and that this type of game couldn't work. It's that this game in particular does a terrible job on both of them because it refuses to take any chances. Spec Ops: The Line is essentially two different experiences. The game and the plot. That's it's biggest failure. And that's why it's a bad game. Because for a game so completely and utterly reliant on it's story, having it completely divorced from every aspect of the players agency is pretty bad. And it compounds this because it's so blunt and direct with it's attempt to draw parallels between the player and the character in the story that your complete lack of any real control over that character (which is presented the entire game as a seperate entity to you, because 3rd person for no reason) makes all those points laughable.

[Ivefan]

In conclusion, you as a person will play shooters like Call of Duty because you want to intentionally remove yourself from reality and place yourself in an unmoral and unrealistic place because you want to be in control and to be a hero. There are many more underlying themes and layers to the game, but with this information I will leave you with this:
Many players commented on the fact that the game itself was boring but the story made up for it. If you knew the story was bleak, you were continually making bad choices and continually killing people, and you knew that in the end you did these horrible things and had no control to stop, then why did you play this game? Why did you continue?

It seems the only logical explanation is because you as a person wanted to kill.

Are you the kind of person that think violent games make you a violent person? You 'logical explanation' would also apply to movies, books and any other media that you voluntarily participate in and means that if you as a person do not want to do whatever appears in said media you would have to stop watching/reading the moment it happened. Would watching a documentary about the holocaust mean that you want to persecute jews?
No, It's an entertainment media that you as the consumer did not have a choice in how they were made, Nor do you have any choice in this game if you want to know how the story progresses.

The problem isn't that bad things happen, It's that they made it so there seem to be an alternative way to proceed but there isn't.
And in response to your spoiler:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You seem to imply that the player know how the story will develop. Personally i started playing expecting yet another mediocre shooter (because i had time to waste) and thought less and less of the game but i tend to finish them. Well, the ending was good.

[krisslanza]

Sounds like the best way to beat this game is to not play it. If you don't play it then atrocities don't happen. Very simple call IMO.

Bit of a necroquote but, actually yes. When people bring up THAT spoiler, the devs did give them an answer:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You do have a choice. You don't HAVE to keep playing the game.

It might not be the choice people want, but as I've seen from watching it, the game kind of pokes at shooter games that reward you for killing people. They kind of wanted to have you look at that in a different way I think.

I haven't played the game myself, but I watched an LP of it and I have to say the narrative alone sets it apart from cookie-cutter "YEAH YOU'RE AWESOME HEROES" FPS games out there.

[fenrif]

The narrative sets it apart from other games that have tried to tackle this subject, maybe. Though I'd argue that the "die from a nuke" scene in the first COD:MW was far more effective at conveying the same point while not taking an entire game to make it. However compared to movies, books, etc it's really not doing anything new, nor doing anything particularily well. And since the gameplay in it is medicore it really shouldn't be relying on a plot that can adequately summed up with three words: "war is hell."

Saying that the point of the game is that you shouldn't play it is such a huge copout. Firstly in that the game doesn't in anyway support you not playing. You can turn your console off, but the game doesn't give you the option to, for example, abandon your mission and leave Dubai. Which is what it would've done if the game was in any way intended to have that message. So basically the concept of "turning the game off is the only way to win" isn't really supported on a narrative level.

Secondly, when you're going to that level of meta-reading then the game actively rewards you for continuing to play it. Because by continuing to play it you get more narrative, more shooting bad guys, new weapons and more ammo, etc. The only way this isn't a reward is if for some reason you hate playing videogames, or the game is intentionally bad. If the game is intentionally bad then it's grossly wastefull in terms of content and production. Most players who "get" it will stop playing a few missions in, and everything after that point is either remaking the same argument "war is STILL bad" or making new thematic points that players have been told by the game not to see.

Thirdly: you could argue that line of reasoning for any game about war. cookie-cutter generic "Yeah you're awesome heroes" FPS #147 is so generic and has such terrible gameplay mechanics because war is bad, the only way to win is to not play and metaphorically avoid war. It's a great copout because it makes any negative aspect of your game above reproach and also adds a veneer of depth to everything.

But unless it's actually supported by the gameplay then it's just meaningless PR speak. And in a game like Spec Ops where teh gameplay is completely at odds with the supposed message it's kind of insulting.

[ukulele]

Maybe a little off-topic as i have not played this. I havent becouse i thought the whole idea was bullshit and i still dont know if im wrong or not, but im here just to say that some of the Metal Gear games tend to give me the "war is hell" image without airport shootings or other "cheap shots", as in blind soldier that never knows who he is realy fighting, who is good, who is bad, etc.

[lavenders2]

In conclusion, you as a person will play shooters like Call of Duty because you want to intentionally remove yourself from reality and place yourself in an unmoral and unrealistic place because you want to be in control and to be a hero. There are many more underlying themes and layers to the game, but with this information I will leave you with this:
Many players commented on the fact that the game itself was boring but the story made up for it. If you knew the story was bleak, you were continually making bad choices and continually killing people, and you knew that in the end you did these horrible things and had no control to stop, then why did you play this game? Why did you continue?

It seems the only logical explanation is because you as a person wanted to kill.

Are you the kind of person that think violent games make you a violent person? You 'logical explanation' would also apply to movies, books and any other media that you voluntarily participate in and means that if you as a person do not want to do whatever appears in said media you would have to stop watching/reading the moment it happened. Would watching a documentary about the holocaust mean that you want to persecute jews?
No, It's an entertainment media that you as the consumer did not have a choice in how they were made, Nor do you have any choice in this game if you want to know how the story progresses.

The problem isn't that bad things happen, It's that they made it so there seem to be an alternative way to proceed but there isn't.
And in response to your spoiler:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You seem to imply that the player know how the story will develop. Personally i started playing expecting yet another mediocre shooter (because i had time to waste) and thought less and less of the game but i tend to finish them. Well, the ending was good.

No, I don't think video games make people violent. There is no conclusive evidence that supports that. The way the human brain works also makes me believe we will never get conclusive evidence to either prove or disprove that.

Your book/movie/other media argument doesn't really count because of the level of control you have. In a movie, you are watching someone else kill people. It wasn't your decision, and you can't stop him from killing people. In a book you are reading about someone else killing people and you can't stop him from killing those people. In a video game, you are in control of the killing and you can put down the controller and stop at any time you want. You can even play Spec Ops without firing a single bullet at anybody. You probably wouldn't make much progress, but you have that choice of not ever firing your gun. You have that degree of control in Spec Ops to never put your finger on the trigger. In a movie, if the actor decides to fire his gun, that is final and you can't tell him to stop. You either have to live with it or just not watch it.

I don't think I quite worded my spoiler in the best way (it was late at night) but I don't necessarily imply that people will know how the story will develop. However, I do imply that people who have played the game to at least the white phosphorus bit will realize that the choices they were given were to either kill civilians, or not kill civilians and die. Or, in other words, people will realize that the choices given to them have always made them go from bad to worse, and as they play the game more this becomes more evident. If you didn't realize this, then perhaps this game constructs you as a person as someone who cannot even identify the difference between good and bad in a morally unjust and unrealistic fantasy scenario. This could be very true in games like Call of Duty, where you are portrayed as the legendary hero good guy who saves everybody, yet like a hypocrite you massacre hundreds of men in mere seconds. You didn't save everybody, you destroyed the russians/bad guys/whoever stands in your way of saving everybody. I understand that you can be saving America or whatever in self defense, but you can't dodge the fact that you had to make sacrifices on both sides for that to happen. You killed all these people, and got all these people killed, and for what? To be that hero. You may think you are doing the right thing, when in reality you are actually doing something far worse.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So in the end, you may think that the story will end on a high note and you may think that you can save everybody, but when you obliterate hundreds of lives in seconds how many people are you really saving?

"Do you feel like a hero yet?"

[Ivefan]

Your book/movie/other media argument doesn't really count because of the level of control you have.

But it does count. To watch the movie, press play. Read a book, turn the page. Continue the game, bomb those civilians. There is no more control in that more than press play/stop, it just requires you to press play more often.

I don't think I quite worded my spoiler in the best way... ...when in reality you are actually doing something far worse.

Kill a few and you're a murderer, kill thousands and you're a hero.
I'm not sure if you are saying "You did" as the player or if you mean the character in the game.
In the second case you're right. In the first one you're over analyzing things.
To all extent and purpose, you could have made this game into a movie, but to see the next part you need to finish a round of tictactoe or shoot 10 targets at a cork shooting range. It would still fulfill the criteria for being a game.

[krisslanza]

The narrative sets it apart from other games that have tried to tackle this subject, maybe. Though I'd argue that the "die from a nuke" scene in the first COD:MW was far more effective at conveying the same point while not taking an entire game to make it. However compared to movies, books, etc it's really not doing anything new, nor doing anything particularily well. And since the gameplay in it is medicore it really shouldn't be relying on a plot that can adequately summed up with three words: "war is hell."

Saying that the point of the game is that you shouldn't play it is such a huge copout. Firstly in that the game doesn't in anyway support you not playing. You can turn your console off, but the game doesn't give you the option to, for example, abandon your mission and leave Dubai. Which is what it would've done if the game was in any way intended to have that message. So basically the concept of "turning the game off is the only way to win" isn't really supported on a narrative level.

Secondly, when you're going to that level of meta-reading then the game actively rewards you for continuing to play it. Because by continuing to play it you get more narrative, more shooting bad guys, new weapons and more ammo, etc. The only way this isn't a reward is if for some reason you hate playing videogames, or the game is intentionally bad. If the game is intentionally bad then it's grossly wastefull in terms of content and production. Most players who "get" it will stop playing a few missions in, and everything after that point is either remaking the same argument "war is STILL bad" or making new thematic points that players have been told by the game not to see.

Thirdly: you could argue that line of reasoning for any game about war. cookie-cutter generic "Yeah you're awesome heroes" FPS #147 is so generic and has such terrible gameplay mechanics because war is bad, the only way to win is to not play and metaphorically avoid war. It's a great copout because it makes any negative aspect of your game above reproach and also adds a veneer of depth to everything.

But unless it's actually supported by the gameplay then it's just meaningless PR speak. And in a game like Spec Ops where teh gameplay is completely at odds with the supposed message it's kind of insulting.

I'm not sure if Spec Ops is trying to be a "PR Message" or anything. Some people think its just a really well-hidden parody/satire of FPS games in general. I can't think of many games where it starts off all "gung ho" and "hell yeah America" and then everything just goes to hell when you try and do things. Or at least, when things go to hell in Spec Ops, you really see it and all the characters start to reflect it, instead of just seemingly shrugging off everything and pressing on.

[fenrif]

I'm not sure if Spec Ops is trying to be a "PR Message" or anything. Some people think its just a really well-hidden parody/satire of FPS games in general. I can't think of many games where it starts off all "gung ho" and "hell yeah America" and then everything just goes to hell when you try and do things. Or at least, when things go to hell in Spec Ops, you really see it and all the characters start to reflect it, instead of just seemingly shrugging off everything and pressing on.

I'm saying that the specific idea that the game was intentionally made so that the only way to win it is to not play it is PR speak.

And nothing about Spec Ops is hidden. None of the themes are even remotely subtle. Everything that happens is all-caps:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

SHOOT THIS MORTAR LOL DONT MIND THOSE CIVILLIANS. NO OTHER WAY TO PROGRESS. OOPS YOU MORTARED CIVILIANS. WHAT A HORRIBLE MONSTER YOU ARE, WAR IS HELL!

Is how Spec Ops approaches subtle satire. And as I've said repeatedly it's not even effective satire because for it to work you have to read the narrative completely seperate from the gameplay, which actively works against the "war is bad" message.

No, I don't think video games make people violent. There is no conclusive evidence that supports that. The way the human brain works also makes me believe we will never get conclusive evidence to either prove or disprove that.

Your book/movie/other media argument doesn't really count because of the level of control you have. In a movie, you are watching someone else kill people. It wasn't your decision, and you can't stop him from killing people. In a book you are reading about someone else killing people and you can't stop him from killing those people. In a video game, you are in control of the killing and you can put down the controller and stop at any time you want. You can even play Spec Ops without firing a single bullet at anybody. You probably wouldn't make much progress, but you have that choice of not ever firing your gun. You have that degree of control in Spec Ops to never put your finger on the trigger. In a movie, if the actor decides to fire his gun, that is final and you can't tell him to stop. You either have to live with it or just not watch it.

I don't think I quite worded my spoiler in the best way (it was late at night) but I don't necessarily imply that people will know how the story will develop. However, I do imply that people who have played the game to at least the white phosphorus bit will realize that the choices they were given were to either kill civilians, or not kill civilians and die. Or, in other words, people will realize that the choices given to them have always made them go from bad to worse, and as they play the game more this becomes more evident. If you didn't realize this, then perhaps this game constructs you as a person as someone who cannot even identify the difference between good and bad in a morally unjust and unrealistic fantasy scenario. This could be very true in games like Call of Duty, where you are portrayed as the legendary hero good guy who saves everybody, yet like a hypocrite you massacre hundreds of men in mere seconds. You didn't save everybody, you destroyed the russians/bad guys/whoever stands in your way of saving everybody. I understand that you can be saving America or whatever in self defense, but you can't dodge the fact that you had to make sacrifices on both sides for that to happen. You killed all these people, and got all these people killed, and for what? To be that hero. You may think you are doing the right thing, when in reality you are actually doing something far worse.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So in the end, you may think that the story will end on a high note and you may think that you can save everybody, but when you obliterate hundreds of lives in seconds how many people are you really saving?

"Do you feel like a hero yet?"

Ironically enough were this a book/movie/play/etc it would've worked a lot better, because it's much easier to make these kind of points when you're just straight up telling a story, rather than pretending a player has some sort of control over it.

The argument that you are in controll of the killing is also something I'd disagree with. Because that's the only interaction you have with the world they have presented you. You can move, shoot, reload, aim and press A at specific points to interact with things. There is no option to play a pacificst and still progress through the narrative, you either shoot things, or you turn the game off (see my other post for why that isn't a viable option.) Essentially you are an actor playing a part in the world of Spec Ops. Much like how a director or screenwriter tells an actor to fire his gun, here your director has given you the "fire gun and progress or don't and die, repeating the same area ad infinitum." Again, if this was the intended reading of the work then they should've actually worked that into the gameplay in some fashion. But they didn't, you're explicitly told to keep shooting people, you're actively rewarded for this act throughout the game by the core mechanics of the experience. Your only option is to either shoot people or not play the game, which means the only intended option for the player is to shoot people.

It literally says nothing about the player themselves that they engage in this, no more than people jumping into sewer tubes in mario somehow says something about them as people. It's a game, which presents you with the rules and encourages you to progress. That your only option is to shoot people says far more about the people who made this game than it does anyone who plays it.

The only thing the white phospherous bit tells you about the game, or the character you're playing, is that he is an idiot with terrible situational awareness who thinks entirely in binary choices, then decides on a course of action without even examining his surroundings. And that you as the player are going to be inexplicably held accountable for the plot-dictated actions of this moron character dispite him being obviously presented as a seperate entity to yourself.