'Spec Ops:The Line' a self reflexive look at the military shooter

My first Impressions of the game ‘Spec Ops: The Line’ during, and even on completion were not favourable at best. This is of course is because I had compared playing the game to my prior experiences of playing blockbusters of the military shooters genre such as Call of Duty and battlefield. The funny thing is that this is precisely where I went wrong and It was not until I watched two online reviews by ‘Extra Credit’ and ‘Zero Punctuation’ that I realised my mistake that made me open my eyes to the beauty of the game as well as make me develop a real appreciation for what the developers have done with this game. What these two videos made me do is make me aware that I fell for a trap set by the developers through the rhetorical dimension of the game; they have done this by manipulating the player’s expectations and playing with established conventions of the military shooter.  What I didn’t do is pick up on the message that the developers wanted to convey through playing through the game. I will briefly touch on how the story, game play and NPC interactions have self reflective qualities that, upon closer inspection, can make the player (not including me apparently) take a critical look at the ever so popular military shooter genre.

The story starts off as basic and if broken down, also rather cliché, you play as a U.S soldier in charge of two men sent in to respond to a S.O.S made a colonel charged with protecting the survivors of a devastating sandstorm. You know the usual, a U.S soldier protecting the innocent as well as their fellow comrade and brother in arms of the United States army, hoorah!  But what starts off as business usual for a soldier from the ever so lovely country of Murrica starts becoming unnerving as the player goes from shooting obvious bad guys who are looking to exploit the locals by controlling  the limited water supply to shooting rogue U.S soldiers. Which is odd because it seems in all other games of this genre the ones at the receiving end of the player’s standard military issue weapon are always from foreign, aka  not from the United States, if it’s not the Nazis, it’s the soviet Russians or lately the Taliban. This brings to attention the way that military shooters that also tend to be made in the U.S tend to focus fighting anything but local threats, something that almost has a demonizing affect on other cultures based on shooters of the U.S army.

What I first thought of the titles game play was that it wasn’t  great in fact I thought it kind of sucked balls and wasn’t very fun at all, think of the game play like shittier ‘Gears of War’ mechanics that focuses on shooting human characters instead of hideous monsters.  The game plays as mentioned in the ‘extra credits’ video is not polished but is executed in a conscious way that the developers intended. You see they realised that they couldn’t compete with the block buster titles I mentioned earlier because such franchises have already established a massive following who are expecting sequels with minor changes that won’t throw the player off too much. Basically what players expect from the genre is something along the lines of: pretty much the same as the old one........but with new levels aaaaaand maybe better graphics..... but no biggie if there isn’t. What the developers did with ‘Spec Ops: The Line’ is make the game play intentionally non-intuitive at times so the player never fully diegetically immerses themselves into the game, in turn the player can separate themselves from the in-game world to better put themselves in a position to constantly critically engage with the medium.  It took me a while for me to realise that the developers were trying to encourage the player to not only take a closer look at their game, but all of the games that fit into the same genre and how they have a habit of sharing established and standardised conventions that make those sharing the genre rather indistinguishable in terms of how they feel to be played.

Last thing I wanted to discuss is the NPCs that follow the character and the characters orders, or is that the player’s orders? I’ll get to that in a minute but first I have to mention how crap the A.I squad is in the game. Basically I found them to be two idiots who do nothing unless the order is given to throw a grenade or snipe an enemy, most of the time they will be hiding behind cover and getting shot in the open, this sentiment is shared by Croshaw. (Creator of the zero punctuation videos)
I think the A.I is meant to be rubbish on purpose to reflect another underlying themes of the “orders are orders” mentality that lead to extreme horrors of war, the soldiers won’t really do anything productive without orders but at the same time will follow any orders even if they conflict with ethical boundaries or common sense. Another thing I wanted to bring up is the way the NPC’s interact with the character/player, they start out in the game as light-hearted characters embracing the idea of “brothers in arms” but as the narrative progresses and shit starts hitting some serious fan they will start to argue and turn on each other, as well as question the player characters courses of action, all while continuing to follow orders given by their superior officer. The odd thing about some of the remarks the NPCs make that question their orders is that they have the dual interpretation of being directed at not just the character but the player as well. This act of breaking the fourth wall not only questions the player’s actions throughout the game but also their own motivation for playing a game of this genre. The motivation to want to feel like a hero, but  like the example used by Kevin in the lecture these games all seem to be based on idea that it’s perfectly fine to go about committing act of mass murder on the quest to being a hero, in fact it’s encouraged as well as glorified.

‘Spec Ops: The Line’ is a strange experience, I personally found it boring and yet I was compelled to continue it to completion. At times it felt like a boring chore which I understood as needed to be finished, admittedly I wikpedia’d the possible outcomes of different decisions I made throughout the game instead of subjecting myself to multiple play-throughs but I don’t regret devoting a few hours of my life to a game that should be played by anyone who considers themselves a fan of the military shooter genre. In a way this game isn’t meant to be enjoyed but rather read and critically analysed for the subtle hints of rhetoric dimension, a quick look at how the story, game play and NPS’s have been used throughout the game to reinforce it’s self reflexive themes that carry a message that closer attention may need to be exercised in regards to the universal content of games of the military shooter genre.

Below are the Videos mention above, they are definitely worth a look at as my short summary doesn’t do the ideas covered in the videos or the actual game any justice.

Zero Punctuation Review: Spec Ops:The Line
Extra Credits: Spec Ops:The Line (Part1)
Extra Credits: Spec Ops:The Line (Part2)