Spec Ops: The Line
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About the Game
Spec Ops: The Line is the 9th Game of the Spec Ops series that first debut in 1998. Apart from the game title and the genre, a third-person military shooter Game, it has almost nothing in common with earlier releases of the series. All of the other games, released in the Spec Ops series, were released between 1998 and 2002 but none of them were as popular as the most recent release: Spec Ops: The Line. It was developed by the German video game development team „Yager Development“ and was published by 2K Games in June 2012 on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows. Versions for OS X and Linux were published a few years later. They set their focus more on storytelling and narrative, instead of gameplay, and were inspired by the movie setting for „Apocalypse Now“ which is based on the novel „Heart of Darkness“. Both took a critical view on modern warfare and brutal, inhuman strategies. A multiplayer mode was requested by the publisher 2K Games, which was later developed by the US American Studio „Darkside Game Studios“, since Yager Development wanted to concentrate completely on the single-player campaign.
Spec Ops: The Line tries to separate itself from the classical third person military shooter genre. Most outstanding is the introduction of decision making within the game and using storytelling to show war brutality and the psychological damages caused by being involved in war. In order to create situations in which the player must question his own morality, the game uses dilemma situations with limited time for the player to think them over, which often are a matter of life and death, highlighting the brutality of war.
The Story
Plot (Spoiler)
Research-Relevant Topics of the Game
Core Game Mechanics
Controls
In Spec Ops: The Line, the Player takes control of the main character: „Captain Martin Walker“. The basic controls are mostly similar to a classical third person shooter, with the camera looking above the shoulder of the character and other elements such as taking cover behind obstacles, picking up enemy’s weapons and managing resources like ammunition and grenades. You can also make orders to the other members of the Team, Adams and Lugo. You can tell them to concentrate their fire on specific enemies, use flash grenades to blind groups of enemies or push towards a specific direction. In its core, it is played like any other military shooter game. Furthermore, apart from some collectable items that tell a short story about past events, there is not much to explore in the mostly linear levels. The game is split in into total of 15 Chapters, with an average playtime of six to seven hours.
Decision making
The way in which Spec.Ops differs mostly from other games within the third person shooter genre is how the player must decide his own destiny within the story, as oppose to it being pre-determined. All of the multiple decisions that have to be made within a play-through stay inside the basic game mechanics. Decisions are not made by simply selecting one or the other option, by clicking at a certain point or pushing a certain button, but by choosing to perform between two specific actions or not acting at all. In praxis, you are confronted with situations where you have to act in a specific way to make a choice, like shooting a soldier or waiting to let him get away. Or perhaps opening fire or staying quiet so to not loose stealth. These specific decisions can affect the fate of the team as well as the life of the civilians. They also have an impact on the relationship between Walker and his teammates, causing them to react differently. Walker suffers psychologically after a negative outcome and he begins to go insane, which gradually worsens as the game progresses He starts to see visual hallucinations and his behaviour becomes more violent and out of control.
Further Content of the Game
Intradiegetic information the Game uses.
Related Research Approaches
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References
Further Information/ External Links
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