Critical Miss: Top Five Games of 2012 #5

[Thyunda]

That comic perfectly encapsulates my main problem with the game.

It forces you to do something and won't let you progress until you do, then spends the rest of the game trying to make you feel guilty about it.

I love what it was trying to do, but the implementation left much to be desired.

I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias.

If your usual game is Call of Duty or Battlefield, you're quite likely to go through shooters just gunning down whoever registers as an enemy on your radar. If, however, like most of us here, you play a variety of games featuring moral choices and civilian NPCs who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, then yeah...this game will probably not have the same lesson to teach you. We already KNOW what this game has to show, but then, we're not the target audience of the Spec Ops label.

How charmingly elitest of you.

You know, when I was asking about if gamers could talk about anything without ripping each other apart, this is what I was talking about.

So calling people out for their douchbaggery is "ripping them apart" eh? Good to know.

He didn't really seem like a douchebag. It was more that he was confirming the existence of the causal market. Also you more or less just called him an elitist and walked away, without elaborating on the point.

Okay, here's some elaboration: I'm really fucking sick of this constant "Us and Them" dicotomy, and it's especially strong on this site. Thyunda came across as snooty and condescending with, "I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias." Trying to make people who like Military FPS's out as some kind of undesirable. As if the Escapist was this last bastion of "thinking men".

D'you know what. I'd argue, but Battlefield 3 is just too much fun. I might go play that more instead. Or I might go back to my seventh prestige Modern Warfare 3 loadouts. And then I'll get Black Ops 2 as soon as it drops a little in price. Shit, man, before you start calling people out as snooty and condescending, get to know 'em a little first.

 

[Erttheking]

That comic perfectly encapsulates my main problem with the game.

It forces you to do something and won't let you progress until you do, then spends the rest of the game trying to make you feel guilty about it.

I love what it was trying to do, but the implementation left much to be desired.

I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias.

If your usual game is Call of Duty or Battlefield, you're quite likely to go through shooters just gunning down whoever registers as an enemy on your radar. If, however, like most of us here, you play a variety of games featuring moral choices and civilian NPCs who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, then yeah...this game will probably not have the same lesson to teach you. We already KNOW what this game has to show, but then, we're not the target audience of the Spec Ops label.

How charmingly elitest of you.

You know, when I was asking about if gamers could talk about anything without ripping each other apart, this is what I was talking about.

So calling people out for their douchbaggery is "ripping them apart" eh? Good to know.

He didn't really seem like a douchebag. It was more that he was confirming the existence of the causal market. Also you more or less just called him an elitist and walked away, without elaborating on the point.

Okay, here's some elaboration: I'm really fucking sick of this constant "Us and Them" dicotomy, and it's especially strong on this site. Thyunda came across as snooty and condescending with, "I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias." Trying to make people who like Military FPS's out as some kind of undesirable. As if the Escapist was this last bastion of "thinking men".

Pal, no matter how you look at it, there are a large amount of unfortunate implications surrounding the modern military shooters, and while I have no problem with the people that like them, they clearly either don't see these implications or they don't care. The point of Spec Ops the Line is that it's pointing out the darker and more horrific side to modern military shooters to people who normally don't see it or think about it. That's what he was trying to point out.

 

[mdqp]

Premise: I never played the game, and I don't mean to, so it might be that all my points are invalid, you'll be the judge.

How can I feel guilty if there is no blame on me (no choices means no blame)? Telling that not playing the game is a choice, is like the developers saying "we made a game you shouldn't want to play, and in fact you are a terrible person if you see it from beginning to end", I just can't buy into that. Also, making a critique of something, by making an almost perfect copy of that something, and then adding a "you are bad for liking this" sign on it, doesn't strike me as a particularly interesting or brilliant deconstruction of a genre. If I can't make choices in a game, the protagonist isn't my avatar, is just a dude whose story I am following, like a movie, why should I feel guilty if Steven Seagal goes around killing bad guys in an action flick? Also, there isn't anything inherently wrong in playing those games (I almost never play first-person shooters, but I fail to see anything so wrong about them), and trying to make someone feel guilty about it is weird, to say the least. This is all metagaming at its finest, so I don't even understand how I can be emotionally shaken by this game, if it keeps making it obvious that it's just that, a game.

Do I need to be wanting someone to tell me I am guilty to like this game? Because I can't imagine what else I might be looking for in a game to like this message.

In short, I don't see the message as particularly intelligent or thought provoking, and I feel that (at least in the way it has been described by so many people) it isn't even smart in the way it delivers it to the players.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Game forces me to do something and then tries to make me feel guilty over it? Nice try but that doesn't really work. Also, actual gameplay was way too bad to appreciate it. However, I hate military shooters so I am biased.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

If I played a game I had bought for five minutes and stopped playing it I'd consider it a waste of money. So stopping playing it isn't a choice really. I don't know why you insist on saying it is.

The only reason I wouldn't play a game is if I didn't like it. Saying you are a bad person for playing something you have paid for is ridiculous.

 

[Pyrian]

"We the People" is an object of veneration in the U.S.A..

Yea, sure. If you say so.

Oh, don't take MY word for it. [http://constitutionus.com/]

 

[Mysnomer]

The only way SpecOps succeeds is if you go into in the mode, "I will play this like a game, and listen to what they have to say." As soon as you try to play it as a reasonably upright or moral person, the game falls apart, and the only good bits that are left were stolen from Heart of Darkness (there's some cool visual themes too). If you aren't the market it aims to criticize, or you can't put yourself in that mindset, then the game is meaningless harping that will only serve to frustrate you. And the gameplay is mediocre and bland (and don't tell me that's a style choice, because it would be much more effective if you were having fun killing all those people), so meh. Grandiose plans, middling (at best) execution.

 

[Lazy]

I knew about the WP scene well in advance of actually playing the game myself and don't really feel like it's worth making a big deal out of it not being a choice. Like any other twist, it's not going to make as big an impact if you already had it spoiled for you, so complaining that it wasn't effective for this reason just seems stupid.

Besides, if they had made it a choice, why would anyone choose to do it if they already knew what was going to happen? They'd just go with the good option and the rest of the game's plot would be unraveled.

In general though, I think people get too focused on the meta when it comes to Spec Ops. I mean, if it works on that level for you then that's a bonus, for sure, but even if it doesn't it's still a great story and a pretty decent game overall. You shouldn't need to become fully immersed in the role of Walker to feel invested or at least interested in his struggle, nor need someone to blame for his actions (be it yourself or the developers) other than the character himself.

 

[minimacker]

I didn't really like Spec Ops. Or, rather, I didn't like *why* it happened. So the 33rd were saving civies, yet they were also executing them when they were interrogating Gould? What the hell?

And what the hell was that back in the hotel? Why were they rounding up civies like cattle and putting some of them on their knees?

I DON'T UNDERSTAND, GAME. WHY EXECUTE CIVILIANS WHEN YOU'RE INTERROGATING GOULD, YET YOU SAY YOU'RE SAVING CIVILIANS? HRJGKNRGNGHRNG.

...
I didn't get up and leave the computer because it was too emotional. I left because I was frustrated to bits from their hypocrisy. Then the game calls me an asshole BECAUSE of their hypocrisy.

 

[Excludos]

Spoilers below:
Exactly how the game made me fell. Like a huge asshole. I honestly thought I had a choice at the White Phosperous scene, and felt devastated when I realized how incredibly ignorant and straight out evil I had been for simply taking the easy way out. And, as the game expected, I got a bit angry. Why the fuck would you do this to me?! And the game played it out perfectly by letting me fall deeper into the trap, by playing on my irrationality. I would blast anyone in front of me and feel good because "Hey. These guys made me kill civilians!"...Oh, I've been shooting the good guys all game long?..Well done, game. Well done..and fuck you.

The game made me feel really shitty the entire time. And I kinda love it for it.

 

[DataSnake]

I didn't really like Spec Ops. Or, rather, I didn't like *why* it happened. So the 33rd were saving civies, yet they were also executing them when they were interrogating Gould? What the hell?

And what the hell was that back in the hotel? Why were they rounding up civies like cattle and putting some of them on their knees?

I DON'T UNDERSTAND, GAME. WHY EXECUTE CIVILIANS WHEN YOU'RE INTERROGATING GOULD, YET YOU SAY YOU'RE SAVING CIVILIANS? HRJGKNRGNGHRNG.

Spoiler

Half the 33rd (the ones trying to save the civvies) rebelled against Konrad, the other half (the ones executing them and so on) didn't.

 

[weirdee]

That may indeed be the greatest part of Sec Ops to you. I on the other hand would have preferred it if the game didn't force us down the path of madness, but instead nudged us and guided us down the path. To help us feel that we are doing the right thing. As it is, the game presents unrealistic objectives that most people can see is the wrong thing to do before doing it. That is the problem. I am not asking for a moral choice that lets me be a good guy. I am asking for more creativity in presenting the story so I don't have to be forced "kicking and screaming" along their path. So that at the end of the game, I am forced to look at myself through the looking glass and find myself lacking.

You should play Iji.

It's pretty much what you described.

The main issue I find with Iji is that everybody seems critical of what you do, no matter what it is. Shoot soldiers? You're criticized for fighting for your own survival against a race that, in the face of doom, decided to subjugate another planet just to attempt to hide from their pursuers, by the actual people who you are trying to get rid of. Don't shoot them? People call you crazy for having sympathy for those same people, and beyond escaping one of the earlier levels without anybody firing at you, nobody has mercy later on.

It's more of an exercise to see how much weapon development one can waste on a game by making most of them useless when the game condemns you for using any of the weapons besides the situational one.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

That comic perfectly encapsulates my main problem with the game.

It forces you to do something and won't let you progress until you do, then spends the rest of the game trying to make you feel guilty about it.

I love what it was trying to do, but the implementation left much to be desired.

I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias.

If your usual game is Call of Duty or Battlefield, you're quite likely to go through shooters just gunning down whoever registers as an enemy on your radar. If, however, like most of us here, you play a variety of games featuring moral choices and civilian NPCs who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, then yeah...this game will probably not have the same lesson to teach you. We already KNOW what this game has to show, but then, we're not the target audience of the Spec Ops label.

How charmingly elitest of you.

You know, when I was asking about if gamers could talk about anything without ripping each other apart, this is what I was talking about.

So calling people out for their douchbaggery is "ripping them apart" eh? Good to know.

He didn't really seem like a douchebag. It was more that he was confirming the existence of the causal market. Also you more or less just called him an elitist and walked away, without elaborating on the point.

Okay, here's some elaboration: I'm really fucking sick of this constant "Us and Them" dicotomy, and it's especially strong on this site. Thyunda came across as snooty and condescending with, "I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias." Trying to make people who like Military FPS's out as some kind of undesirable. As if the Escapist was this last bastion of "thinking men".

Pal, no matter how you look at it, there are a large amount of unfortunate implications surrounding the modern military shooters, and while I have no problem with the people that like them, they clearly either don't see these implications or they don't care. The point of Spec Ops the Line is that it's pointing out the darker and more horrific side to modern military shooters to people who normally don't see it or think about it. That's what he was trying to point out.

The Medal of Honor games maybe, but I fail to see what unfortunate implications there are in the CoD games besides "player characters are all secretly Captain America" and "air support is awesome".

And before you go into the whole "shooting brown people in the desert," CoD4, MW2, MW3, and BlOps 1 all had Russia as the main antagonist. Hell, in Blops 2, you fight mercenary Cubans, and they had invisibility suits, killer robots, a secret underground science base, and a laser equipped techno-fortress in Haiti.

 

[The Random One]

I find the discussion over the forced choice strange. The Line had a problem, yes, and the problem was that it was unsubtle as fuck. Every time it touched ground well (which it did often) it announced that by shouting OH NO LOOK AT THAT HOW HORRIBLE YOU ARE PLAYING A VIDEOGAME IN WHICH YOU KILL PEOPLE GASP instead of allowing the player to reach that conclusion through introspection. The in-game tips are the worst offender: they clearly were going for 'slow erosion of mind' but the first tips to show their hand are already saying heavy-handed shit like YOU ARE ALONE NOW.

It certainly deserves kudos for trying, but I'm not sure it deserves them for succeeding. It's certainly better than another drab shooter, though.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

It would be more effective if there was an actual choice. Rather than being forced too.

Remember No russian? remember this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NMnnMRWJ-0

Do you feel like a hero yet?

You could fire over their heads. You could not fire at all. You could take one of the many prompts the game throws up and skip it entirely.

 

[Erttheking]

That comic perfectly encapsulates my main problem with the game.

It forces you to do something and won't let you progress until you do, then spends the rest of the game trying to make you feel guilty about it.

I love what it was trying to do, but the implementation left much to be desired.

I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias.

If your usual game is Call of Duty or Battlefield, you're quite likely to go through shooters just gunning down whoever registers as an enemy on your radar. If, however, like most of us here, you play a variety of games featuring moral choices and civilian NPCs who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, then yeah...this game will probably not have the same lesson to teach you. We already KNOW what this game has to show, but then, we're not the target audience of the Spec Ops label.

How charmingly elitest of you.

You know, when I was asking about if gamers could talk about anything without ripping each other apart, this is what I was talking about.

So calling people out for their douchbaggery is "ripping them apart" eh? Good to know.

He didn't really seem like a douchebag. It was more that he was confirming the existence of the causal market. Also you more or less just called him an elitist and walked away, without elaborating on the point.

Okay, here's some elaboration: I'm really fucking sick of this constant "Us and Them" dicotomy, and it's especially strong on this site. Thyunda came across as snooty and condescending with, "I think it's more aimed at people who play first-person, modern-military shooters more often than us here. We lack the fascination with using the latest hardware to wipe out poorly equipped and disorganised militias." Trying to make people who like Military FPS's out as some kind of undesirable. As if the Escapist was this last bastion of "thinking men".

Pal, no matter how you look at it, there are a large amount of unfortunate implications surrounding the modern military shooters, and while I have no problem with the people that like them, they clearly either don't see these implications or they don't care. The point of Spec Ops the Line is that it's pointing out the darker and more horrific side to modern military shooters to people who normally don't see it or think about it. That's what he was trying to point out.

The Medal of Honor games maybe, but I fail to see what unfortunate implications there are in the CoD games besides "player characters are all secretly Captain America" and "air support is awesome".

And before you go into the whole "shooting brown people in the desert," CoD4, MW2, MW3, and BlOps 1 all had Russia as the main antagonist. Hell, in Blops 2, you fight mercenary Cubans, and they had invisibility suits, killer robots, a secret underground science base, and a laser equipped techno-fortress in Haiti.

Then I won't say how it's about "shooting brown people in the desert," it's about "shooting Russians because Russians are evil, because we say so." Blops 2 I have not played however, therefore I am not talking about that one. I have played Cod 4 through Blops 1 though, so I feel confident in criticizing them one, battlefield bad company 2 and battlefield 3 did the same thing now that I think about it, although to be fair I had a hard time following what the fuck was going on in BE 3. Maybe Blops 2 breaks the formula and is actually pretty good, but it came out after Spec Ops, so Spec Ops wasn't trying to deconstruct that game. The point is that while I don't hate the people who play these games or the games themselves (I fucking hate the term spunkgargleweewee) you can't deny that they're not particularly deep, just saying "kill these people because because" and said people have a tendency to be foreigners, especially Russians for some reason. I mean, when was the last time there was a game about France taking over the world?

 

[Erttheking]

I didn't really like Spec Ops. Or, rather, I didn't like *why* it happened. So the 33rd were saving civies, yet they were also executing them when they were interrogating Gould? What the hell?

And what the hell was that back in the hotel? Why were they rounding up civies like cattle and putting some of them on their knees?

I DON'T UNDERSTAND, GAME. WHY EXECUTE CIVILIANS WHEN YOU'RE INTERROGATING GOULD, YET YOU SAY YOU'RE SAVING CIVILIANS? HRJGKNRGNGHRNG.

...
I didn't get up and leave the computer because it was too emotional. I left because I was frustrated to bits from their hypocrisy. Then the game calls me an asshole BECAUSE of their hypocrisy.

The idea is that the 33rd basically formed a totalitarian state in order to keep the few thousand people still alive in Dubai alive. The idea is that if they need to kill a few people so that the rest of the population falls into line, it's quite a simple concept, and it's a safe bet that the people that they executed were helping the rebels. Also there's that, the rebellion that the CIA had started was threatening the very fragile state of Dubai, and could result in everyone or nearly everyone getting killed if the 33rd didn't end it quickly and brutally. Not to mention we're never told what they were going to do with those civilians, we automatically assume that they're going to be killed because that's what we've been programed to think by modern military shooters.

Also, the idea is that by the end, you become just as bad as Konrad and the 33rd, you became exactly what you were fighting.