Poll: Is Spec Ops: the Line overrated?

[Lugbzurg]

I think you're missing a few key points here.

No one really praises it for the gameplay, just the story. If it were a film, it wouldn't have been able to convay its message or plot nearly as well. Being a videogame makes it a work of genius.

Also, I've seen Shindler's List. I'd say Spec Ops: The Line has it beat by multiple landslides for its story.

Far more powerful message, right there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlBrenhzMZI

 

[Frission]

It's a good game, which actually uses the fact that it's a game to pass a message. It's easy to show how evil the enemy can be and dehumanize them, but it's a different thing all together to turn the mirror on to you.

 

[predatorpulse7]

It is merely a good game, not the GOTY that so many here claim it to be.

It suffers, much like the Walking Dead, from movie-itis, which wouldn't terrible in itself if it weren't for the mind numbingly banal gameplay. You basically have a shooting gallery from behind cover with 2-3 commands that you can issue to your team-mates and you have to suffer this drudgery for 15 chapters(for me it already got old around chapter 8). The story is decent, even if it borrows quite a lot from Apocalypse now, but it only looks good because most shooters have awful or no stories, so the bar is already pretty freaking low. There are quite a handful of games that have better stories but which also don't forget that they are VIDEOGAMES and since this is a different medium that cinema, the main focus should be on having fun GAMEPLAY. Remember that word fellow Escapists, GAMEPLAY? Somewhere down the road a lot of games transformed themselves into movies-lite with 1-2 choices to give the ilussions that you are participating in what goes on on-screen and awful QTE events.

Not to mention that towards the end of the game, the pseudo-intellectual approach of "look how war has changed us, you the viewer/player are to blame" started to really wear thin. This whole "war is terrible, why are you playing this game where you are shooting so many people" would have had an effect if the whole game wasn't so linear and you actually had some quasi-meaningful choices. And please don't say that you can ALT-F4 at any time to save yourself from the "violence". No one pays 20 bucks for a game just to quit soon afterwards because they supposedly feel guilty about killing pixels. I felt that this whole approach was a lame attempt to make the game feel "deeper" since the gameplay is so weak and boring.

It's definitely the best military shooter I've played in a while but it isn't even the best in its category(shooters) for year 2012(Far Cry 3 would probably be it) and yet some people deem this the Game of the Year. Mind boggling. Personally, I think it's because boring military shooters are responsible for the biggest franchises out there and since they have little to no story(they are mostly multiplayer events), some people decided to latch on to the one military shooter that had the semblance of a story, ignoring the fact that there are games for 2012 with both better stories and better gameplay. Spec Ops the line is a hope that the modern military shooter genre might be saved so I think that's why so many people overrate it.

 

[Tharwen]

The twist at the end felt like the bad Twilight Zone episodes

OK, I'm going full spoiler in this post. Just a warning.

Walker (and by extension, the player) had been using Conrad as his excuse to do the terrible things he'd done. When Conrad was revealed to be dead, he didn't have an excuse to hide behind any more and he was forced to openly confront what he'd done.

The twist wasn't meant to be 'HAHA TRICKED YOU' like they so often are. It was more like the blindfold had suddenly been pulled off and the player was made to see the game again in an entirely different light.

 

[Teshi]

Not overrated. Is it perfect? Of course not. But it tried to do something complex and interesting, and it generally succeeded, while managing to be commercially competitive. In a market flooded with clones and sequels and bland stuff that's been focus-groupped to death I give that massive credit.

Plus, you have to kind of admire the balls required to make a game that says "fuck you for playing our game."

 

[Naeras]

It's definitely the best military shooter I've played in a while but it isn't even the best in its category(shooters) for year 2012(Far Cry 3 would probably be it) and yet some people deem this the Game of the Year. Mind boggling. Personally, I think it's because boring military shooters are responsible for the biggest franchises out there and since they have little to no story(they are mostly multiplayer events), some people decided to latch on to the one military shooter that had the semblance of a story, ignoring the fact that there are games for 2012 with both better stories and better gameplay. Spec Ops the line is a hope that the modern military shooter genre might be saved so I think that's why so many people overrate it.

Nope. I don't even like military shooters.

I consider it to be my game of the year because it was the most gripping experience I've had with a game in years(Far Cry 3, while good, wasn't even close in that regard). I don't give a crap about military shooters and haven't played through one since CoD 4, and yet here comes a military shooter with mediocre gameplay and manages to completely glue me to the screen, and how all the little details in the gameplay reinforced the narrative. I could write up all the reasons why I hold this game in such regard, but I don't actually have time for that right now. However, I can assure you that it's not merely because "it's a modern military shooter with a semblance of story". Because that already existed, and was called Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

I don't blame you, or anyone else, for not liking the game as much as I did, though. It's not for everyone. It was definitely for me, however.

 

[Phototoxin]

It has a good plot, story and character arcs. Gameplay is decent, but I wouldn't say it's revolutionary.

 

[Brotha Desmond]

It was a great game, but would be better without all the hype.

For the most part, this site is the only place where this game got ANY hype at all. Most other places dismissed it as a sup-par gears of war knockoff.

To be fair the only two places I get game info from are this site and rooster teeth.

 

[TilMorrow]

Yeah Spec Ops is a really overrated game, especially when you realise it's literally Black Ops' plot set in a single location. Plus the repetitive and annoying cover-based game play doesn't help as you start hating the game after the 5th encounter. Also I don't get this stuff about the developers sending a message. What message is it that they supposedly were trying to convey through the game? Because I was fairly certain that they intentions with this game was to create a COD competitor... As well as include battles which involved you fighting as the sand beneath you collapsed into a swirling sinkhole but they ended up not including that section at all...

 

[Karoshi]

Yeah Spec Ops is a really overrated game, especially when you realise it's literally Black Ops' plot set in a single location. Plus the repetitive and annoying cover-based game play doesn't help as you start hating the game after the 5th encounter. Also I don't get this stuff about the developers sending a message. What message is it that they supposedly were trying to convey through the game? Because I was fairly certain that they intentions with this game was to create a COD competitor... As well as include battles which involved you fighting as the sand beneath you collapsed into a swirling sinkhole but they ended up not including that section at all...

Not trying to ridicule you, but did you in fact play Spec Ops: The Line? Just how on earth do these two plots compare? I'm really curious about the parallels.

As for the message... Most players agree that it had a strong message, they just disagree what exactly it was. Was Spec Ops pointing out the flaw in the modern war shooter genre? Was it asking the question, whether the player is responsible for doing something bad in a game? Some say that it criticized war and its brutality, others say that it focuses on PTSD and the effects of war on the psyche of soldiers.

It was marketed as a competitor to COD, but never meant to be one. The tacked on multiplayer makes me irrationally angry, since those resources could have been spent much better elsewhere. It's the story which shines, not the gameplay (although I enjoyed that one too).

 

[TilMorrow]

Not trying to ridicule you, but did you in fact play Spec Ops: The Line? Just how on earth do these two plots compare? I'm really curious about the parallels.

As for the message... Most players agree that it had a strong message, they just disagree what exactly it was. Was Spec Ops pointing out the flaw in the modern war shooter genre? Was it asking the question, whether the player is responsible for doing something bad in a game? Some say that it criticized war and its brutality, others say that it focuses on PTSD and the effects of war on the psyche of soldiers.

It was marketed as a competitor to COD, but never meant to be one. The tacked on multiplayer makes me irrationally angry, since those resources could have been spent much better elsewhere. It's the story which shines, not the gameplay (although I enjoyed that one too).

Yes, I in fact did play Spec Ops: The Line. I even went through each of the endings after doing the first one I chose and still wondered why people thought this game was any good.
The plots both have lots of similarities. They both have the phantom/dead mentor/antagonist floating around that you don't actually find out about until the literal end of the game (although Spec Ops makes the stupid mistake of sticking Konrad in a place he shouldn't have been halfway through the game making the 'twist' at the end unsurprising), both the main characters go through a lot of wartime shit that makes them crazy(Mason goes through conditioning, prison and Nam, Walker apparently was involved in some shit before the game that Konrad helped his team pull out of and he killed people), both of the plots of the game revolve around saving large numbers of people except BlOps is about the whole of America rather than just the survivors holed up in Dubai. There really isn't that much difference between the two except that Black Ops made a lot more sense. Why? Because there was a number of moments in Spec Ops that don't link up even if you factor in that Konrad hasn't really been speaking to Walker throughout the whole game. For example, the moment at the bridge after rappelling down from the room that Walker acquired the walkie-talkie in. According to the plot, those snipers shouldn't actually be there meaning that Walker should not have been hurt by them and that Lugo and Adams wouldn't have been able to see or fire on them then however that point is refuted if you decided to try and save/ignore both of the 'hanging men' and get hurt by their shots and your companions can actually kill the four snipers without asking Walker if he was fucking insane. Additionally the ambush that comes 2 minutes later makes no sense either if you follow your 'orders'.

...Okay I'm completely lost regarding this supposed message or messages. What flaw was it trying to point out? It was neither a parody of modern shooter genre or truly grim realistic shooter and seemed frankly stupid at some points. I'm equally lost on the player responsibility point. The game forces you to choose from a list of preset choices, most of which lead to the same outcome anyway which really ticked me off. I mean there was plenty of moments when I thought why can't we choose to have Walker stop, turn his ass around and do what he was originally ordered to do, namely report there were people in Dubai and get them out. But nope says the game. You have to follow my stupid plot and blow things up cause I say so which also pissed me off as one of the endings showed it was highly possible to get evac conveys into the city with no trouble. On the war and brutality and PTSD points, the game makes a poor criticism/investigation if any into those themes by not only making the game not about war but rather stupid conflicts between people all from the same side with an apparent one man army (cause your companions barely do anything worthwhile) and clumsily rushing through Walker's descent into 'supposed' insanity.

I'm also kinda lost at your last point, if the developers intended the game to be a competitor to COD and even marketed it with that intent then how was it never meant to be one? (Which it wasn't as Activision isn't exactly shaking in it's boots). Though I agree about the tacked on Multiplayer, especially when it's empty, that it could have been ignored to try and make the game better than it was.

Though you want a game with a good story? Try the Zero Escape series, preferably Virtue's Last Reward. The story in that? Fucking Amazing compared to Spec Ops.

 

[Zen Toombs]

No problem [user]Brotha Desmond[/user], just letting you know. ^_^

Not trying to ridicule you, but did you in fact play Spec Ops: The Line? Just how on earth do these two plots compare? I'm really curious about the parallels.

As for the message... Most players agree that it had a strong message, they just disagree what exactly it was. Was Spec Ops pointing out the flaw in the modern war shooter genre? Was it asking the question, whether the player is responsible for doing something bad in a game? Some say that it criticized war and its brutality, others say that it focuses on PTSD and the effects of war on the psyche of soldiers.

It was marketed as a competitor to COD, but never meant to be one. The tacked on multiplayer makes me irrationally angry, since those resources could have been spent much better elsewhere. It's the story which shines, not the gameplay (although I enjoyed that one too).

The main two parallels I can think of (at least for BLOPERS #1, didn't play the second) is "just cause you're the PC doesn't make you a good guy" (glass + mouth + face punching = fun times?) and "just cause you experience it doesn't make it real", a la

Spoiler: OMG SPOILERS

Walkers hallucinations of corpses being living people and the Colonel's voice from the radio

VS

The PC's hallucination of his buddy who died in a soviet prison, the names of whom I cannot recall.

As for the tacked on multiplayer, the developers hated it too. They actually didn't spend any assets on creating the multiplayer, another group actually made it. Also, you might have noticed that every achievement has a "single player only" requirement.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Well Spec Ops The Line was far from perfect. Lot's of the great story-driven videogames are far from perfect. Silent Hill 2 had nauseating game play, The Walking Dead had a couple of pretty bad bits, Amnesia could back you into an inescapable corner if you didn't save regularly, Uncharted's (yes, Uncharted, good story) protagonist was an utter douche, Lone Survivor had baffling-ly odd design, etc. But none of those games are over-rated, their modern gaming classics. You wouldn't say The Usual Suspects was bad because the boat bit wasn't that great, you wouldn't say Aliens is over rated because the characters consisted largely of morons.

And, in the end, Spec Ops and these other games are better than lot's of AAA movies these days. Considering Syndicate would have had an above average story if it were as blockbuster film then Spec Ops is out Hurt Locker, Silent Hill 2 is out Memento, The Walking Dead is our The Walking Dead. Uncharted is out Indiana Jones. Be thankful.

 

[afroebob]

I think its a goddamn brilliant game. However, its hard for this game to be overrated due to its polarized opinions. People who say this is the best video game narrative of all time and whatnot is in my opinion overrated. However, most people brushed over it and many critics wrote it off as a Call of Duty clone and bashed its multiplayer so that is, to me, underrated.

 

[awdrifter]

Maybe my expectations where too high because of all the reviews, but this game is way overrated imo. I'm not rating this as anything else, it's a game. But a game can tell a story, it can create an emotional impact, it can be fun or serious. This game fails at most aspects that makes a game good. This developer obviously has very little experience with PC controls, binding the sprint button, action button, and cover button to the same key is bs. Also, not letting players use the number keys to switch weapons is also bs. Once you started sprinting, they won't let you stop the run animation. These are the most basic third person shooter elements, and they got it wrong. I have so many bs deaths because I accidentally got into cover rather than keep running, or I can swap the weapon quickly when one runs out of ammo. Or when I wanted to use the turret but it snapped me out of cover instead.

I know this game is supposed to be story driven and it's trying to tell a serious story, but when the basic game mechanics is buggy, the player can't be immersed into the game, because the controls are fighting you every step of the way. Maybe because I just played Far Cry 3, which was a far better game in terms of the shooting mechanics, but the deaths in Spec Ops just feels like cheap bs deaths and it serves to frustrate the player. I would say this game is at most worth a 6, which is average. The shooting mechanics is below average, but I can appreciate the game is trying to tell a serious story.

 

[Dango]

Yes. I think it's a pretty bad game, and I will laugh in the face of anyone who considers it art.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Yes. I think it's a pretty bad game, and I will laugh in the face of anyone who considers it art.

If there isn't at least one person saying it ain't art...it ain't art.

 

[blindthrall]

I will say this much. This game would not have existed if not for Farcry 2. They both build on Heart of Darkness, and they both make you question why you enjoy virtual murder. I was acutely aware of Spec Ops's agenda before the phosphorus scene, and Burn Ward Madonna With Child still fucked with me. I knew I could always stop playing. Know why I didn't? Curiosity. I needed to see the bloody end of things, Spec Ops complete argument, "the horror" as Brando put it. And I'm glad I did. Because I loved the end. It has my third favorite line from a game(What is a drop of rain compared to the storm/The only frontier that has ever existed is the Self)-

Walker: This isn't real. You're just in my head.

Konrad: Are you sure? Maybe it's all in mine.

And it struck me. The (agent) 47 dead were worth it for this moment of clarity.

The player's Konrad.