Spec Ops: The Line Ending

[Anti-American Eagle]

My choices were my own and they were more and more depressing the more I thought about it, that was pretty much the end of shooters for me. I could have stopped at any time, but I didn't.

Precisely. I've heard people complain about how a lot of the big story moments take the choice away from the player (the WP scene in particular) but I think that that's really the point. Getting the player to blame the developers for forcing their hand, in the same way that Walker blames Konrad and the 33rd. But, like Walker, the player is only fooling him/herself when in reality there is a choice for both of them: just walk away.

God damn this game is meta.

That's exactly what I loved about it. You had the choice all along to stop playing whenever, just like Walker had the choice to walk away but didn't. This one has directly led to all my copies of Call of Modern Duty Warfare: Combined Black Operations to start collecting dust on the shelf.

For me it was my copy of bulletstorm at first... the others followed quickly.

 

[SlightlyEvil]

Finished the game just yesterday. Tried to save Gould; I felt like the mission was more important than the lives of a few civilians. Even knowing the big shock was coming (not much specifics, but I did know WP was involved, so I knew I was up for something bad when that scene started), it still hit me hard, and I went for the more merciful options afterward (go for the snipers instead of the hanging victims, scare off the crowd instead of shooting them). The exception was Riggs. I was so pissed at him by that point, I picked up the gun and walked away. Didn't stop, didn't look back. The screaming was genuinely unsettling, but I felt like he deserved it, and it seemed in-character too.

 

[DTH1337]

I tried to save Gould, but after the ensuing firefight, he still died on me and Lugo was pissed afterwards.

Shot the military guy over the civilian because I figured the civilian had a good reason to take water (was it water he took? I can't remember).

I let the CIA guy burn because I just felt it wasn't worth wasting bullets on him.

Shot at the civilians who killed Lugo because I liked the guy and those civilians didn't have to kill him like that. I felt both angry and disgusted as I shot them.

And finally, after shooting the illusion of Konrad instead of Walker, I decided to throw my weapon down to the rescue team because I instantly said then and there "No more".

 

[Reikan]

Loved the game, in as much as it can be loved. I personally, tried to save Gould over the civs (the mission). Took the third option rather then kill either of the two hanging guys. Shot the CIA guy, he was gonna die anyway. And I felt he had a point, to protect the US the truth had to be buried. Shot all the civies who killed my buddy because at this point I felt the best option was to purge the city of life.

 

[Animyr]

I recently finished the game was well. Tried to go through it acting as an action hero would.

-Let the soldier go (for the moment.) 'Murica, and all that.
-Tried to save Gould. I figured that Walker would be foolish enough to think that he could manage to pull that off while still saving the civilians.
-Killed the snipers. After the WP incident, it made sense to me that Walker would be looking for revenge against Konrad, imaginary or otherwise.
-Shot Riggs. I felt dirty enough already without letting a man burn to death, even if he had set me up.
-Killed a few of the civilians. I thought that maybe I could push my way out, but that didn't work, so I decided that the game wasn't giving me a choice and shot one to scare them off. Only later did I consider the possibility of meleeing, or shooting the air. Whoops.
-Shot "Konrad." My reasoning for that was not that Walker blamed Konrad, but that even though he had been forced to acknowledge his crimes, Walker (being ever the optimist) didn't deem himself beyond redemption and thus didn't want to die.
-Surrendered to the evac team. Walker was past ready to leave.

Could have used a bit more fleshing out of the characters--the team dynamic, for instance, or Walkers history with Konrad. Overall though this is easily one of my favorite videogame stories of all time. Moral ambiguity, prominent character arcs, storytelling though gameplay, genre criticism, genre bending, genre parody, organic moral choice, leaning on the fourth wall, symbolism and foreshadowing out the wazoo, a decent (if admittedly derivative) ending twist, and a general mind screw...what's not to like? Personally I enjoyed the gameplay as well.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

One thing that I didn't fully get:
Since Konrad was dead, was the damned 33rd real, or just one of Walker's delusions?

 

[luckshotpro]

I shot the civilians because I was so blinded by all the shit going on that there didn't look like any other way through.
Anyway, I also got the good ending where Walker gets extracted by the military.

 

[Toy Master Typhus]

I'm actually astounded at the amount of people who shot the civilians who hanged Lugo. They've had the world fucked up by the American military, of course they'd do something like that.

Yes but that isn't the most objective way of looking at it. U.S. Military comes and attempts rescue but the current political climate screws it up causing friction between two forces, after the storm and the friction breaks down the 33rd breaks down and focuses on their own survival. Which furthers the friction because the people who DO rely on the 33rd start taking action on them. But having failed unable to deal with the 33rd take their anger out on the U.N. and volunteer workers since they don't shoot back. So after hanging a U.S. Soldier from a group sent to help them is it really surprising that they too would turn on the populace after being attack for an action they are not personally responsible for.

If the people who are associated share the same amount of blame as the person who pulled the trigger though it justfies the hanging it also justifies the response of being shot.

One thing that I didn't fully get:
Since Konrad was dead, was the damned 33rd real, or just one of Walker's delusions?

They were in the beginning but the people Gould and the CIA were fighting were insurgents who used the abandoned U.S. Gear. The reason he sees them U.S. Soldiers is because after he dropped all that White Phosperous on the Refuges the 33rd were saving. He thought he was fighting the U.S. army because he thought if he killed enough U.S. soldiers it would absolve him of the crime of murdering civilians, He thought he could just throw the crime on the U.S. and by abandoning it seperate himself from the actual crime. "I didn't choose to burn these guys the U.S. did" And like the dude I first qouted people would rally behind that.

 

[sagitel]

One thing that I didn't fully get:
Since Konrad was dead, was the damned 33rd real, or just one of Walker's delusions?

They were in the beginning but the people Gould and the CIA were fighting were insurgents who used the abandoned U.S. Gear. The reason he sees them U.S. Soldiers is because after he dropped all that White Phosperous on the Refuges the 33rd were saving. He thought he was fighting the U.S. army because he thought if he killed enough U.S. soldiers it would absolve him of the crime of murdering civilians, He thought he could just throw the crime on the U.S. and by abandoning it seperate himself from the actual crime. "I didn't choose to burn these guys the U.S. did" And like the dude I first qouted people would rally behind that.

i think the whole 33rd is real. he does see real soldiers and kill them. as we see in the last there are only a few of them left. like 10. so its either walker killing enough soldiers and destroying the 33rd or walker sees the 33rd destroyed when he gets to Konrad. so it kind of symbolize the whole i did my objective thing. ...
...
..
..
.

i just proved i was wrong.

damn it the game is a mindfuck!

 

[Kopikatsu]

- Killed the guy who shot the CIA agent (The alternative was let him escape since he was moving closer and closer to the zip line, and that wasn't going to happen)
- Tried to save Gould (The mission is everything)
- Shot the guy who took more than his ration's worth of water. (His crime was worse than the soldier's on many levels)
- Let Riggs burn to death. (I wasn't willing to waste my only bullet. And he was a dick.)
- Shot the civilians for executing Lugo (They deserved no less. Also, I had a gun and they did not. Bang.)
- Shot Konrad. (Walker isn't ready to go down just yet.)
- Executed the rescue team (Welcome to Dubai.)

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, my friend.

I hate that quote because it's demonstrably wrong. The very first written legal system in the world was based off lex talionis, and it worked just fine.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I shot the ropes for those people hanging from the bridge, but they died anyway. I tried to save Gould, and I didn't shoot the CIA guy. And I punched one of the civilians, and then I think Adams shot them... but anyway, yeah, Walker shot himself at the end. Depressing.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I left the CIA agent to burn. Mainly because I felt the arsehole deserved it for what he did and I didn't want to waste a bullet on him.

As for the lynch mob, I understood why they hated Walker and his squad, because at that point I also hated Walker for what he had done. But as I tried to leave the mob kept on pushing me back, even when I had my rifle in the ready position. I eventually meleed one of them in anger.

As my last squad member started firing I freaked out a little, thinking he was mowing down the crowd. But he was just shooting skywards.

In the end I left Dubai.

Someone had to speek for those that were left behind.

 

[NorthernStar]

I played through the game three times to get all the endings.

On my first playthrough I made the following choices:

-Didn't shoot the CIA agent who was holding the soldier(didn't even know I could, but apparently if you do so, you save yourself a fight in the next room).
- Rescued the hostages instead of Gould.
- Shot the soldier who murdered the civ's family (had no idea I could shoot the snipers)
- Meleed the crowd when Lugo was murdered (I didn't want to shoot the soldiers, but the idea of shooting in the air never occurred to me. In the end, I punched one of them after which they all ran away. Got the trophy for the peaceful solution).
- Killed the CIA agent.
- Didn't commit suicide and let the soldiers take me home. I was actually tempted to just let them shoot me as Walker was obviously a broken man in so many ways and him going home just felt... not right.

On my second playthrough, I rescued Gould, shot the snipers, shot the crowd and left the CIA agent to die. Most of those choices left me feeling even more miserable than the game already made me feel.

I think the entire game is just Walker reliving his memories from when he died in the first scene after the helicopter crash. Basically, I think it's him in Limbo reliving everything that happened. There are a lot of fun little visual clues for this as well.

Definitely my GOTY 2012.

 

[JamesStone]

One thing that I didn't fully get:
Since Konrad was dead, was the damned 33rd real, or just one of Walker's delusions?

I like to believe Konrad was Walker's second-in-command, and Walker was the true captain of the 33rd. Everything that happened was Walker trying to rationalize his failures to protect the city and his soldiers, by creating an alternative persona. If you think of the 33rd as a representation of the desert, Delta force as the actual 33rd, and the insurgents as the civilians, it makes sense.

OT:
-Tried to save Gould

-Tried to kill the soldiers by sniper, when it got clear it was impossible, I used the WP.

-Went for the snipers, after "cutting" the ropes with bullets. Boy, the ending sure got me depressed, I assumed I had saved those guys.

-Didn't let Riggs burn to death. The man might have been a bastard, but he was clearing willing to die when the water was destroyed. He was just following orders, I see why he wouldn't deserve a soldier's death

-Shot Konrad immediatly. No way Walker would die. The gift of death is too good for him. Contrary to Riggs, he wasn't following orders, he was just doing it because he wanted to be the hero. A tragic figure, yes, but he deserves to live and suffer.

-Gave up my gun and went home. I figured the "fade-to-white" at the end meant that Walker's life was doomed to insanity.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

Let's see if I can remember...

1) Saved Gould (Mission critical asset)
2) Shot the hanging soldier (Five deaths over some stolen water? Please...)
3) Shot Riggs
4) Mowed down the civilians with childlike glee (What?)
5) Shot Konrad (it's obvious this a test. I saw this bullshit coming a mile away)
6) Let Walker go Home (it's one guy versus, like, five dudes with assault rifles and good nights sleep)

I hated this game. With it's inability to decide what the hell it's supposed to be about, the overwrought symbolism, complete lack of subtlety, pretention that drips off every line and hated for the player, I'm glad this game turned out to be a financial failure.

 

[Azure Knight-Zeo]

-I saved the civilians over Gould.
-I tried to kill the snipers, but after that didn't work I shot the soldier.
-Shot Riggs.
-Rifle-butted one of the civies hoping to get him out of the way, I started to panic when Adams started shooting.
-Shot Konrad, I couldn't die after comming this far.
-I thought about putting my guns down, but then I got paranoid and gunned them down.

 

[G-Force]

One thing I want to mention was how great a job did in portraying Walker's decaying mental state. As the game progressed his orders went from professional to vindictive (I want him fucking dead!) meanwhile his executions became more savage

 

[killalevi]

Well, I've made some pretty...Bad, Out the way, Stupid. Decisions in the game...
I shot the CIA Guy, Thought i was doing good, Putting him out of his misery...But no.
Killed Riggs.
But in the end i wsa leader of the 33rd...Until then.
"Epiloge" I didn't know what i was doing after the war, All the betrayls and deaths...I don't think i could've trusted anyone After that, I got up...Standed there a bit doing nothing, Then thought "Why don't i just end it all..." Then ended up shooting the guy who was trying to reason with me, I feel really bad even though it's just a game...I felt bad i shot him, I could've shot the sky or the ground...Ended up getting shot by the calvary...The tought came back "Why don't i just End it...now." Another thought came up "I could've never shot the Soldier, I'll never forget him...I'm sorry." Then i just ended...I coulden't fight anymore than what i have already.