I'm not cynical like others, so I won't insult anyone if they like Spec Ops: The Line. They're making fun of the game that is immature in their opinion, but they're also immature ones for making fun of others.
And now that I have this behind me, I can say that, unfortunately, I wasn't convinced by the vision of the creators. I would even call it pretentious. After all, what's the point of creating a game that will make you feel guilty for playing it? I understand that the choice of this medium translates into criticism of other games in the genre and a reversal of player expectations. However, this is a story that would work better as part of a movie.
It's hard to induce guilt if we don't have a real impact on many things. It's also difficult if there's a narrative being pushed that all of this isn't even real. All the emotional weight disappears. At the same time, it's not that the plot of Spec Ops: The Line has nothing of value. The depiction of PTSD, the blaming of others, the gradual degradation of a person.... These themes appealed to me. Especially when they were accompanied by impressive details, as they were more subtle than the rest of the game.
It's just a shame that the story is problematic by a few decisions and certainly not as deep as the developers wanted it to be. To make matters worse, it is accompanied by mediocre gameplay that induces a little dissonance in places. At times, you can feel encouraged to do a better job of killing enemies, and on top of that, the scripted scenes aim for a similar effect as in Call of Duty, which was certainly part of the critique by the creators.
It's too ambitious given its limited resources. And while I respect it for trying to create something different within the FPS genre, it is far from actually being good.
And now that I have this behind me, I can say that, unfortunately, I wasn't convinced by the vision of the creators. I would even call it pretentious. After all, what's the point of creating a game that will make you feel guilty for playing it? I understand that the choice of this medium translates into criticism of other games in the genre and a reversal of player expectations. However, this is a story that would work better as part of a movie.
It's hard to induce guilt if we don't have a real impact on many things. It's also difficult if there's a narrative being pushed that all of this isn't even real. All the emotional weight disappears. At the same time, it's not that the plot of Spec Ops: The Line has nothing of value. The depiction of PTSD, the blaming of others, the gradual degradation of a person.... These themes appealed to me. Especially when they were accompanied by impressive details, as they were more subtle than the rest of the game.
It's just a shame that the story is problematic by a few decisions and certainly not as deep as the developers wanted it to be. To make matters worse, it is accompanied by mediocre gameplay that induces a little dissonance in places. At times, you can feel encouraged to do a better job of killing enemies, and on top of that, the scripted scenes aim for a similar effect as in Call of Duty, which was certainly part of the critique by the creators.
It's too ambitious given its limited resources. And while I respect it for trying to create something different within the FPS genre, it is far from actually being good.