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If you read my recent(ish) preview, you’ll know that Spec Ops: The Line has caught my attention. On first glance it looks like Yet Another Military Shooter, and on the surface at least, that’s true: it’s hundreds of men with guns, lots of convenient waist-high cover, and plenty of bits when you run to the latter so you can shoot at the former – or the other way round, if you’re somewhat inept. There’s a trio of Delta Operatives in the leading role, and the main bloke, Martin Walker, is voiced by Nolan North. So far, so familiar.
Underneath all the usual explosions and chugging of testosterone, however, there’s something slightly unusual: an unremittingly bleak tone. Not just in the usual, “let’s use lots of shadows and have everyone swear a lot”, but really bleak. Wading-through-piles-of-dead-bodies bleak, served with a side salad of buzzing flies. It all gets a bit much for Walker’s two companions, Adams and Lugo, resulting in stressed-out bickering; occasionally it becomes like one of those family car journeys where everyone sulks in silence. Only here, it’s sulking with guns and corpses.
In the most recent demo… something happens. I’ve been asked not say what it is, exactly, and I’m not going to either, because it would spoil it for you. As I’ve already covered the game recently in a fair bit of detail, this leaves me in a rather unenviable position. I’m left trying to discuss a sequence that I can’t describe, that I have no inclination to describe. Even though I really rather want to.
Still, I’m not totally hamstrung: it’s possible to talk around a subject, much as it’s possible to talk about something that isn’t there – a dearth or an absence. But this certainly isn’t an empty void we’re (not) talking about. It’s thing, an occurrence. And it’s likely to provoke a reaction when you finally catch up and see it for yourself.
That’s the thing about this game, you see: it’s trying hard to be something. The Joseph Conrad and Apocalypse Now influences I mentioned last time are enough, in my own case, to make me keep an eye on a project, but it’s now obvious that the developers are keen to make something of their own, rather just simply re-doing the story of Mr / Colonel Kurtz. Case in point is the fact John Konrad, the Kurtz equivalent in Spec Ops: The Line, doesn’t seem to have quite such a towering influence on the story. He’s important, sure, but it’s Walker and his own character development that seems to be sitting at the fore.
So yes, Spec Ops: The Line has an awesome bit I can’t talk about. Apologies if it seems pointless to write a preview that points that out and then says very little, but I don’t see it that way. In this case, the intention to do something is as notable as what is actually being done – but you’ll have to wait until the end of the year to decide whether or not you agree with me.
There are other things to wait on, too – not least the question of how you reconcile a story like this – one that’s clearly underlining the horrors of war – with a game that still celebrates the wet pop of a successful headshot, or that allows you to finish your dying foes with a cinematic curb stomp?
It’s an awkward question, and one I put directly to the game’s lead writer, Walt Williams. Stay tuned for a feature exploring these taxing issues in the near future.
Spec Ops: The Line will be released on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 later in the year.
