The Line

I started this blog to talk about my adventures in EVE, Id like to branch off into other games I play. Today Id like to talk about Spec Ops: the line.
Fair warning, this blog post will contain unmarked spoilers, if you haven't yet played Spec ops: the line and think you might like to, stop reading this blog and go acquire the game. Rent it if you have a console, the games not that long, you can finish it in a day or two and I highly recommend it. It is the best game I have played in years. Only those who have played it will thus understand why I then say; I never want to play it ever again.

This is a game that has been getting a closer look by the Extra Credits team, formerly of The Escapist, presently on PA:TV, and for good reason. I'd originally passed over it when I first saw it, I brushed it off as another "gritty modern shooter" and while it is another gritty modern war shooter, I was wrong in my initial first impressions. If you've not yet heard of this game then allow me to give you a brief summery, it is a third person, tactical modern war shooter set in the fictional wasteland of Dubai after a massive sandstorm ravages the city.You play as Delta Team, a 3 man spec-ops team sent in after the fact to find out what has happened to the 33rd, an army battalion sent into the city to evacuate the citizens. The main story is based on The Heart of Darkness. If your familiar with that story then you can probably already guess much of the rest of the story.

Scratch the surface however and you'll find yourself playing not the game I first described, but rather a parody of the modern war shooter. Spec Ops: The Line is a game about post traumatic stress disorder shell shock, and how it effects those that  live  survive with it. The game toys with your expectations to begin with - you look at the cover art, the generic battle-worn soilder walking away from some sort of devastation and you think you know exactly what sort of game your going to be playing; a 5 - 10 hour long gun wank. To be sure, that's what I first thought, even after several reviews of the game. The opening sequence is a fast pased hell-ride on a helicopter, using a mini-gun to shoot down the enemy choppers chasing you. The first hour was more or less the samey cover based shooting.

Then the game introduces its first twist, the "insurgents" your fighting are rebels, armed and organised by CIA operatives, and the 33rd has gone rouge. As I progressed I found evidence of their handywork; mass graves, shanty towns, mass kidnappings, civilians being shot in the streets. Dubai it seems, has gone to hell in a hand-basket. I started progressing through the game with grim determination, a kind of rightious anger driving me on. This culminates when in one section me and my squad witness the 33rd using white phosphorus on a group of retreating rebels.

White phosphorus is a chemical element used in military smoke grenades, tracer rounds and incendiary munitions. When used in a mortar shell it can set fire to a very wide area, burning whole swaths of ground. It burns very hot and is its own fuel sources. Once ignited, it cannot be extinguished, it must burn itself out. As a weapon, its highly effective, highly demoralising, and highly unethical. To its credit, the game did not shy away from this.

In video games there are only 2 types of enemy's you can kill with impunity, 2 types of enemy's you can slaughter endlessly and never have to feel bad about. Nazi's and Zombies. After the white phosphorus incident, I had a third, the 33rd Battalion. In my eyes I was justified in whatever action needed to take to progress. Incidentally it wasn't long after that I was given the opportunity to use this weapon of terror against the 33rd.
The CIA operative we had been working with had been killed, but we had recovered a map indicating the goal of his plan, the reason he, and by proxy we, had thrown so many militia under the bus. The Gate. However when we reached that location we found what looked like half a damn army between us and the gate. Since ammo was scares in post-apocalyptic Dubai (the militia were melting silver into bullets) trying to blast our way through wasn't an option. Conveniently though there was a mortar nearby complete with WP ammo. When my heavy weapons guy pointed it out I was all for it, after watching the 33rd use WP on the defeated militia it seemed almost poetic to return the favour.
So I did.

Once the obligatory white thermal camera moment had passed we repelled down and made our way towards the gate. Dying soldiers cried out for mercy killings as we walked past. I ignored them, ammo was scares in Dubai and they deserved it.
When we reached the bridge to the gate one last solider awaited us, laying on his back, his face burnt beyond recognition. As the squad gathered round him he asked one simple question: "why?". Walker, the player character, echoed my own thoughts perfectly: "You brought this on yourselves.".
"We were helping them".
Walkers words echo my thoughts once more: "What?"

Walker, and the camera turned to face the horrible truth: Its ok, I'll understand if you don't want to look. I know I didn't, and yet, I could not look away. The camera would not shift, the game wanted me to see this, the creators wanted me to understand exactly what I had done. In the background my heavy weapons guy and my sniper argued. Like I cared, like they were saying anything I didn't already realise myself.

...to an AI, there is no such thing as the real world. How is a machine to know that the real world is not just another simulation designed to test it? In the back of my mind a part of me tried to remind myself that this wasn't real, that it was just a game. It didn't matter, the point of a simulation is to learn something about yourself, to teach yourself something about yourself that you could not have found out otherwise. This is why I play games, because I want to learn. To feel my mind figure out these impossible situations. This was the first time I can remember having frozen.

This mind has performed and illegal operation and must restart

Walker, the player-character was the one to snap me out of it. "We have to keep moving". The words were spoken to the squad, but the camera angle meant he was facing me directly when he said it. Slowly it clicked in my head, the only way out, was forward. Finish the game and perhaps you can redeem yourself in the process. Walker seemed to be thinking the same thing, throughout the rest of the game, the goal was saving the civilians, stop the 33rd. Yet as I crawl out of the mass grave that I created, I hear a shout; "murderer". More 33rd shooting at me. Or are they? I don't know any more, I'm not sure I even care. As I push through the game things seem so surreal, the same shooter mechanics that earlier made the game seem like just another shooter juxtapose the grimdark story I am descending into. The game seems to reinforce this, always we go down. I hadn't noticed at first, but its become hard to miss. Every other checkpoint we seem to rappel down, or use a zip-line to move ever downwards. The ground itself seems to swallow me up constantly.

It was here that I had to retire to my bed. I had booted the game up after an evening of sleeper ops with the corp and alliance in EVE, so it was late at night when I finally got around to playing the game. I had intended to play for an hour or two, but an hour or two was all the time the game needed to hook me in. When I finaly when to bed, it was the early hours of the morning. Sleep did not come easy to me. I kept thinking back to the WP friendly fire incident. I'd felt so justified in what I was doing at the time, to find out the truth of my actions had been just pulled the rug out from under me.

When I awoke the next day I knew I was going to finish the game, yet oddly, strangely, I was not looking forward to this. Normally when I'm playing a great game, a game I just cant put down, its because the game is so engaging and fun. Spec ops is not fun. Engaging, yes, but fun? Not by the usual definition.
I usually define fun as; learning and enjoying. Well I was definitely learning, but I was not enjoying. Yet, as much as I might have liked too, I couldn't turn back. Not yet, not with a story untold. Not while Commander Konrad was still alive. The man in charge of the damned 33rd. The man responsible for all I had seen. Like Walker, he was becoming all I could see.
When I reached him, I found no satisfaction. Only the explanation to it all. To quote the loading screen; "You cannot understand, nor do you want to" 
I think I understand now. What the game was trying to tell me, to show me. I'm not a hero, even though I might wish to play as one in video games. Im just an over-weight, stereo-type gamer living in his parents back room. I do not understand what it is like to be a 'hero' nor do I want to any more. Coming this close to true understanding was more painful than I would like to admit.
To the developers; you bastards. Thank-you.

"Lucky you. You get to go home"

Lucky me. Now if you'll excuse me, Id like to go cry by myself for a little bit and remind myself that it was just a game. In the end, I'm glad I decided to play this game over another night of Guild Wars 2.