Spec Ops: The Line

So after playing catch up with some old games and scoring a quick completion on a movie tie-in, it was time to step up and take on something new. Spec Ops: The Line was a game I kept seeing come up in various internet video channels appearing in top ten’s and the like. In fact, Escapist game reviewer Yahtzee even gave it his game of the year for 2012. I don’t know if that says a lot for Spec Ops or very little for games in 2012. After all the acclaim, I thought I should give it a go despite my obvious avoidance of shooters.

Spec Ops: The Line follows the story of Captain Walker, a Delta Force Operative who goes to a sandstorm-ravaged Dubai to find out what happened to John Conrad, some dude who saved Walker in a past life or something. You are joined on your mission by Adams and Lugo, two wisecracking meatheads with guns.

Now, here is the key to why Spec Ops: The Line has attained so much acclaim. On the face of it, it’s a standard war shooter where you take Americans to foreign soil and kill foreigners. However, after the first few chapters, it’s soon revealed that it’s actually a harrowing tale of the horrors of war. There are a few twists of which you will have to interpret yourself but I won’t go into details because I am going to recommend playing it to others. Shocking, I know.

That said, the game does adhere to standard bland yellow, brown environment areas but that might have something to do with the fact that the whole of Dubai is covered in sand of the same colour. That said, some of the views of the scenery and landscapes are really something, but it’s kind of redundant in a game where you have to keep your eyes open for dudes who are trying to kill you.

The gameplay is always make or break for a game like this and it is more than competent in this area. When I started playing, I was immediately impressed by the fact that when I shot people in the head they actually died. Just like in real life! And not like in every other shooter I’ve played over the last few years. There was only one real problem I had when playing the game. I was on a cleanup run of the last few achievements and for some reason, enemies just stopped coming into the room I was in. The problem with this is that the door wouldn’t open until all of the enemies were dead. I had to get creative with my grenades to progress but other than that I had few issues with the gameplay. It’s an over-the-shoulder shooter with the option of changing which shoulder you are looking over. I thought this was brilliant although it does mean Walker is able to shoot with both hands. That’s probably the reason why he is a captain.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 50 Achievements

To start, you need to do a minimum of two whole playthoughs of the game because the highest difficulty level, FUBAR, doesn’t unlock until you complete the game on Suicide Mission. Neither of these difficulties sound appealing and playing them, they certainly lived up to their names. I’ve played a few games recently that required me to kill 1,000 enemies and I’m pretty sure that the enemies in Spec Ops got close to 1,000 kills on me during these two playthroughs – no achievement for dying 1,000 times though, sadly. I found Suicide Mission difficult and I found FUBAR unforgiving.

One example of FUBAR being unforgiving is a section where you have to run through a corridor while being shot at by a helicopter. There is no way of doing this without getting shot and on FUBAR this means you will die unless you pick the exact line to run down. It was trial and error for self harmers. In the end I watched a video of someone else doing it to get it right.

Aside from FUBAR and Suicide Mission, there are another two achievements for the sensible difficulties and they thankfully stack. I still don’t agree with having to prove to a game I’m good enough for its highest difficulty though even if playing it was like smashing my head against a brick wall.

There are only 9 story related achievements but there are a lot of choice based ones which you have to pick one or the other and then replay the chapters to get the other one. This isn’t a massive problem when you have to do two playthroughs though.

Outside of this, you have to get all sorts of different kills with the various weapon types in the game. These tend to come through natural game play but if you favour specific weapons, you may need to target some of these after completing the game. For example trying to get shotgun kills on FUBAR when you are shit with a shotgun is stupid.

There are collectible items but these are really forgiving as there are only a maximum of 2 per level. There are also two achievements for doing stuff without dying and considering my FUAR comments, I think you can tell I lowered the difficulty to get these. The last one I got was Sierra Hotel for completing three chapters in a row without dying and actually I now remember that it was during my third chapter that the glitch I mentioned above happened. Thankfully my well placed grenades got me through otherwise I would have had to have replayed three chapters again – this would have not amused me.

Multiplayer

Spec Ops: The Line has a multiplayer mode and you won’t hear about it here because it has no achievements. Thank you Spec Ops, finally at last someone has learned that that having multiplayer achievements is not necessary – and in a shooter as well.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Spec Ops: The Line is a very good game that functions well as a shooter and has a rarely good story line to boot. The absence of multiplayer achievements is a godsend as well. The FUBAR difficulty level is by far the most challenging thing in here but it is very rewarding once you’ve bludgeoned your way through it.