Can this ambitious,story driven shooter bring substance to an over saturated shooter market?
The story begins with a typical on rails chopper gunner section and leads into a monologue and intro to our man character, Captain Walker and his assigned mission to find Konrad, a high ranking military official who him and a regiment known as the Damned 33rd go missing in Dubai, destroyed by a massive sandstorm. There, Walker and his squadmates, Adams and Lugo, find a dead U.S soldier while searching through a wreckage and ambushed by insurgent forces. Now, a would be rescue mission evolves from a generic shooter into a full fleshed out story about the negative effects of war on the mind, what really makes a hero and the limits people will take to survive.
A majority of the story displays Walkers degenerating mental state and his multiple hallucinations throughout the story. I won't spoiler anything but as a teaser, some will even affect moments in the game in terms of the gameplay. However, we never really see some of the major affects on the main characters till vary late in the story but progression of the story and the characters reactions to important events in the story flesh out the characters and the lasting affects of war. Hell even the games loading screens toy with your mind. Some even go as far as to say "Do you feel like a hero" and forces you to rethink the events in the game as well as the players emotional reactions to each event.
As for the gameplay well... is isn't as revolutionary as the story.Don't misinterpret my words it is enjoyable but isn't the best. For one, the cover system is dodgy, causing a good amount of accidental deaths higher difficulty levels and the second problem is the ally AI. Most of the time, when I order them to eliminate a target from a distance, instead of taking them out from a safe distance, they will blatantly disregard all hostile enemies, run up close, take lots of damage,kill them, run back avoid all enemies and get downed in the worst situations. These reasons will anger some gamers at higher difficulty levels with a plethora of accidental deaths. All in all, combat in fun but not great. Another plus though is the allies desperate screams for help only adds to the desperate atmosphere of the game and adds tension.
Multiplayer is just meh. Nothing exciting happens and nobody plays anything other than team death match. There isn't a huge amount of people playing TDM for that matter and so multiplayer becomes a boring and only sometimes enjoyable time and should be avoided for the most part.
The game does include a co-op challenge mode through free DLC and so if anybody enjoys the gameplay, they will appreciate the free Content.
The graphics are just average. Sometimes the game will be absolutely breath taking while perched on a high building, overlooking Dubai or completely ugly with frequent pop in even in cut scenes! It is blindly obvious more time could have been spent in improving overall visual quality than let's say multiplayer. Heck, single p layer could have been improved if less time was spent with multiplayer.
Spec Ops: The Line is interesting but could be labeled off as just another passable missed bag. The game is difficult on higher difficulty and takes 4-6 hours to complete depending on skill level and difficulty level. My verdict, is to play this game for the story and addicting, challenging gameplay but only stay for Co-op or to replay Single Player to have main plot points play out different, solve the riddles of the Single Player or to view all the endings. Some problems may turn players off but Spec Ops easily revives the original franchise and earns its spot as a must play on my list of games.