Spec Ops: The Line — Apocalypse Soon

The Line is Several Shades of Grey.

War changes men, there are very few men or women who see combat that aren’t changed on a fundamental level. Mentally, we as humans can only take so much stress before we mentally break. Video Games have never been shy about portraying the violence without any consequences. Spec Ops: The Line seeks to change that.

Heavily based on the book, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and its most famous movie adaptation Apocalypse Now, Spec Ops: The Line is a third-person shooter that takes place in a ruined Dubai after a major sandstorm has cut them off from the rest of the world. A US Army Lieutenant Colonel, John Konrad, has essentially taken over. It’s up to Captain Martin Walker and his two squad mates to see what happened and to help or defeat Konrad as the situation dictates.

Spoilers follow for Spec Ops: The Line.

A Departure: From Reality to Fantasy

Spec Ops: The Line is an in name only entry into the long-dormant Spec Ops series. The previous games in the series were marketed as being as close to “realistic” as 1998–2002 PCs and Consoles could handle. In reality, they were little more than standard cheaply made military themed shooters. I remember seeing one or two games on store shelves, but time has not been kind to them. If you didn’t know that Spec Ops: The Line was a part of a series, that’s okay. The previous games in the series are not well known.

Spec Ops: The Line, on the other hand, is a standard third-person cover shooter. There are some squad mechanics, but they don’t matter much. The squad mechanics are honestly the only connection (other than in name) to the Spec Ops series as a whole. It’s a stark departure from the realism of the previous entries.

Theme: Dissociative Narrative Disorder

Spec Ops: The Line is a very stark and bleak look at what war will do to men. Early on in the mission, Walker and company start to fight other American soldiers under Konrad’s orders. This change in enemy also signifies a change in tone. The early game has the player fighting standard Middle Eastern enemies in ornate and colorful battlefields.

Shifting the fight to men who should be allies drains the color from Dubai, each set having a nearly monochrome color pallet. The player is being subconsciously keyed into the fact that there is something under the surface.

As Walker is forced to do more and more unconscionable actions, his character model begins to get dirtier and more beat up. This parallels his mental state at the decisions and orders he has had to give. This deterioration is shown also through the loading screens which give hints and tips that become more and more threatening as time passes. All of this foreshadows a twist where Walker, his squad mates long since dead, finally confronts Konrad and sees that he has been dead for a while as well. This forces Walker to have a moment of clarity and face that he is the villain. He shot first on the Americans, and many of the decisions he made were figments of his imagination. War and the decisions he had made thinking he was doing the right thing had literally broken him. The final mission gives Walker the first real plot choice in the game as reinforcements have come. Walker can come peacefully, die in a blaze of glory, or murder the soldiers and escape.

Throughout history, men who commit atrocities do not see their actions as evil. Walker is no different, although the atrocities he commits are objectionably evil. Spec Ops: The Line asks the question, “What is the difference between killing foreigners under the guise of war, and just plain murder?” There isn’t an easy answer to that question, and the game provides no answers.

The Player: Always the Hero

Ludonarritive dissonance is the video game term for the striking difference between the story and the player’s actions in a video game. Spec Ops: The Line uses this dissonance to great effect. While the story is looking bleaker and bleaker, the gameplay remains a standard and generic third-person shooter with squad mechanics. Although, the enemies and situations may change slightly at best. This separation is jarring until the ending, which recontextualizes the player’s actions into that of someone who is just as complicit as Walker himself.

Action games, from Mario to Call of Duty place the player in the shoes of a mass murderer, killing untold creatures. Sure, the dead people are digital, just 1s and 0s, so it’s not quite the same thing but many of the same bodily reactions are occurring. Most games play it as entertainment, you are the hero! There are few games that place the player in the boots of the villain, fewer still make that fact clear from the beginning. Walker sees himself as the hero as well, until he is forced to look himself at the end. A video game’s protagonist is a stand-in for the player whether the main character is a blank mute or not.

Take Call of Duty, an industry tentpole that was especially big when Spec Ops released. In any COD game, the player is tasked with mowing down lots of unnamed, interchangeable enemies. This is wrapped in a fun, Michael Bay, action movie wrapper, so the actions of the player are easily justifiable. Spec Ops doesn’t allow the player even that justification; it wants players to examine just what the actions of the player really mean.

Gameplay: An Illusion of Choice

I touched on it a bit earlier, but Spec Ops: The Line is a highly generic third-person action game. It’s practically indistinguishable from any number of Gears of War clones that released around the same time as Spec Ops. The player is tasked with shooting their way from point A to point B via a series of corridors and open spaces with many chest high walls to take cover behind. There are squadmates that the player can command with basic orders like “shoot,” but these squadmates (who have names, but nothing would change if they didn’t) are mostly avatars of the old angel/devil on the shoulder trope. Many reviewers at the time gave the game sub-standard scores based on the generic gameplay, but that was the point.

There are several moments during Spec Ops: The Line where the player is offered a choice. These choices are never called out, the developers simply allow the players to follow their instincts. These choices are easy to miss since they don’t have the big, flashing ROUTE A or ROUTE B signs like some video games have. A good example would be early on, a CIA agent is met by Walker and Company and acts very shifty. The CIA agent does not make it clear if he is friend or foe, so the game gives you the option to shoot, but does not make it clear that you can spare him. These choices assume the itchy trigger finger of gamers. In the end, though, these choices do not affect the plot in any way.

There are also a couple of moments where there is no choice. The biggest example is a very particular scene where the player is tasked with an “unwinnable” fight which then leads to a fairly blatant rip off of the AC-130 section of Call of Duty 4, leading to one of the most emotionally damaging sections of the plot. There is no choice here, though, the player is forced to play this section in one way. It feels like the lack of choice here is a bit of a missed opportunity and diminishes the themes of the game somewhat. While in the middle of the rollercoaster, it is easily forgiven however.

What We Do in War

The old saying “War is Hell” is an apt way to describe Spec Ops: The Line. This is not a game that glorifies war, but instead shows a grim portrayal of the effects that violence has on the lives of those who survive it. It is a sobering take on the player’s actions in video games and what it really means to pull that digital trigger. The minute to minute gameplay is interchangeable with many other games of its era, allowing a player to properly examine just what they’ve been doing in other games. There is no defending of a country, there is no justification for your actions; the player and Walker are the aggressors, the invading force in Dubai and as such are the real enemies. This is reinforced by the final mission when the true rescue force (much more than just three men) arrive to find the aftermath of Walker and company’s bloody battles.

Whether you want it to or not, Spec Ops: The Line is an experience not easily forgotten.