![]() ![]() Gah, and I just got it back from the garage too. The game is entirely linear, but there are occasional moments where choices can be made, and though they don?t make any real difference to the plot, you'll be pleased to hear that they do at least give you the impression you've at least. Skinner and Sigmund Freud or anything, but they do deal quite well with the cause and effect of your actions on the battlefield on the parties involved, namely you and your two gun buddies. Again, it's not as if developers Yager have channelled the spirits of B.F. Some might label certain sections - one in particular - as gratuitous, but we would guess that if one were to use white phosphorus on people, they might well end up looking like six foot tall pork scratchings.Ĭomplementing this is the psychological aspect of warfare, so rarely touched upon to any great degree in games. Now, as it's clearly taken a lot from Joseph Conrad and the acting's not up to Brando standard, there's only a certain amount we can praise the premise, but what we can praise is how there's very little sugar coating of the grisly elements of war, going a lot further than you'd expect from a mainstream title. We'll have to make do with strictly linear shoot-kill-move to next room-repeat gameplay, but oh what might have been.Īnother of the 'good' facets is the plot and elements related thereto. Picture the idea of an I Am Alive or even Fallout-style explore-'em-up RPG in this same locale and you might need a towel to clean up after yourself. It's genuinely quite interesting to be in the city of Dubai, even if there's (sadly) virtually no scope whatsoever for exploration. The setting is, despite the contemptible familiarity we have with the Unreal engine, rather wonderful, mixing outlandish high-rise buildings speaking of an affluent past with the day-to-day grime and destruction necessitated by a brutal battle for survival against the elements and other humans. You see, where The Line rises above the utterly mediocre and into potentially worth checking out territory is in its non-combat elements. So why would they come up with the word 'unique'? Remember the whole 'multi-faceted' thing? Ah, yes, there was a point to that guff after all. Fun, perhaps, if you're not as numbed to the whole military third person genre as this reviewer, but original? No. Unless they count the bits where you can bury enemies with sand, which is a nice touch and a lot of fun when you first discover it, but original is not something this game's combat could be described as. Spec ops the line pc tv#If you've seen the TV adverts for this, you may have noticed other media outlets describing The Line as 'Unique', but it's patently not true in the case of the core action. (In this, you stab your friend in the shoulder with a hypo.) It's as standard as combat in a third person game could possibly be, with the usual bellowing and grunting about reloading, tangos being downed and even the ally needing revival thing from Gears of War. The action takes place from the usual third person viewpoint, with your character squatting or kneeling behind all sorts of conveniently placed waist-high walls or tipped over pillars or whatever. It was clear the inspiration for this part of the plot was 'Apocalypse Now' (or, rather, the novella 'Heart of Darkness' on which the film was based).Īs you can imagine, things start going south pretty quickly and bullets start flying within seconds. You can guess the answer to that one, as it wouldn't be a very exciting action game if everyone was dead, would it? The second objective is a personal one for your generic slab of a character, who's interested in discovering whether a former commander of his is still alive. You have two objectives, the first being merely to find out if anyone's still alive. Lucky this bit of wreckage is just the perfect size for us to hide behind, eh? ![]() The real action starts with a trio of brave US Delta Force operatives - sadly not modelled after Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin - who are being sent into Dubai, which has been cut off from the outside world by a 'wall' of sand that prevents contact and is a formidable obstacle to bypass. How about kicking things off with a turret section? Not the best of starts, but don't worry, it's a false start, being a flash forward in time to a section you'll discover after many hours of play. And we also note this intro paragraph is rather long-winded.Įnough of that then. Or, at least, it's a multi-faceted one, in that the game has very interesting, intriguing sides to it, but also tediously dull and unoriginal ones too. When we describe Spec Ops: The Line as 'multi-faceted' it's not a compliment. ![]() Usually when you describe something as 'multi-faceted' it's a compliment, indicating a depth of personality and intellect in a person or great artistic worth in an object. ![]()
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