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. If you're looking for a story driven shooter, Spec Ops: The Line offers more depth than most military games.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. Still, the ruined Dubai makes an interesting environment for Spec Ops: The Line, and the basic cover/shoot gameplay is solid. That's a bold hope, and not one that seems very likely on the strength of the demo. ControversialĢK Games promises a game that will force players to make difficult decisions in morally gray areas - it claims to be influenced by the same novel as Apocalypse Now. This scripted feel is common in action shooters, but the rest of Spec Ops: The Line will have to be pretty special to make the scripted moments acceptable. The Spec Ops: The Line demo is very linear, and although you are nominally the leader, it feels like you are following your squad mates, and you have to proceed at their pace. It's atmospheric, with good graphics and SFX making the sand-ravaged urban environment believable, although the script is a pretty jaded assortment of gruff clichés. Spec Ops: The Line stays true to the third person cover shooter model, with additional squad controls.
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