Gameitall With every military shooter we get the same thing, a group of almost invincible killing machines out to stop a giant war by killing everyone in their paths and single handedly bring down a evil terrorist or government. What most shooters do not do is put you in a situation where you stop believing that your the good guys in all of this.
From the very beginning, Spec Ops: The Line is different, you can feel it as soon as you start playing the game that this is not your typical shooter and that you’ll be playing something special as your blasting your way though the sand storms of a destroyed Dubai.
Spec Ops: The Line never deviates from it’s setting, the desert city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. To pull away from most shooters using a real city, the game doesn’t start out as a mission to liberate the city or take out a deadly target, everything starts as a search and rescue mission. Dubai was hit with a catastrophic sand storm that cut off the city from the rest of the world, with soldiers and civilians still trapped inside the city.
Due to a strange distress signal; a three man Delta squad, led by Captain Martin Walker, enter Dubai to assist with an evacuation. Only to find the squadron who were working on the evacuation have gone rogue and were at war with a rebel group of soldiers for control of the ruined city.
This gives the game a little extra twist, the people you are fighting are not some unknown terrorist or bad guys, these are people who believe they’re fighting for their life and for control, worst of all these are people who believe that they are doing the right thing. You will be given choices throughout the game, none of which are easy to make and none of them will make you feel good about yourself.
I cannot praise this story enough honestly and that is because the gameplay complements it perfectly for the single player campaign. Where the combat feels more like Gears of War with a cover system and an arcade like approach to your combat. Starting early in the game you are given all the necessary tips and tricks to survive your time in Dubai, from giving quick commands to your squad to learning that Sand can be your best friend to bury your opponents, similar to explosive barrel that all shooters are a custom to. As the game progress, your execution options become much more violent and the team becomes much more harden to the events of the war.
The Sound design is especially great, giving the environment and the enemies more life in the buried city. The Voice direction is especially great with Nolan North (Uncharted series) leading the charge as Captain Walker, just like with the executions; the characters progress from being proper as Soldiers are supposed to be, to people out for blood. The Cast also has Jake Busey (Starship Troopers,) Bruce Boxleitner (Tron) and Christopher ‘Kid’ Reid (1/2 of the 90’s rap duo Kid’n’Play) all providing a stellar supporting roles.
There is a weak link in the game though and that is it’s multiplayer. The online mode make you play as either the Damned 33rd or the Exiled to fight over Dubai. It is a typical Gears of War team multiplayer with a few twists; for example, The Damned gets more experience points for close combat kills, while the Exiled gets more for killing in sandstorms.
That is the beauty of the multiplayer though, at any point and time in your match a Sandstorm will pick up, effectively ruining snipers and anyone caught outside, forcing them to fight in buildings while this happens. It’s a great change of pace to the multiplayer maps.
The Maps are well made with hardly any spot to camp without someone else being able to get to you. Sand traps are placed in the most fought out areas to allow you to bury people and Ziplines help you get from one side of the map to the other with the sacrifice of being out in the open and an easy target. The Multiplayer is not bad, in fact it is a lot of fun, but the campaign mode casts a really big shadow over it.
Spec Ops: The Line is just an amazing shooter; it’s story is a powerful and emotional trip worthy of movies like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, the Multiplayer is great and the cast is just simply awesome.
Spec Ops: The Line – 9 out of 10
Pros: Fast and fun gameplay, amazing story, great audio work.
Cons: Very difficult, All 4 endings can be easily retrieved by reloading the final level, some slight graphical glitches (enemies head through walls on executions and clipping issues, however very few and far in between.)
