Spec Ops: The Line Review

Game: Spec Ops: The Line
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, Windows
Genre: Third Person Shooter
Content Rating: M(ESRB), 18+(PEGI)
Developer: Yager Development
Publisher: 2K Games

For the 100% completely spoiler free version of this review, read the last paragraph.

So, I'd like you to imagine a modern military shooter. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor. Those kinds of things. From the time I've spent around the internet of late, just the mentioning of those will make you shake your head and tune out. And I'm not necessarily against that. I mean, back when it came out, I fell in love with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I was 12 or 13 at the time and all the guns and explosions blew my mind, no pun intended. I still feel like it holds up today, but the non-stop parade of sequels and imitators it's gotten over the last five years has ruined the magic somewhat. The modern military shooter, along with cover based shooting, has ushered in a somewhat disconcerting glut of uninspired titles with obnoxious military machismo, "gritty" story lines and parades of boring and painfully linear murder arenas disguised as video game levels. All of them seem to be indistinguishable from the rest: chopper crashes, terrorists, nuclear weapon McGuffins, black and white morality, America always saving the entire world, and what seems to be an impossible and frankly ridiculous amount of killing in games that claim to be realistic. And no matter what happens, the moral, righteous soldiers you play as either live through this entire ordeal or bravely sacrifice their lives in the name of truth, justice, and freedom.

If you played the demo or the first level of Spec Ops: The Line, you'd probably think that it was pretty much what I listed. Apart from the fact that the opening credits lists your Steam name, Gamertag, or PSN ID as a "special guest" and that it takes place in Dubai, everything about this game seems uninspired. You play as Captain Martin Walker (appropriately voiced by Nolan North), a rugged Delta Force operative. He leads a squad of three, consisting of the black demolitions expert Lieutenant Adams, the chatty and joking sniper Staff Sargent Lugo, and himself. You three have been sent in to Dubai on a recon mission to find evidence of the 33rd Battalion of the United States Army, led by the heroic Lieutenant Colonel John Konrad. When a series of nasty sand storms hit Dubai and trapped civilians in the city 6 months ago, the "Damned" 33rd stayed behind to help with relief efforts. No one had heard from them until very recently when a distress call saying that humanitarian efforts failed was received. When you and your team find a few Army vehicles and a dead soldier in one, you are interrupted by a few locals clad in balaclavas and wielding AK-47's. Negotiations fail when the locals notice you and Adams lining up shots in case negotiations fail. And thus begins the game.

Gameplay wise, it's bog standard third person cover based shooting. Not exactly revolutionary, but it's reasonably executed. There are a few nifty tricks done with shooting objects to drop sand on your enemies, but it's never really capitalized on. You also have a bit of control over your teammates, being able to order Adams or Lugo to grenade or snipe specific enemies based on situations. It'd be nice to have more control, but little touches where your character uses very contextual lines is nice. For example, in the first level there's a crashed airplane where enemies attack you from. If you order Lugo to snipe someone on the wing, Walker will say something along the lines of, "Neutralize the hostile in the airplane wing." These context specific orders can even show up where you wouldn't expect them to be. Again, it's not much but it's a nice little addition. Other features including execution kills you can do on downed enemies to regain ammo, counters in the top left hand corner of the screen for weapon kill achievements and trophies, and a quick slow-mo displaying gore for headshots and special kills that's oddly satisfying.

During this time, you might notice some things that are an oddity in the genre of MMS. The main menu screen depicts an upside down American flag with Jimi Hendrix's rendition of the National Anthem. At points in the game, the action lets up, and Walker and his squad will actually discuss what's happening. And despite taking place in the dusty Middle Eastern environments taken for granted in this kind of thing, Dubai is oddly beautiful. That may be because there's some actual contrast in the visuals. The sand is more of a golden orange or light tan than straight brown. The sky is deep blue with actual white clouds. The shiny glass and metals of the skyscrapers glitter in the sun. There's a certain vibrancy and beauty to the visuals of the game. That is, until the sandstorms roll in. When sand is flying around the air, everything turns rust brown, your vision is obscured and your accuracy drops immensely, forcing you to find shelter quickly. The music is a mix of original compositions and licensed tracks, including "Hush" by Deep Purple and "Rooster" by Alice in Chains. The voice acting and lip syncing is also well done, even if Nolan North is doing his standard Nathan Drake-rugged-everyman voice. Another little detail I liked is that when characters talk during gameplay sequences, their lips move as well, but with more nuance than that would usually entail. 

"Gentlemen, welcome to Dubai."

At the end of the first chapter, you find a dying American soldier proving that the 33rd are still up and running. Walker decides to investigate further against the recommendation of his squad. The game continues with its good presentation, average gameplay, and generic story until about two and half chapters in. At that point, you discover that an American FBI agent is working with the insurgents you've been fighting for a while. Later in the third chapter, you're put into a situation where you are forced to fire on American soldiers. And it's about then that you wonder if the "Damned" were the best choice for humanitarian aid and evacuation. And then all hell breaks loose.

I really can't stress how different The Line's narrative is from your average shooter's. A refreshing thing about it is that it's not about saving the world or country or other objectives with immediate global ramifications. It doesn't take place over a long amount of time or feature several military branches and a huge cast of characters. It isn't really something that would generally be considered "epic" by the shooter crowd. It's very small story, happening only over around two days and nights. The focus stays on Walker and his squad, with each of them having actual character arcs, rather than staying the stock military tough guys they appear to be at the beginning. Their appearances and voices change over the course of the game to reflect their inner being, becoming ragged, worn, bruised, and broken. Dubai itself even seems to warp from an actual city into twisted mindscape. Rarely does something good happen, as each step taken ends up feeling like the wrong one.

The other tropes that are common in military shooters begin to fade as well. Black and white morality falls apart into true gray/gray, where literally no one the plot can truly be considered righteous or correct besides the unfortunate citizens of Dubai. "Grittiness" becomes absolute atrocity, with scenes that actually made me feel disgusted and horrified. Masked Arabs as enemies soon become unmasked and soon give way to US soldiers as the enemies. Loading screens stop giving gameplay tips and start asking you what you believe in. Actions that might earn you medals or respect in other games are frowned upon. Survival, futility, and morality are the true themes of this game, not heroism nor honor nor duty. Meta-commentary on how truly absurd and unrealistic war games, video game violence, and binary moral choices are is made and the game asks us to accept the consequences for the actions we and our digital avatars make. A dark sense of humor is revealed that is confrontational in the wake of horrific events. It ends up as a brutal satire of the genre it masquerades as. And after all is said and done, it's not very fun to play.

“To kill for yourself is murder. To kill for your government is heroic. To kill for entertainment is harmless.”

Yet that's the best compliment I can give it. It's incredibly engaging and I had to stomach both the banal gameplay and the dark implications of my role as a player just to see where the game would throw at me next. When the facade falls away, The Line has more in common with survival horror than it does with military shooters. Dark themes, engagement through something other than whiz bang fun, characters losing grip on their own humanity, and an emotional draining and masochistic sort of satisfaction from getting through. At the same time, the implications of this game aren't going to endear to it some people. "Games are supposed to be fun. If it isn't fun, it's not worth playing." "You can't combine a narrative that demonizes violence with inherently violent gameplay." "Why do games have to take themselves so seriously nowadays?" "This 'games as art' thing is stupid." "Stop all this pseudo-intellectualism crap." "Violence in games isn't wrong at all."

I can't fault others for their views. Hell, I even agree that violence in video games doesn't affect your brain and make you a more violent person and that kind of twaddle. But at the same time, if games never evolved to be something other than just "fun", we'd still just be playing games like Tetris and Space Invaders. Don't get me wrong, those are great games. But there wouldn't be your Silent Hills, Final Fantasies or Deus Exes. There wouldn't be your Journeys, Portals, or Metal Gear Solids. Hell, Spec Ops: The Line doesn't always succeed. It's not perfect. The fact it's very specifically about American soldiers might mess up the narrative if you're not from the US and aren't expected to immediately care about them, but it might not as well. But it does something so radically different from the norm and becomes so engaging without having to even actually be enjoyable, that it deserves to be celebrated, at least a little. Maybe I'm wasting my time, trying to convince you. But hell, I truly believe this game is worth it.

If you like narrative in gaming that's cohesive and well written, try this. If you want to some very biting commentary on the nature of video game narrative, try this. If you want to see something take down modern shooters a notch, try this. If you want something that's fun, lighthearted, or at the very least, not so damn bleak, you might want to try something else. If you really, really hate shooters and can't stomach the idea of playing one, go on and play something else. It's okay. I can't really say that you're in the wrong.

Silent Hill 3 Review

Fuck the NTSC box art.

Game: Silent Hill 3
Platform: PS2, Gamecube, Windows, Xbox 360(HDC), PS3(HDC)
Genre: Survival Horror, Adventure
Content Rating: M(ESRB), 18+(PEGI), C/15+(CERO)
Developer: Team Silent
Publisher: Konami

Silent Hill 3

When I initially finished Silent Hill 2, considered by many to be the finest survival horror experience ever crafted, I felt a little underwhelmed by it. While the story was really good, monsters skulked around in plain sight, the controls were fairly clunky, and the PC version I played was very poorly optimized. Most of all, the monsters didn’t really feel “scary”. However, after a little time digesting the game, I came across a “making of” featurette that had interviews with project leads, who described it as a “terrible love story” rather than a straight horror experience. And therein lay the key to understanding the game. The game never tried to portray the horrible creatures as “scary” in the traditional sense. Even the great Pyramid Head served only as a reminder to James of his own guilt, internal torment and the fact that in the end, James is the one responsible for the horrors he faces. It was not a vile and repulsive experience, but a melancholic, subtle and soul-wrenching tragedy. After two full playthroughs on my PS2, where the technical issues that plagued the PC version vanished, Silent Hill 2 now sits solidified in my “greatest games ever” list.

Now, when moving on to Silent Hill 3, it almost feels like Team Silent completely reversed what themes and elements were focused on. While SH2 featured a deeply personal story about a man in his late twenties coming to grips with the death of his wife that had a barren and depressing feel about it, Silent Hill 3 instead focuses on a teenage girl fighting demons to save the world from eternal damnation. Quite the mood change, wouldn’t you say?

In actuality, Silent Hill 3 is a direct sequel to Silent Hill 1. It's a game I feel hasn’t aged well for several reasons, not the least of which being that the actual plot of that game is a tad silly. It involves a cult trying to summon their god into the world to bring humanity to paradise (AKA fiery death for all). Their plans get ruined by a 32 year old writer named Harry Mason, who seems more interested in finding his daughter than executing theological beatdowns. At the time of its release, Silent Hill was considered to be a masterpiece by many. But this was the early days 3D gaming, a time when Resident Evil still was taken seriously as video game story telling. The script is stilted, the voice acting was laughably bad, and everyone looked like they were made out of papier-mache. Thankfully, Silent Hill 3 is a much better effort, due to all the lessons learned and technology created since that game. In fact, barring a few missteps, Silent Hill 3 could be considered a classic.

During this outing to America’s shittiest tourist town, you play as Heather. Heather is a teenage girl with a dry sense of humor and a short temper who’s having a wonderful day at the mall when a creepy middle-aged man in a trench coat claiming to be a private eye approaches her. He asks to speak to her, saying he has information about her birth. Rightfully freaked out by this, Heather hides in the restroom and tries to find a way to leave. Now, we all know that female characterization in video games isn’t exactly fantastic. But Heather is something special. To me, she is one of the best female characters in gaming. Her femininity is important to the game’s plot, but she’s never objectified or put in demeaning positions because of it and her personality never feels shackled to it. Heather’s almost plucky spirit, hot-headed temperament and sarcasm really set her apart from all the quiet mopey fucks that usually inhabit games like this, and make her a breath of fresh air. Whether it’s her actions in a cutscene or her description of a dead body found in a subway station, her character oozes from the game and makes you care for her simply because she’s an interesting person, not because of some arbitrary tragedy given as back story. And when bad things actually do happen, it's all the more tragic. 

Above: A fantastic character

Unfortunately, none of the other characters reach the same height as Heather, but are by no means bad. A lot of this has to do with the voice acting and writing. While Heather’s voice acting and dialogue is top notch (and at one point almost brought me to tears for the right reasons), the three other supporting characters’ aren’t exactly. Douglas Cartland, the previously mentioned detective, has a weird scratchy voice that doesn’t seem to fit his face and of the two villains, one has a good voice that just seems to be reading lines, and the other just makes me want to punch her in the face because of the way she says “God”. Shame about that, because the facial animation tech used in this game is truly some of the best of the last generation and can still hold its own against some modern games. If the voice acting was a little tighter, I would say that this game would’ve conquered the uncanny valley that games with far more advanced tech *coughLAnoirecough* aren’t able to. 

 Gameplay is the same basic design that you’d expect from the classic survival horror genre. Tank controls, sluggish combat, inventory management, and puzzle solving form the core experience of the game, but it’s been improved from the second game. Heather can now block the attacks of enemies and has a far wider array of weapons at her disposal, including a submachine gun, a katana and several unlockable secrets. Despite this, the combat still remains pretty much that same in practice, with the exception of boss battles. They were included in the first game but were more or less absent from number two. These make the combat slightly more frustrating than the second game. If you didn’t stock up on ammo, you might as well just reload a save, because you aren’t going to kill them with melee weapons. Something that will probably frustrated some players is the puzzle difficulty. On the lower difficulties, it’s just a little roundabout. At higher levels, the player needs fairly intimate knowledge of Shakespeare canon and tarot cards, and will encounter one of the creepiest and most obtusely difficult puzzles put in a video game. The music in the game is your typical Yamaoka stuff. I don’t really feel like it stands when compared to his other work in the series, but it’s by no means bad. The rest of the sound design, on the other hand, is truly masterful. Creaks in the floor, rushing water in a sewer, and the cries of monsters that you know are just waiting for you feel immediate and build the kind of immersion that you’d expect from Silent Hill, but never has it felt so crushing and engulfing. And here lies the game’s strength.

This game is /fucking scary/. While Silent Hill 2 relies on mystery and a depressing uneasiness to creep you out, Silent Hill 3 goes for an intense, hellish and oppressive atmosphere. The Otherworld, Silent Hill’s alternate form that signals when the game is going to start screwing with you, is filled with all sorts of effects that grip you and don’t let go. Walking down a hallway could cause it to twist itself into a cruel mockery of what it once was. The walls could seem to be perpetually burning. One room in particular stands out as frantically creepy and unnerving in a way not seen in the other games. Sounds can seem to be coming from the door you just passed, begging you to satisfy your curiosity but unsettling you so much that you won’t want to. Disembodied screams waft and echo through the hallways. And one monster makes a sound so audibly unpleasant it actually gave me a few nightmares. It might take the squeamish a few pep talks if they want to get through it.

The fuck is that thing?

There are two major points I have against game that might keep it from greatness. Firstly, the game is far shorter than others, with an average playthrough clocking in at about 5-6 hours, while the second game was about 8-10. The second is, while the story and character moments work individually, the overarching plot is just… well, it’s still kind of silly. While the gameplay pits you in a cruel environment with nothing but contempt for you, The Order is still dumb and really not that scary. Instead of some unknowable malevolent force toying with you, it’s just a bunch of dipshits running around doing dipshit things. It’s still engaging and worth playing through to the end, but the smartest thing that Silent Hill 2 did was ignore that monkey house of stupidity and focus on a single person, rather than making him save the world. Silent Hill 3 didn’t seem to understand that. It’s good, but if you take a step back and examine it, it’s less interesting than it is in the moment.

Despite this, I heartily recommend this game to fans of horror games and horror media. When it hits its stride, it’s gripping and intense and very frightening. Heather is one of gaming’s best characters and one of horror gaming’s most genuinely likable protagonists. While the story falters a bit, the puzzles at times seem to be driven by moon logic and the gameplay still isn’t exactly visceral, it’s still a beautifully surreal and creepy. It probably won’t change the mind of those who dislike the genre or the franchise, but if you are fan, go for it.

On the subject of acquiring the game, Konami released the Silent Hill HD Collection containing remastered versions of this game and Silent Hill 2. While that might seem like a great deal, I implore you not to buy it. Many things were changed from the originals for no reason and it’s riddled with graphical and audio glitches due to it being built off of unfinished code of the games. This forced them to cut corners and the result is an unfinished product that doesn’t hold a candle to the originals. The re-recorded voice acting at best doesn’t improve anything, but Heather’s original voice acting was also changed and it simply isn’t as good. If you want to play this, try to locate a used copy for the Gamecube or the PS2. If worse comes to worst, you could probably pirate the PC version, as it’s far better than Silent Hill 2 port, as it actually works. That being said, if that’s what you need to do, make sure to use a USB controller or something. The keyboard controls aren’t as functional is a controller in this case. 

Also, the recent movie Silent Hill: Revelations is adapted from this. 

Don't see it. It's god awful.

An Introduction, I Suppose

I assume most people won't ever read what I write here. But I'm not exactly looking to set the world on fire, so I guess that'll do. I'm Eric Hentschel. I'm a gamer and rock musician. My favorite bands are The Black Keys, The White Stripes, Dropkick Murphys, The Stooges, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Soundgarden. When it comes to gaming, I like the Silent Hill series, the Mass Effect series, Bioshock, Knights of the Old Republic and other such titles, but I can usually find enjoyment out of most titles. I seem to be a liberal when it comes to politics, but I tend to dislike talking about such topics. Not that they aren't important, but I find that more bad comes from my discussions than good. I can usually be relied upon to be sarcastic, negative, introspective and just the tiniest bit pretentious about my opinions. So if that ain't your thing, I'd leave right about now.