Development History | Spec Ops: The Line (Ep.1) | State of the Arc Podcast
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
- Join us for the first episode of our deep dive into Spec Ops: The Line. After reading developer interviews all last week, I'm more excited about this game than I have been for any game on the podcast in a long time--and that's really saying a lot!
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This couldn't have dropped at a better time. Listening to this while cleaning my apartment. You two are going to LOVE Apocalypse Now. If you adore Jacob's Ladder that much, I would be shocked if you didn't love Apocalypse Now as much.
Always cool to see another awesome creator in someone else’s comments, love your stuff max, been stocking-piling a bunch of your vids to watch.
Remember to stay yellow Max
Oh nice, good to see you here!
Mike, about the "does a video game need to be fun?" video idea: If you haven't already and have time, please look into Pathologic. It simultaneously addresses the "are you really being a good person if the game rewards you for it?" and the previous question at the same time by being an absolutely brutal game that actively punishes you for doing the "right thing."
I'll add that you should focus on Pathologic 2, it's a kind of reboot of the original one, but better. The game is one of the most unique experiences in gaming, and I would love you guys to tackle it, or at the very least do a video-essey.
I am a simple man of culture; I see RA doing Spec Ops: The Line, I click.
This is why I love this channel, such deep discussions about so many topics. Whether it be about politics, morality, or about religion this channel always has great conversations and clarity about whatever subject they cover. Another awesome video!
Wanting to be a hero so badly that it's to the detriment of others is a concept so rarely touched upon in cinema, books and games. I surprised it isn't touched on more.
I think the last movie I watched that was somewhat close to that idea was Saw IV where Officer Rig was so set on saving everyone, he unintentionally kills like half the cast or something.
I was temporarily expelled from my Master's Degree in Education for questioning how the Education System was treating its young students.
Many of the things they do is morally wrong, and yet it's not our responsibility to question - something I never came to terms with.
I graduated, but never pursued teaching ever again.
Resonant Arc: The channel where dreams come true. Can't freakin' wait for this one. Thanks guys.
I think "fun" in games is a blanket term for engaging, captivating in a way that movies and books aren't capable. The two polar opposites I think people think of are Nintendo on one end and Neil Druckmann's quote for the Last of Us 2. Where one truly focuses on gameplay first and the enjoyment of the player in all aspects, that's classic fun. They've tackled more serious storytelling in their games and where that is engaging in itself even if not pure gameplay factor, they make that part important too. I think Druckmann's statement was more he wanted to preach a message than anything else, that being he had full control of LoU2 unlike prior, yet were players meant to enjoy the graphic violence in gameplay or was that supposed to only reflect the gravity of the situation? hard to say when more than on instance was contrived to go a specific way and then not fulfill the overall theme by the end.
I've found games with mature stories "fun" in terms of walking away knowing it had my attention the entire time and fulfilled the same satisfaction as a game purely played for the gameplay engagement. I think the spirit and execution of the I guess can be called mission statement of a game matters, whether they meet a defined goal or not. For games with lofty ambitions instead of entertaining simply, it can be done. The Line is known for this overall with a positive reception while other games are viewed mixed or negatively because it didn't stick the execution and/or landing. It comes down to a good writer and combining that with gameplay, together, that they are cohesive.
These days it seems like people just want pure fun or a game to be a game instead of trying to lecture you, specifically in the West, because of the political and social climate. We went from games can tell a story and have lessons to learn to stop trying to tell me how to think and let me engage with the game. If we are made to think about the current issues in an escapist medium constantly, it heads into propaganda territory, not military (a mix now with social virtual signaling while still promoting the military POV) akin to Eastern Europe and China have/do experience. The West hasn't been devoid of it, but it's far more obvious now instead of the subtlety used in the past.
The points when you talked about the multiplayer mode, comparisons to Modern Warfare and how Spec Ops sought to challenge everyone's idea of what players are even supposed to DO in shooter games was really fascinating!
If I may, I'd like to weigh in on the comparisons to Modern Warfare. As a huge fan of Spec Ops: The Line, I often see many people in the fandom saying that the game is a polemic against Modern Warfare.
This is because Call of Duty, over the years, has gained an infamous reputation as being 'xenophobic military propaganda for right-wing "gun-nuts," wherein heroic Americans save the day from evil foreigners.' This reputation is at least partially understandable (for reasons which I'll explore in a moment), but I don't think that was really the intent.
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My friends and I used to play Modern Warfare when we were in 8th grade. Back then, we were just there to "shoot the bad guys" and blow everything up because "WHOA!!! EXPLOSIONS ARE COOL!!!"
However, after Russia declared war on Ukraine in 2022, I decided to go back and replay the Modern Warfare trilogy as an adult; paying closer attention to the story to see what I might have missed when I was younger.
I was promptly blown away to find that, if you pay close attention, Modern Warfare's story - like Spec Ops: The Line - is ITSELF a deconstruction of the same type of jingoistic, "heroic Americans save the day" military shooters that Spec Ops was also criticizing. To explain:
(spoilers for the Modern Warfare trilogy below)
The games are set in an Alternate history version of the 2010s wherein Russia suffers a civil war that results in an extreme "Ultranationalist" movement - founded by rogue military leaders - taking over the country, leading to a second Cold War between NATO and Russia.
- MW1 sees American forces invading a Middle Eastern country in the name of 'restoring stability to the region' after it was taken over by an Ultranationalist-affiliated warlord. Meanwhile, the British S.A.S. works alongside Russian loyalists to uncover a nuclear arms plot that the Ultranationalists are orchestrating. However, while the American, British and Loyalist forces may SEEM like good guys, the game also presents some very subtle hints that the middle-eastern country which America is invading was an oil-rich U.S. puppet state, and the British S.A.S. are portrayed as borderline-psychopathic thugs, frequently getting their hands dirty in their mission to obtain answers. Furthermore, the Russian and Middle-Eastern Ultranationalists are portrayed somewhat sympathetically - they perceive the West as an imperialist bully infringing on their culture and sovereignty, forcing them to use nuclear weapons in what they perceive to be their only means of deterrence. By the end of the game, any player who doesn't see things in black-and-white (or have some pre-existing patriotism towards the U.S.) will be left thinking that the game's world is just a bunch of military industrial complexes throwing propaganda at each other in an attempt to cover up the truth. (hint hint)
- MW2 goes even further. The game starts 5 years after the first, with the Ultranationalists having won the Russian civil war and fully taking over the country. Early into the campaign, Russia declares war on the U.S. as retaliation for a botched CIA mission (the airport attack) which resulted in Russian civilians dead and an American soldier's finger on the trigger (this may have been intended as an ironic commentary against neoconservative interventionism in Iraq: "How would YOU like it if a foreign country invaded YOUR country in response to a misattributed terrorist attack?"). However, we later find out that the aforementioned CIA op was deliberately set up and then compromised by an AMERICAN military general, with the specific goal of kick-starting a war between their two nations. In other words: the entire Russo-American war is nothing more than a self-righteous power fantasy between two jingoistic military forces who believe it will restore their nations' former-glory. The human beings on the front lines - actually fighting for their country with patriotic fervor - are treated like disposable pawns by their leader.
- The final game, MW3, was made after half of the development team was fired, which meant that new blood had to be brought in to finish development. Consequently, MW3 took on a more standard "America Saves the Day" tone, but still retained the anti-jingoistic, "war is hell" angle. The United States never actually wins the war, nor is Russia portrayed as monolithically evil. Moderates on both sides just get tired of conflict and quickly make plans for a truce. However, said peace talks are interrupted when the Inner Circle - an extremist organization which was kicked out of the Russian government for its criminal activities - kills most of the Russian cabinet and kidnaps the president, making them de facto leaders of Russia and - by extension - the military. With this, they then launch chemical attacks on, and subsequently invade, Europe in order to restore the Russian empire (another eerie real-world parallel). American forces are promptly called in to help the local forces fend off the attack, but the war only ends when a coalition of American, British and loyalist forces finally manage to rescue the Russian president from his extremist captors so that he can order the military to stand down. The trilogy ends with both NATO and Russia in disarray, countless civilian lives lost and nearly every player character or fellow soldier dead, having fought and died fighting a pointless war which - as stated above - was only ever instigated for the pettiest of reasons.
(Spoilers end here)
When you think about it that way, the Modern Warfare trilogy is a scathing CONDEMNTATION of exactly the type of nationalistic fervor and militaristic foreign policy which Call of Duty is often accused of promoting. The message of Modern Warfare seems to be: "extreme nationalism/patriotism is dangerous; militaristic foreign policy is a pointless waste of life and resources; and wars don't end when one side 'beats' the other - they end when moderates on both sides give up because the goals just aren't worth the costs."
The unfortunate problem, however, is that this message went mostly overlooked by the series' fanbase, and it's easy to understand why. Even within the campaigns, the "war is hell" theme kinda gets lost amid all the bombastic action set-pieces and "run-gun-fun" gameplay. Granted, you could argue that this was done intentionally for the sake of juxtaposition - that the INTENT was to let players get lost in the exciting gameplay so that the more tragic/serious moments would hit harder; 'yanking on the player's choke-chain'. (The anti-war commentary also becomes more noticeable when playing on higher difficulty settings, as the increased threat of death makes you "fear for your life" more).
However, even if this was the developer's intent, I think it's fair to say that the message still didn't 'click' for a lot of players. Because admittedly, no matter how much the games try to paint both sides of the conflict with shades of grey, it doesn't change the fact that one side is still portrayed as being more in the the right than the other - the Americans and British S.A.S. are NEVER shown killing civilians, whereas the ultranationalists execute civilians with little (if any) hesitation.
It also doesn't help that COD wound up becoming popular largely among 11-year old boys who just want something to shoot at and aren't paying much attention to the political side of things (like my friends and I used to be). And the games' multiplayer modes - dedicated purely to run-and-gun shooting; devoid of the campaign's anti-war commentary - ended up becoming the series' most popular feature.
Thus, realizing that there was more money to be made off this, the publisher Activision began warping Call of Duty into exactly the type of military propaganda that Modern Warfare sought to condemn - marketing the games as pure "America Saves the Day" power fantasies (even bringing in controversial figures like Oliver North to promote them and make a cameo in Black Ops 2), while the stories gradually lost all their self-awareness and anti-jingoistic commentary (COD: Ghosts felt like a xenophobic hate-piece against Hispanic migrants).
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Which brings us back to Spec Ops: The Line. While one of the devs you quote did call out No Russian as being a failed attempt at a shocking commentary (and I agree that it could have been better-executed), I don't agree that the makers of Spec Ops were trying to denounce Modern Warfare as neoconservative propaganda.
Rather, I think the developers saw that a disturbingly large number of gamers were (for lack of a better term) 'missing the point' of Modern Warfare's story because it was too subtle and buried beneath fun gameplay.
I don't think Spec Ops: The Line was intended as any sort of ANTITHESIS to Modern Warfare. Rather, I think the developers were trying to do (more-or-less) the same thing that Modern Warfare was doing - only MUCH harder and with less subtlety, thereby ensuring that no player could ever miss the fact that the game is trying to make a point. This lack of subtlety has been criticized by some, but I'd argue that it was necessary in order to ensure that the message would not be overlooked by an audience just looking to "have fun shooting stuff."
Whereas the message of Modern Warfare is easy to miss due to the exciting gameplay, Spec Ops is so brutal and "not fun" that a player can't help but start to question why they even play shooter games (like Modern Warfare) to begin with - which is exactly what the developers were going for.
Also, another bit of trivia: many have criticized Spec Ops for having mediocre gameplay, and some fans have defended it by saying that the gameplay is NOT MEANT to be fun; that it is bad ON PURPOSE in order to hammer home the message about war being hell. However, I remember reading an interview wherein one of the devs said that this was NOT intentional; that the gameplay was NOT meant to be bad (but players were free to interpret it that way if they felt like it). This further fuels my suspicion that Spec Ops was doing the same thing that Modern Warfare was trying to do: let players get lost in the "run-gun-fun" gameplay so that the more tragic/serious moments would have more juxtaposition.
I apologize for not adding anything to your topic, but I just wanted to say that what you did write was extremely thought provoking for me because I had a similar experience as you did with the MW games.
@@Mawnster73 Thanks, man. I was afraid no one would take the time to read my post, so I'm happy to hear that it's resonated with someone. :) If you don't mind me asking, what was your experience with the Modern Warfare trilogy? In what ways did it parallel with and differ from mine?
It was similiar in that my friends and I started playing COD games in middle school with MW1 and WaW. In my little town it was truly inescapable, all boys my age played it. I was probably one of the few that actaully played the campaigns though. I also had much stronger context for modern day warfighting because of people in my family being particiaptes within that system. I understood fairly quickly how horrid the the scenarios in the games were. My father helped me understand that these stories were never glorifications of american intervention and war. @@jonah_da_mann
Probably the game I am most looking forward to you guys covering. Can’t wait for the next episode
This games been on my backlog for almost a decade. 😵💫 Excited to finally play through it with the podcast!
As someone who currently lacks the resources to buy a PS5 and FFXVI (and a new TV since my current flatscreen is like a decade old), this is an awesome breath of fresh air and I am so glad to finally watch another video of yours!
FFXVI podcast isn't one of the best, unfortunately. Really shows by comparison the strengths they have when not being totally blind.
What an amazing time to be alive, RA is always putting out awesome stuff u guys rock!
Nutmeg is demonstrating this "lack of control" quite effectively
Spec Ops: The Line is a testament to the statement "Depiction is not Endorsement" which is a term a lot of people nowadays don't seem to get.
This reminds of how Yoko Taro made Cain insane in Drakengard because only an insane person could kill so many people and keep going.
(2) As the character Ivan Karamazov puts it in Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov”: “The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular.” Dostoevsky is a particularly good writer to reference because he is sensitive to the ways in which revolutionaries and radicals might perpetuate all sorts of unspeakable, violent crimes against their fellow man under the auspices of an “abstract” love of humanity.
In much the same way, we can see this contrast between “abstract,” and grandstanding love for humanity against “concrete” and particular love for another person. It is well and good to be motivated by grand ideals such as “heroism” and “a desire to save the world,” but what that often entails is practical, concrete violence against those standing in one’s way, which one can all too easily cut down and rationalize their murders.
The battle between the “abstract” and the “concrete” does come out in Spec Ops. And we might very well see that the characters have to hold onto these “abstract” ideals in order to evade or escape the truth of what they’re “concretely” doing to other people, their fellow man.
Woah 2 videos in a week and one is a 4 hour video. I’m spoiled this week.
I know y’all said spec ops was next but when I saw the 4 hour video yesterday I genuinely thought I had the days wrong and I wasn’t expecting spec ops til next week. Awesome surprise for me
Fantastic, can't wait for the rest!
There have been a lot of modern games that were great experiences that I would not say were fun, either due to them being stressful or frustrating, but ultimately worth it for that final payoff. Games like Papers, Please and Outer Wilds -- they can come in a lot of forms.
LISA The Painful was the one for me, absolute suffering and jank to play through but it still grabbed me with the comedy/drama and moved me hard lol
@@islandboy9381 Thanks for the reminder, I grabbed that one on a Steam sale but it's been tucked away in the backlog folder in my library, I need to fire it up.
I've been putting off playing this game for a long while so this is the perfect opportunity to beat it over the weekend for next week's discussion.
Hey uh... Just some friendly advice. It might be good practice to leave the links of your guests (if they have an active relevant UA-cam) in the description of the video, or a pinned comment.
The question of "does a game need to be fun" was also addressed in the early Drakengard/Nier titles: clunky, mediocre-to-average gameplay, but with highly compelling and mature narrative and themes. Which all changed when Nier: Automata came along, thanks to PlatinumGames' craft, and the rest becoming history.
In this case, it's all about deconstructing and debunking perceptions about having the "need" to have some sort of polished, substantial gameplay mechanics in order to truly get the story across to the audience, just to fit in to such perceptions set by the industry and culture at large. After all, Yoko once said the objective of his works is to elicit a strong emotional response from the player, nothing more; only a _judicious_ amount of gameplay is used just to keeps things together and progress the story.
It's very easy to chalk it all off to budget limitations on such a "high risk, low reward" series business-wise-which while true, such viewpoints I think are a disservice to Yoko Taro's craft to think outside the box and make very good lemonade out of the lemons he got, in order to produce something very compelling.
In Spec Ops: The Line's case, I think if the gameplay had been more well-built, something that would give it RPG-esque vibe and playthrough length, the game's story/themes would've been overpowered and diminished by the lively gameplay that the message as we know it would seem like a mean-to-an-end afterthought.
*TLDR: Story and themes first, gameplay last.*
Do any of you plan on reading Killing is Harmless by Brendan Keogh? I’m not sure how well it holds up, but it was a full-length book that acted as an analysis of Spec Ops: The Line. I don’t remember many books doing a similar thing before that one.
On the topic of the game's multiplayer, I was actually a beta tester for this game on 360. I don't remember the specifics of how or why I got an invite -- just saw some sign up link shared on the old Game Trailers forums and I signed up and forgot about it. I got an invite months later. Little did I know then that the game wouldn't launch for another two whole years but yet here I was with multiplayer beta access. I only played the beta two or three times and played for minutes at a time and thought the game was abysmal. It was essentially an empty little map with nothing going on, barely anyone actually playing the beta, visibility was bad (narrow field of view, blurry looking with annoying post processing effects) and the movement felt awful.
I had no clue that the game was THAT far off as I beta tested in 2010 and the game ultimately launched in 2012. I figured the game was going to come out a few months after beta... Sadly due to my experiences with the beta I have never actually played the game to this day. Maybe if I knew I was playing a beta build of a game that was still 2+ years out I would have been more forgiving. I didn't know it had a strong singleplayer component/story until roughly 4-5 years ago. I was shocked, I thought it was some inside joke or meme that the game actually had a "shockingly" good story. I just figured it was supposed to be a Gears of War type multiplayer TPS first and foremost due to the emphasis on the multiplayer in various gaming communities. Sad that I completely wrote the game off because of that experience. Didn't even know the game ended up coming out two years after the beta was held since my experience led me to stop following any coverage on the game outright assuming the game was going to be launching in the coming months anyways.
this Channel is for the cultured gamer
Also in the line of Heart of Darkness variaton or adaptation Ad Astra is a fantastic film.
with the "do games necessarily need to be fun" talk, I heard the same thing be addressed by either MandaloreGaming or hbomberguy in their review for pathologic. That game is not fun but it is very compelling.
(4) “What are you going to do with the gun in your hand?”
What a quote. It suggests of course that you are condemned to action (non-action is itself also an action), that you are in possession of a powerful weapon and must take responsibility for what you choose to do with it.
It also recontextualizes the shooter genre more narrowly and violence in video games more broadly. Your actions have weight. These aren’t just random NPCs you’re killing. You’re ending lives through your actions, and doing something important to yourself as well through these acts of violence.
Casen mentioned before in the Undertale podcast that there is a tangible difference when you watch the Genocide route on UA-cam and when you decide to take the actions to go ahead with it. It does something to you.
On a related note, I served in the military for two years. The first time I held a gun I teared up. To think I had the power to rid someone of their life with the instrument in my hand made me speechless. More video games should let the player realize the gravity of their actions, and to examine more critically what is actually entailed in all the violence that you perpetuate in these games.
Spec ops is probably in my top 5 games and just experiences, Even when it was first announced the first trailer is this haunting glimpse at this sand ridden city, Excellent licensed and orginal score, Nolan Norths best performances and lots of hidden secret details you only get on repeat playthroughs.
PS Another small dig at the multiplayer atrached is that there are no achievements attached to it.
Fascinating conversation, gentlemen.
I will say that you lost me for a bit when you were talking about “should games be fun?”, but I returned - little before the subject was dropped.
I agree that games are a fantastic medium for storytelling, but games should be fun or at the very least entertaining. Much like art, “fun” is subjective.
Example: people have fun playing horror games. I don’t; I get terrible anxiety whenever I attempt to play horror games.
But perhaps I’m making a big deal out of nothing.
38:43 people like to purposefully misread and misinterpret Jordan Peterson's "clean your room" rule, but this is a perfect illustration of what he means. "“If you can't even clean up your own room, who the hell are you to give advice to the world?” It's a brilliant piece of insight.
It's also very Christian in nature. One of Jesus' most famous rhetorical questions: How do you take a speck of sawdust out of your brother's eye when you have a large plank in your own? This is the foundation of that idea, at least in the broader society.
Love this collab! I guess that means I need to dust off my old save file and finally finish SOTL! :-)
This is the first game you guys are covering that I really didn't like. Hopeful to see a new perspective on this game, because man, I just found it shallow yet insultingly pretentious. Looking forward to your analysis!
Aww yEEEA SPEC OPS LETS GOO. Where should we play up to for next week??
I loved playing the older PS1 spec ops games. I feel this spec ops is the first one with a story. I really need to play this one lol.
I was so amazed when I relized shooting in the air was an option! :o
Incredible Game. This is going to be a good one
While I do think this game fumbles its execution in a few areas, it was also lightyears ahead of most of its competition in terms of narrative. Even outside of that context, I think it still largely holds up and is a really interesting game to discuss.
There are two ways one can take how the military trains. For practicality and act without question. The theoretical might be for specialists or strategists. The training makes sense and is effective for what you'll be engaged in while also we know soldiers are tools/pawns they don't want to think, but to do. You can't entirely eliminate personality, so it has to be silenced within the unit so you can all function together as one, but the commanding officers will loose the chain, not to be heroic, but to let loose the chain and that's where the bad rep for troops across the world comes from aside just being present. We do here of instances here and there were a unit will perform an act of altruism, yet they tend to be overshadowed by the atrocities that do get revealed. It might be a delicate balance of acting within the machine and retaining one's humanity at the same time, that in itself partially being in the hands of whomever one's commanding officer and up that chain. You also can't be a hero when you're not meant to go against your own 'band of brothers', no matter what action you see them undertake.
Seriously though, asking the "did we spoil it?" Question is a lot like asking if looking at weather reports of the arctic tundra would help prepare you for how cold it is. The idea you have isn't going to help you survive it in actuality.
Jacobs ladder was on Amazon they took it off awhile ago for me and my wife we watched it and by the time it was over it no longer existed on Amazon video
Let's be real. Nutmeg is going to be the mvp of this series. 😂
It seems to me that while the military might /train/ soldiers not to play the hero in the name of avoiding unnecessary chaos, it absolutely /rewards/ those who value the guys next to them enough to ignore that training in the heat of the moment when everything's already gone mad.
Of course, there's a big difference between taking extreme heroic measures when there's no by-the-book answer and taking extreme heroic measures on the regular. There's a place for the fringe, but it's not in the center.
IIRC, the situation in Spec Ops isn't the sort that's inclined to result in a Medal of Honor. But soldiers definitely earn Medals of Honor for crazy acts of unpredictable heroism, which sort of undercuts the idea that soldiers should avoid playing the hero, lol.
wow! niiiice choice!
"It wanted to revitalize the Spec Ops franchise." Welp... Ya got one damn fine game out of your plan at least.
Let's gooo
I am not a FPS player and playing for this podcast had no idea what this game would going to be. During the first chapter I was very unconformable with the idea of killing those middle eastern people for barely any reason, for a second I considered the game to be some kind of American propaganda. Soon I found myself killing Americans and at that moment I check out of the killing, I began to think that the game is just a mindless killing simulation and I shouldn't care much about it. I chucked at the first dialogues showing concern about the civilians, we just killed hundreds of humans, who are we to pretend we are the good guys here? I really appreciate the twist and the direction the game take after that.
(1) I really love the ambition of the Spec Ops developers with regard to storytelling. They identified a “gap” in the market by comparing prevailing market trends (the omnipresence of shooter games) against “real life,” and they wanted to write a story that was “true” to reality and not Hollywood.
It really reminds me of the ambition that Sakaguchi, Kitase, Nomura etc., had when making FFVII in 1997. Like how Spec Ops wants to shed light on the “true” face of heroic thinking and war, FFVII wanted to be “true” to the realities of life and death.
We need more stories like these that are authentic, thought-provoking, and in a word, un-Hollywood. Given the very unique capacities in video games to immerse the player, there’s a lot of learning and philosophical work you can do through this medium.
Love you guys but Casen really needs a better setup. Maybe one of those small folding dinner tv tables to set the laptop on. The severe camera shaking every time he gesticulates was problematic and I had to switch to audio only.
@@SaintBoot I hope so. I don't mean it in a mean way but it really triggered my motion sickness. Hard to say that on the internet without coming across as an ass.
Death Stranding kinda challenges the perception of whether a game needs to be fun by taking the element of what it would be like to do something as mundane as a delivery man. For all of Death Strandings faults it's a game I really enjoyed for its story and ambition to try something completely new.
On the subject of whether or not the game is spoiled by researching it's history and intent. I would look at it like this - Even if you know the water in the pool is cold before diving in, it can still take your breath away when touches your skin.
One of the best games ever made. So misunderstood in it’s time and overlooked for so long. Which given the state of the gaming press, ain’t hard to believe.
It’s a harrowing journey into madness, an exploration of self imposed damnation, a critique of hero worship, and even on just its surface, a really compelling journey.
Metaphysical and Psychological, it makes me think on the movie Angel Heart as much as Apocalypse Now.
No wonder that Resident Evil 7 turned out to be one of the best is the series as Walt Williams wrote that after Spec Ops.
Looking forward to this series 👌
Missed you guys so much. Please never do an RPG on release again. 😂
Ha I was listening to a lot of analysis and long and behold this drops
This is easily my favorite shooter of all time! Can't wait for you guys to point out all the stuff I probably missed even after 4 playthroughs XD
Hey guys what edition of tactics ogre are we playing?
i didn’t expect this but nice game to choose :) i will definitely watch this whole series :)
Did I miss the spoiler warning you mentioned at the end to add at the beginning of the video?
I didn't even remember the game had Multiplayer. 🤔
Has the topic been mentioned how in a few Far Cry games you can "win" by not fighting at first?
You gonna do a story analysis of Gary's Mod next? lol what is this?
I'd say that there is in fact a difference between how _Spec Ops the Line_ and _The Last of Us 2_ handle the main character doing bad things. LoU2 really sets you (the player) up to despise Abby at first and then makes you go through a series of story beats that are supposed to make you more sympathetic to her, but it all comes across as forced and even hypocritical. Case in point: Abby is nice to giraffe: Abby good! Then Ellie kill dog: Ellie bad!
It also doesn't help that the creators made it known that the gender, sexuality, and ethnicity of many characters were not accidental but in fact a deliberate, political choice. They gave of this sense of them spreading a message with their emphasis on progressive politics and most of all that overused, pretentious phrase "subverting expectations".
Same thing with _Silent Hill 2:_ at no point do we feel like we, as the player, have been manipulated into feeling one thing at first and another second. You are simply following the journey of a man coming to terms with his past. It doesn't feel like the creators had a political agenda behind what they did but were in fact telling a timeless story of a human being confronting the darkness within.
Spec Ops biggest detractors complain about the same thing you do with TLou2, that it seemed like they were forcing a message about US military, arabs as terrorist ect.
Don't get me wrong I think TLoU2 has issues on a fundemental writing level, but Abby's gender and stuff aren't the ones that spring to mind.
EDIT: also you bring up Silent Hill not being about making you feel a certain way about certain themes is media illiterate like Harry about abuse and Silent Hill 3 critique on religious fundamentalism from a female perspective, those are specific themes of darkness that relate to our times.
@@islandboy9381 Even if we ignore the forced 'diversity' in LoU2 it's still an unredeemably bad game, for reasons I've already explained: namely that it comes across as a cheap attempt to trick the player into feeling a certain way and then making him or her feel bad bad for doing so.
Apocalypse Now is a really good movie, however I feel Platoon better captures the soldier's psyche in the literal jungle battlefield that was Viet Nam. It's not as stunning visually (even though it came out later than Apocalypse), but in my opinion is more grounded in the depiction of the horrors of war. Plus Willem Dafoe gave one of the best performances of all time if you ask me.
Which version if apocoalypse now? The theatrical version is relentless
I hate that I spoiled Spec Ops The Line for myself.
Cat steals podcast highlight yet again
A couple of things for those going in for the first time, also don't worry about spoilers for what I'm writing here, it's more vague, general stuff.
- pay attention if you can to the fade-outs of scenes. There's a specific difference between a fade out to white, and a fade out to black.
- descent, both literal and metaphorical, plays a large role.
- there are at least a couple of times when a choice is not as binary as it appears....
On if games need to be fun…
I am probably the only person I know who does not like The Last of Us game. For me it was a very unfinished game to play and I quit maybe halfway through. However the story of that game is masterful and I really enjoyed the HBO series.
I think the question of if games need to be fun depends on the person because of the participatory element. I felt like TLoU was such a slog to play so I couldn’t continue and I felt like I missed out on a great game story experience for a while
Although in FFXV ch 13 you get stripped of your weapons and abilities and the game turns into a survival horror and it’s not fun nor is it meant to be because the character is going through a struggle and I loved the way that was executed.
So I guess it’s a question of taste. And maybe how long the unfun part is. If it’s the whole game vs just a stage
FFXV Chapter 13 is so divisive-yet-interesting, lol. I like to say it's the only time I've ever really felt like the developers decided to let the villain torture the player directly for an hour. (Metal Gear Solid has its torture QTEs, of course, but that's a lot more limited in scope.)
XV also did the "make player feel like a terrible person" thing with Episode Ardyn... which I definitely felt when playing it.
Got to play this for the first time a couple years ago and the game blew my freakin’ mind!
Video games are a form of art, but its not as acepted as such by everyone the way movies, books, etc. are.
Did I miss something. Why is everybody in the living room? 😅
it's great that the game tries to convey a messagge, but if the gameplay is mediocre or awful eighter you'll stop playing the game or force yourself to keep going because the game has the reputation of having a great narrative so you end up seeing the "game" as a movie. Alas, defeating the purpose of being a game. If you want to preach people, do it on movie or books, not in games. Games are for playing and having fun, not thinking what does this affect you IRL
The only games that succesfully merge message and gameplay were the metal gear series, and in those games the gameplay was FUN. If the gameplay it's interesting i'll be easier to process what's happeing
You know what actually would be amazing? If someone would actually critique and criticize this game instead of slobbering over it like the entirety of alt-games media.
(3) The way to know that the game is at least aiming on a higher level of storytelling is when the developers themselves debate over the nature of the game.
Considering that this game deals with themes such as America’s involvement with the rest of the world, I think it’s very interesting that the development team is diverse and made up of people of different nationalities, each with their own perceptions on the good (or ill) of American intervention in the affairs of the world.
LFG
IM FINALLY FIRST!
No rebirth reaction? Come on man.
Why would they? Mike has made his feelings on Remake pretty clear, there won't be any Rebirth content on this channel safe to assume.
And now, you can't buy this game anymore.
GameStop might have it
Spec Ops The Line is just so underrated. We need a remake or a "sequel"
No it's not and no we don't, it's in the right place right now
Walt Williams is probably the most pretentious person to ever write an AA/AAA video game. NieR managed to do literally everything Spec Ops does and more, and all without some hyperspecific morality focused on America and the Middle East specifically, and without attacking the audience for the crimes of the US military industrial complex.
I didn't know simply stating facts is "attacking" the audience now
Mr Williams projections onto his perceptions of the "CoD/dudebro" demographic are not facts. Try again. Maybe read his book, Significant Zero?@@islandboy9381
Best third basemen in giants history.
Cassen do yourself a favor and eat some shrooms and watch apocalypse now this instance!
Not really my type of game but is it that highly recommended?