hey everyone that's here in 2024: at the start of the video it is stated that is game is available on pc, however it is not, licensing issues has caused the game to be removed from online stores, however through physical copies on ps3 and xbox 360, you can play the game
Thank you so much for understanding how time works lol. Can't tell you how many people have commented to correct me on the availability of Alan Wake without realizing that video is several years old now. 😅
@@GameProf no worries dude, love your vids, i actually found you one day after first beating the game and as a person with autism and a few other disorders that didn't make playing the game easy, hearing you explain the game and what it means and the message behind it was great, this video and this game are my fav things to A): listen to or fall asleep to (vid) and B): listen whilest playing the game
You can still activate the game on Steam with a Steamkey, but you can only get those on shady grey markets, still sad to see this one go cause of copyright... I got a Steamkey myself and had a blast playing this absolute gem :D
For some reason I am reminded of the achievement in Uncharted 4 called "Ludonarrative Dissonance" after you kill 1000 enemies. The idea that you're a loveable protagonist who is just trying to help while being an unstoppable killing machine.
There are games that tell us the consequences of our actions, yet, they never explicitly show us; all the while telling us (one way or another): "Good job".
I recall that the achievements on the PS or Xbox were removed exactly because they perpetrate the killings as something good, although ironically the game "implies" exactly that by doing mockery to most kill based games like Call Of Duty/Battlefield. "Do you feel like a hero yet?"
@@theoneand0nly874 I dunno about the other game. In a review someone mentioned that an achievement about body count in Spec Ops was removed. But it was long time ago so I cannot find it and I don't have the game on Xbox. For Steam/PC I don't recall the achievements as well.
An interesting thing to note, yet I wouldn’t say that Spec Ops has an issue with it. The entire ludology in Spec Ops is designed to make the point of its metanarrative. That war and violence is all fun and games. Mundane and pedestrian in the world we inhabit today. There isn’t really Ludonarrative Dissonance because Walker and by extension You, are a mass murdering lunatic with delusions of power and importance within the confines of Spec Ops. Walker isn’t really a nice guy put into a bad situation where he has to step up and be a hero. In fact his attempts to do so turn what was a bad situation into a death sentence for everyone else, and he a bloodthirsty psycho chasing voices in his head. That heroic fantasy is what he wants to believe subconsciously, and in another sense we do as well.
The sad thing is it's still used VERY frequently with little consequence. On paper, yeah it's "illegal". But if someone uses it, it warrants nothing more than a slap on the wrist from the UN.
The reality is that any concern over "humane" warfare is a luxury that only the wealthy countries can afford. When survival is at stake, the vast majority of people will use any means necessary, no matter how inhumane they may be. If you never have to make such decisions, then you are very lucky.
@@JRandomHacker Funniest thing about that is it's completely incidental. Yaeger weren't aware of Nolan North's public image at the time he was cast. The perfect punchline to their extremely specific satire, and one of Nolan's most memorable performances, all came together by happenstance. That said, if I get that autograph opportunity, I'm going to ask if I can get one on Spec Ops and one on Saint's Row 3.
I still think it's a masterstroke that he's doing his 'Hero Voice' for the game. The Nathan Drake/generic burly protagonist voice. It's an extra layer of comfort for players that makes the later subversion even more impressive.
This is it: The Definitive Analysis of The Line that actually understands the game, what it's trying to do, and how it interacts with the broader context in which The Line exists. Bravo.
This is a pretty good analysis but it missed some parts in my opinion. It should have talked about the subtle messages throughout the game. Like the wall with the 3 people having hollow eyes at the execution site, or the tree that was lush but becomes withered when you turn back to look at it or the lamp posts being normal looking lamp posts until Walker gets close and suddenly people were hung from them etc. There is also one ending that was missed which was the option for Walker to point the gun at himself and kill himself.
@@igotbanned3timesfromyoutub883 I personally took Walker shooting himself as the ultimate form of accepting the responsibility. There's just something peculiar to just shooting yourself rather than let Konrad do it -- I feel like ending yourself would imply much more conscience, I think.
@@statisticserinokripperino I would argue that the opposite is also true -- that Walker shooting himself is the easy way out in that situation, avoiding having to face the pain caused by the realisation of his own actions. Depends on your beliefs of what it means to "accept responsibility", I suppose.
I can't speak confidently to the academic rigor re: the game's handling of PTSD, and it goes without saying that no one person's take represents anyone but themselves. That said, on a recent playthrough, Walker's mentalization struggles and preserverence in trusting his instinct to his own detriment, felt very true to my own past struggles. There was an especially chilling vibe throughout the CIA arc where the squad keeps filling up a laundry list of reasons not to cooperate with them and Walker can only ever retort "but this person has heroic qualities". When the brain is so hyperfocused on one framing of the past, everything in the present is felt by the value system of that framing. The notion of (Konrad's (fall from) ) heroism, and trusting it for every momentary decision, brings Walker a type of comfort that is otherwise completely mentally unavaible for him. That is a type of feeling I recognize. I'm not sure the game says anything novel about the nature of trauma as much as it's a narrative tool. But, rhetorical question, isn't that fine? Keeping in mind the restrictions of the medium - which is to say, the restrictions inherent to any attempt at capturing a moment of subjective human experience onto an artpiece - Spec Ops scans to me as utilizing trauma with a lot of genuine care and competence. I think that's a high enough mark on its' own.
@@mikeaykut9592idk if they did it in one day but i think they did do their voiceovers for the whole game multiple times so that they’d be tired by the end of it
@@runefaustblack They got paid an exorbitant amount to scream into a microphone. I'd agree if they were doing something that actually looked like work.
Wow! Thanks for putting this together! That we were creating something special became apparent to us at some point during the long, long development of this game. Quite a few of us felt as beaten up us Walker when we finally shipped this monster. Seeing now what the game means to players, to analytic minds like yours makes it as you say: Worth it! It is also videos like this that make me appreciate how we as a team have turned into a cohesive working something. You refer to elements and subtle details in the game and how they effectively contribute to the game as a cohesive whole. I remember vividly how some of those more felt like random but good ideas of very different people on the team. The player’s name in the opening credits is one such thing. The subtle and not so subtle showings of Walker’s increasing mental distance from reality is another as this was literally crowdsourced within the whole team to come with ideas here. I think at some point there was an inner drive in a lot of us to find ways to contribute to making this game as special as it was in the end. My own little something was implementing a way to play the game with localized texts but still getting the original and simply outstanding English voice over. Unreal Engine 3 did not really support this at that time and me being a German player punished by bad German localizations time and time again basically hacked in a way for my fellow Germans and French, Italians and so on to get localized texts and most importantly subtitles while retaining the original voice over. I was doing that while being the Lead Programmer on the team and actually having no business in writing substantial code at that point. I was supposed to plan bug fixing and performance improvement work. Well … I just felt that the game needed that extra level of quality. I am telling you this not to make myself look good but to give you an idea of the kind of positive frenzy a lot of us on the dev team felt that was I believe substantial to deliver in the end. So thanks again for your insights into our game and the insights into what this game did with and to you! -Andre
Hey Andre. Just wanted you to know that I really appreciate the work you and the rest of the team put into to making Spec Ops what it is. Even now, almost 10 years later, there's still noting quite like it out there. The game left such a big impression on me that I still go back and play through it every now and then. While it didn't get the attention I think it deserved at launch, I'm happy that it's still brought up every now and then, including long-form analysis like this video. Even if all of you have long since moved on to other things, I still think about what an experience it is to travel to Dubai with captain Walker and the fabulous D-boys. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you from making this game a possibility.
Ive played this game years ago when i was a teenager, i still think about it to this day, i dont believe oneself will ever be able to truly process what this game means, and the effect it has on us. This game is burned into my brain, and i would not have it be any other way. Thank you for helping develop one of my favorite games of all time.
Thank you very much for what you did! I speak English myself but my friend to whom I wanted to show this game did not so the ability to keep the English voice over is immensely appreciated.
Thanks so much for making this game. I have just played through it for the first time and as a former soldier it has really made me think about my changing mindset during my service
I love that the first time you see the loading screen, the flag is clearly flowing in the wind. Almost too perfectly and movie like, but it’s upside down and Hendrix’s version of the Star spangled banner plays, a famously critical version of the song in response to Vietnam. This is just the first 3 seconds of the game before you even hit START and it already encapsulates the games theme and message.
One cool thing to note is Walker going through the 5 stages of grief when confronting "Konrad" "You're not real. This is all in my head" [Denial] "No. Everything....all of this was your fault!" [Anger] "I didn't mean to hurt anyone..." [Bargaining] Then when he raises the gun it signifies [Depression] and when you pull the trigger on yourself represents the final stage. [Acceptance]....
My absolute favorite part of this game is in one of the earlier sections, going through a mall I think? It's been a while. But while going through this place, you're constantly weaving and bobbing through curtains, hung-up blankets, and vending stalls. In the midst of it, there is a SINGLE civilian, she pops out from behind one of the curtains on your left, and every time I see someone playing through the game they shoot her on sight without a second thought, and they don't even notice it. They just continue onwards. I accidentally shot her too when I played through the first time, and I was expecting some kind of dialogue about it. I was expecting something like "No, God damnit! I just shot an innocent woman." from Walker, or maybe some kind of "MISSION FAILED. TRY AGAIN?"... But no, an innocent person died by my ineptitude, my ineptitude AS THE PLAYER, and absolutely nothing in the game acknowledges it. It was a silent gut punch that I just had to move on from. I have no doubt that the Dev Team put her there on purpose for that express reason. Oh and ALSO; I love that during the White Phosphorous scene, Walker's face can be seen in the reflection of the computer screen. Like the game is saying "Look at what YOU'RE doing." Oh and ALSO ALSO, your camera lens had a smudge on it in the video. It shows right over your nose and mouth in the bits where you zoom into your face.
I am surprised to hear that, I actually hadn’t shot her on my first and only play through, so maybe that’s why some of the messages seemed cheap to me until I heard some alternate interpretations. I still don’t fully agree with some of the perceived messages people got from the game, but it has given me more insight and I respect it both as a game and as art a lot more now.
I honestly thought the game was bugging when i saw walkers reflection over the satelite visual but i guess the developer went a step ahead. This is one in a lifetime masterpiece game
I saw a point made and it was fascinating when it was brought up to support that 'Spec Ops The Line' is not the fall of Konrad, but of Walker. Both versions of Kurtz are full of justifications for their actions, insisting even in the face of obvious signs to the contrary that their actions were correct and necessary. Konrad has no such delusions, you see it in the handful of glimpses we get at the real man, he is all too aware of the human cost of what he's done and ultimately he kills himself because he can no longer bear the weight. One of the most telling things we get from Konrad, to me at least, is his letter for his son (which you find as a intel file): "Jeremy. Someday, people will tell you about your father. For that, I'm sorry. I love you. - Dad." That's it, no appeals for understanding of why he HAD to do it, no justifications, just an apology for the horrible story his son will one day be told. He already knows how history will judge him and he is not about to argue. The real Konrad (as revealed in this intel files) is for all intents and purposes a completely different person, with Boxleitner playing him as a much more sorrowful, thoughtful and softly spoken man. A man who was arguably experiencing a character arc closer to Adams; where like Adam's he ultimately decides he can no longer bear to be a part of this story. Instead it is Walker who spends much of the narrative deflecting blame, insisting his actions were righteous and necessary even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary. Indeed for all that he can leave Rigg's to burn as punishment for his actions, Walker's story is essentially Rigg's story; each performing actions in response to the 33rd's actions, which not only don't help the situation at all, but are arguably far worse than what the 33rd had already done, while insisting that what the did was necessary. Riggs' thinks that in response to the failures of the 33rd's efforts to help, effectively the entire Middle East will rise up, putting aside all the differences that lie between them and declare war on America. This is a fantasy that allows Riggs' to be the hero and makes whatever he does to prevent it justified. Walker thinks that that taking down 'Konrad' will somehow allow him to succeed where Konrad failed and rescue the civilians, ignoring that killing one man will in no way make him any better equipped to do that and that by the time he get's to Konrad, there are a lot fewer people left to 'save' anyway. This too is a fantasy. Ultimately all Walker can do once he 'wins' is repeat what Konrad did at the beginning and radio for help, which he could have done almost from the beginning of the narrative while inflicting a hell of a lot less pain in the process.
My personal theory is that we are going through Walker's PTSD; He is recalling what happened in Dubai, and we are along for the ride. Sure he might try to think of what it would be like if he did some things differently or not, but it always ends the same; It's all his fault. And he has to accept it, whether he wants to, or not.
There are other theories were he died in the chopper crash and that he's reliving his mistakes as a form of hellish torment for his sins but I don't think it matters whether he is alive or dead, either way he's in hell, forever reliving where he went wrong and what he did different, you could even argue that the ending when he shoots himself is the true ending to the game as it ends the cycle of torment as he finally accepted the gravity of what he had done, what he had become, I feel that works if he's alive, at home probably living in a complete dump and suffering from PTSD, unable to sleep because every night he relives Dubai until he decides it's enough
The loading screen with the flag man also tells its own story with the soldier next to an upside down flag signaling distress until his untimely demise which coincides with the flag being the right way up again, signaling the suffering is over him. Such a special game
I heard it was a copyright issue with music used, specifically people say the Jimi Hendrix song rights' expired, which is shame if thats in fact the case. That song is pretty much perfect for the themes of the game, so id if they re-released the game with a cheaper licensed song or something by an in-house composer, it wouldnt be the same.
I will always remember playing this game for the first time and on one of the loading screens it asked "can you even remember why you came here?" The chills that I got from that one loading screen have not been matched since. This game is fantastic and the video is also fantastic.
I always saw this as a horror game. Jacobs Ladder-esque. That's how it was sold to me by a friend. Maybe for me, it's intentions of indicting me as a player doesn't quite land because, since I'm a story guy, I go into it role playing as Walker. As a character in a work of fiction. But as a work of fiction in the video gaming medium? It's exemplary!
I know this is late, but there are clues in the dialogue that subtlely point out the ludicrousness of FPS games in the context of real war. Lugo starts out with a comment about "beach to naked women ratios preferably being 1 to 3" (I think that's the quote, can't remember) which is obviously a reference to KDAs in the multiplayer matches... And Adams immediately follows up by pointing out just how ridiculous a thing that is to say. Then there's them talking about that sniper rifle you find on the rooftop. I remember how out of place the quotes about it felt. "It's a nice gun..." That one might be reaching but I'm almost certain there are more of these if you pay attention.
TIL the electrical device that shows an electric arcing in a relatively safe enviroment is named from a movie. Confused me for a bit, there. Thank you!
This game is a masterpiece, and I think looking at it as a criticism of gamers is selling it way short. It uses video games as a method to show the cost of violence. It shows how we can get caught up in doing things, not even realizing that we are working not just against our intended goal, but as lugo so precisely put it, turning us into killers. And it exposes just how much we enjoy violence, no matter how much we like to pretend we dont. Read up on the Spanish American war in the Philippines and you'll see just how dark this stuff gets in real life. We went in with good; albeit misguided intentions. We came out of it making internment camps, and shooting mortars into a volcano sheltering women and children.
"the road to hell is paved with good intentions" I think that quote sums up the game, all wars, usually started with people wanting to do the right thing, sometimes for their own people out of fear as is the case for the Nazis, or religious fanatics who feel their very way of life is under attack by certain races or culture and so they feel war through extermination and persecution is justified. Other times, they make war for others, convincing themselves they are helping the downtrodden and oppressed, which is usually how the United States justify war only they end up doing more harm than good, like in Vietnam or iraq
One thing I will always recommend, even though it might seem "tedious", is to play through The Line on the hardest difficulties you can in a single sitting. By the end, you'll be exhausted to the point of not being sure which choice is "better"
@@insanedominator8176 i just finnished my first fubar run and man i never was more angry at a game, yet understanding that the encounters are absolutly insane for a three man group. For me it cemented the fact that what we where doing was never our intended mission (the first few fightsare way easier to handle but the first encounter with the 33rd was absolutley brutal for me)
Its cool how the music during gunfights in this game (most of the time) I noticed isn't super adrenaline-pumping typical intense music. Its slow, dramatic, and makes it seem like one of those scenes where the characters are fighting till their last breath, destined to lose. Which in a way is true.
15:31 actually those statues allude to whatever you chose to do with Riggs. If you shoot him, one of the statues will be pointing their finger at the other in the shape of a gun. If you let him burn, they'll have those cracks. If you point the camera at them long enough, they'll go back to normal.
I'll never forget when I first played this a while after it came out, and I was picking up on the main idea of the game was going for but not fully clued in. I was at the boat section proud to have survived the helicopter section but getting my pride hurt by being constantly killed. I was "locked in" to beat the challenge, forgetting any nuance or moral dillemas the game had brought up about my violent actions and just playing the game to see more of it, getting used to the sight of the loading screen after getting killed showing me that sandy boat and increasingly meta hints about gameplay and rapidly hitting buttons to get back into combat. When suddenly I die and rather than a loading screen a cutscene plays, showing a shadowy figure and Adam's voice screaming at me to "STOP! JUST FUCKING STOP!" When the game loaded back in I had to pause and actually stop playing to collect myself. I wasn't scared, but I was shook. Like the game literally paused to shake me out of the zone I was in intentionally. I began reflecting on what actually Walker was doing anymore in Dubai and finally picking up on the meta commentary that the real reason he keeps going is because I keep playing, forcing him to. Not many games have gotten me like that, and none to the degree of making me feel like a sweaty CoD fanboy who's missing the point and getting mad at a game like Spec Ops The Line.
Every squad member has changing dynamic dialogue. It's not just that scene that changes their behavior, but several major plot points, giving them this beautifully executed gradual downfall The vehicle used in Death From Above is not a helicopter. It's a heavy-duty transport plane refitted with howitzers used for long distance fire missions. The largest gun has a effective range of 11.5km, well beyond the distance at which you can even see the aircraft, let alone return fire. This is established in the previous mission when you see a fire mission carried out from the perspective of the ground and it comes out of the skybox, out of nowhere. The reason the crew is so disengaged is because they are in absolutely no danger, as opposed to an attack helicopter that has to be close enough to at least be visible is order to engage
This one struck the best chord. Being an Afghanistan vet and seeing this type of person in real life is scary. I never questioned my nature, only my purpose. Being solid in who you are is a big part of coning back from the brink. Something narcissists don't understand because their very sense of self is a delusion. Those are the ones that fall prey to the emptiness of war. They don't get good at anything else and justify their bad actions because their uniform bears a flag. A complete false sense of self I've personally watched fall apart in front of me in an ambush. I cried, but never for myself and in the safety of my FOB.
Never before did I play a video game then immediately do a google search for a literary analysis of that game. This game is special and unlike anything I've ever played before.
Gotta second the recommendation, it's really something special. And the first game, Nier Replicant, has been remastered too; they're separate enough you can play them in any order, but they're both incredible and Automata hits harder if you've played Replicant. I can't recommend them both highly enough!
The statues glowing isnt a reference to the white phosphorus, its a reference to the fact that you left Riggs to burn under the lorry. By contrast, if you shoot Riggs like he asks then the righthand statue will hold up finger guns at the left statue. Just wanted to point that out.
I think that even in 2022 Spec Ops: The Line is still a very valuable and "entertaining" game when you look at it more as a psychological horror experience than some deep critique of this and that. The descent of Walker's character is still just as impactful even when the same descent isn't trying to be cast onto the player, it's a sad yet interesting experience. As odd as the comparison is, playing Spec Ops: The Line feels like watching Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion for the first time, even if you're expecting the sharp downward turn it's still compelling.
46:40 At least in Call of Duty's case, many including myself believe that they didn't so much as ignore the war-critical elements of CoD 4 but were actively told to put it to the side by the Pentagon because they saw the mass protests of the Iraq War, had flashbacks to the Vietnam era, and decided they needed to up the propaganda through the roof so they never lose the blessing of the population again. Also, I like how you occasionally replaced the title of the game on the blackboard with particularly stand-out loading screen text from the game.
The difficulty I had with seeing the critique being on "the attitude of expecting validation that players bring to the experience" is that if the player doesn't bring that attitude (I was told the story was good, so my goal wasn't a power fantasy, but to experience the story) then it makes the intuitive interpretation closer to the "criticizing the player for playing" one. I'm really glad you did this video, because your interpretation makes a lot more sense when thinking about things from the average new player perspective, which I hadn't done. Great work!
Interesting. Likewise, I bought this game because of what I've heard about the story, so I definitely wasn't expectiong a power fantasy. (More specifically, I had heard that the game tricks you into thinking you are playing a standard military shooter before deconstructing the genre, that it's filled with references to The Heart of Darkness, and I had seen spoilers from the white Phosphorus scene). However... Unlike you, I felt like I wasn't really the target of this game's criticism. Rather, it felt like it was targeted at some hypothetical "generic Call of Duty player trying to live some sort of war hero fantasy without thinking too much about it, or about the real-world consequences of war." (And also towards video game companies that keep selling this fantasy in a country that already glorifies war.) Which is much closer to this channel's interpretation, but... It also lead to some feelings of detachment. Like... The game isn't really speaking to me, but towards some other hypotetical uncritical player. And Walker is a separed character whose story I'm following, not the avatar for my own actions. So I mostly engaged with the story with intelectual curiosity, rather than feeling directly involved. Still worth it, though. Even when viewed from a mostly detached perpective, the story is really written, and there is a lot to unpack here. Although I might have missed out a bit when compared to people going in completely blind. On the other hand, I'm not into FPS games and I had never even played a military shooter for more than 15 minutes before, so I doubt I would have given this game a second glance if it wasn't for the spoilers. ^^;
Yeah, Spec Ops: The Line is definitely a game that falls apart if played without the attitude it expects. SOTL is was made to communicate a specific message to a specific audience, and it doesn't work without it.
@@mdd4296 Yeah that's how I played it. It was a time when narrative moves like Bioshock's were still innovative, so I was down for the twist, even if I wasn't the reactionary, gun-ho COD target audience. Also I was down with the game's implicit critique of US involvement in Iraq, and since a game taking that stance was unheard of at the time I actually got a kick out of the critical turn. It was also just a really mind-bending experience. Whenever I replay it I still enjoy it just as a really visually striking and creative piece of storytelling that's on the right side of history.
I don't even understand that argument. Do people actually play games like CoD to feel powerful? I thought people mainly played those games because in the end, it's a video game made to be entertaining.
It's so good to hear from you again, you've been one of my favorite channels for a very long time! I first played this a few years ago, but I would never have picked up all this nuance without your analysis.
You can also notice that after witnessing the white phosphorus scene (10:46), Walker's irises look like broken glass- which i like to think the devs included to symbolize his shattered/warped perspective
That shot of the burnt woman covering her child's eyes in an attempt to shield them from the horrific reality of what transpired, but being unable to spare them of the immense pain of being burned alive, is one of the most memorable and haunting things I've seen in any game
In my opinion, Spec ops storyline is on par with the level of story telling in the last of us, even before LOU even exist. It's so massively underrated
That’s the only other game I could think of that hit similar…. But even Joel’s descent was nothing close to walkers. I can’t say which story is better, but I can say that spec ops went much, much further down the rabbit hole at the very least.
Something interesting in my own play through; I recognized immediately that those targets were civilians and that really took the 'big reveal' out from under me as I was forced to shoot them. However, your teammate says, "There's always a choice." and Walker says there, "No, there's really not" and meta commentary like that (especially in hindsight) is why Spec Ops: The Line is special to me.
This title definitely was the start of my fascination with the whole idea of genre deconstruction. Highly recommend "Killing is Harmless" to anyone that hasn't read it
In addition to Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now there's also HeartS of Darkness, which is a documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now and how the film's production ALSO mirrors the journey to the centre of some dark place and the madness that grows there. Definitely worth checking out.
It's always nice to see more stuff on Spec Ops: The Line! This game reminds of the Milgram Experiments, or what I remember learning about them in College. Hopefully, my memory isn't lying to me. In short, Milgram wanted to see what people would do if they were just following orders, and the answer ended up being "quite a bit." Spec Ops feels like it's that same experiment; pretty much the only reason we have to keep moving forward is because of the objective marker and/or Walker saying so, both of which could be considered a voice of authority in the context of the game. Events and such move quickly and give us little time to think critically about what's going on. I guess you could always pause, but whatever. When I took some extra time to slow things down and think about why Walker was doing things in the story, I often found he was usually rushing into a situation and had little to no information to go on. Early on, for example, they see a bunch of 33rd soldiers rounding up civilians. Delta assumes that they're going to execute the people, so they move in quickly to try and keep the 33rd from killing anyone, when the soldiers were actually just transporting the civilians to a different part of the city, no intention to harm, as far as I know. Walker also assaulted the gate with little knowledge beyond Gould had a map with that place circled, and look how that turned out.
There is also the Riggs arc where we saw Walker has faith in the agent's ostentatious mission of decisively defeating the Damned 33rd by stealing their water supply, despite the gut feelings (via Konrad) of Riggs doing something else more sinister. On the other hand, the game's premise is also about the "neutrality vs. intervention" dilemma, and taking situations out of context. It's seen in why Walker went down the rabbit hole in the first place-that he had to take the proactive initiative by choosing to rescue the survivors in Dubai when he felt that sticking to his intended recon mission and let the main attacking force do the job would have wasted the time and opportunity to save the lives in question.
Something i like a lot about this game that wasnt mentioned is the fact that if you sneak up on enemies and dont kill them you can hear them have small talk and conversations something that all the big shooters dont seem to do they would rather just have them speak in a foreign language so it takes away another human aspect of them because you dont know what they are saying
When I first beat the game my initial interpretation of the ending was that walker died in the plane crash and the rest of the game from that point is him in hell, which is shown through the hellish imagery and the hellish red color scheme that surrounds this point in the game rather than the orange and blue hues that did before, and that Konrad is a demon or maybe even the devil himself torching him as the personification of the villain walker made up in his head, and that in the end, the only way to end his hellish suffering is to admit to himself that what he did was monstrous despite his desperate claims to himself that non of the suffering here was not his fault. Siltifying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. With multiple playthroughs, my take on the game has changed but I thought I would just though out my two senses on my initial takeaway of the games ending.
Either way, this Protagonist is going through Hell itself. Moral Accountability is crawling up his spine with every action he takes, His sins are weighing him down further than the downhill level design and even if he were alive, he's already burning on the inside from everything he did. It's truly insightful when Video Games can evoke the Human Conscious that cannot be physically measured. Thought provoking themes such as these should make us stop and reflect on how we were made for more than just mere power and survival. Something inside us sees People as infinitely valuable and Art can be a fantastic tool to display this if handled correctly. This Hell interpretation works both ways whether he died at that plane crash or stayed alive. Either way, the weight of his sins is crushing his conscious. But hey, Killing for Entertainment is harmless...right?
I don't necessarily agree with that statement. I feel the whole "You were dead all along!" thing just cheapens the experience and takes away from the seriousness of what was happening. Specially since people in a psychotic state do often report things like pre-cognition or being given information by dead people they couldn't possibly have known. I instead prefer to think that Walker didn't die physically, but died spiritually and emotionally. He became a zombie, a ghost haunting his own body and is himself cursed to haunt the ruins of Dubai like a spector for all eternity.
Ah Spec Ops, the game that disguised itself as a generic FPS to brutally call out how self destructive and selfish the mindset of most FPS players truly is if it's applied in the real world. I can see why this game is so divisive.
It also doesn't help that the type of game they're disguised as isn't just pro-war and anti-browns, it's also aimed at *teenagers and kids.* And that demographic isn't exactly known as the most instrospective bunch.
@@sponge1234ify I definitely don't think that those games were usually aimed at kids at the time, even if kids did play them. Maybe now, with the advent of stuff like Fortnite, but from playing games around that time, I got the impression that the devs of FPS and third-person shooters were usually aiming for teens and adults as an audience. They typically weren't challenging their perspectives on war, but I never got the impression that they were intentionally made for kids. COD: World at War felt like it was trying to be a war game for people who already thought WWII stuff was cool and interesting, not to be baby's first introduction to the conflict.
I never really had an issue with shooting US soldiers when I played the game. I kinda just felt like an “Oh OK we’re doing this then,” mainly because my first shooter was Half-Life, and in that game you rather famously fight off the HECU marines. I was used to the idea of the U.S not being on the right side of things, and I was ok with just saying “they’re the bad guys now,” up until the white phosphorus attack. Similar to the end of Half-Life’s “On a Rail,” where you eavesdrop on two soldiers discussing the actions of Gordon Freeman, the player, and later on hear the soldiers complain about their orders to harm civilians, this recontextualizes the rest of the game, and makes you think. Great vid man! :)
The idea of game narratives just being context for gameplay just answered so much on my search for meaningfulness in video games. Thank you for another incredible video!
"A game advocating for its own obsolescence." That's just... such an amazing way to describe a piece of art. I think that's the goal for a lot of critical art. I sincerely hope every work with a message about the environment or bigotry or capitalism becomes obsolete someday.
Adaptation part minute 36... Kinda shatters me and I really feel connected "how everybody sees them as terrorists". As a guy that hear this "jokes" so often from almost every salty western I totally agree. Little did you know there are more to that. Locals in the game speak Persian (Farsi). They are themselves refugees from Iran to Dubai (having a background you'll see why, Dubai is a wealthy Arabic country and altho similar by the looks of our writing scripts which is Arabic, Persian countries almost have nothing in common with the Arab world, more on this below*). The American troops nor the audience don't even acknowledge them and they have the stereotype "if we cannot understand them, they are the enemy" mindset of a military game. It so much reminds me of "Mademoiselle Noir" song and I don't think it's a mistake it's a low-key comment and a conscious choice (at least I'd like to see it that way). In the game locals mostly just say have lines like, "so why you are here? to kill more of us?", "when Americans gonna leave us?" and so forth... Lugo saying only two Persian lines "We are here to help" (in the first encounter) and "What are you doing" (when they are hanging him) further suggests that he is just saying things and barely understand the people he is dealing with as never really holds a fluent conversation and switches to his fallback native language after the sentences (except when they hang him). Arab world as depicted in the game is a wealthy world. As one might expect having that much wealth probably most of them evaced before the events of the game even begin. The current citizens are probably refugees trapped here. This in my personal point of view is another commentary on how the world sees the Persian countries, Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, etc. These countries are all war torn with people "just wanting the peace" as Konrad puts it and they almost all lost of their original cultures and history to wars, whether being it Afghanistan "liberations" by the US, Arabs "Islamic conquest" marching to the east or Tajiks writing in Cyrillic and "Tajiki" because well that's what we Russians call it after we "liberated you". The story implicitly shows that these people are just stranded here and in an conflict that is not even theirs to begin with. They reach there in the promise of "Free water" and its a full on military crap life in which everybody's family's lives worth a bottle of water. They simply exist as "examples" to quote Konrad. To show the western world that "this is you if you don't pay your taxes".
Didn't the high class or the actual Dubai people left quietly and silence the broadcast about the sand storm? Something that likely possible considering how Dubai treats non-arabs
@@John_winston Perhaps I couldn't make my point clear. Yes, that's what I'm saying... They left and they are probably safe. Only the "lowest" and "weakest" get left behind in "the military playground". As Yas says: "Only the people are fuel to the flames of politics"
So I just want to say Ive been watching you a long time now. One of my fav games to analyze is Spec Ops. I have watched all other youtube content on it. I happened to check your channel about 30 minutes after you posted and I was absolutely giddy. Seriously amazing. Thank you for putting the tim in to do these videos. I told my old high school teacher that she is the reason I will watch hours of analysis about a videogame :)
THANK YOU!!!! God, it is SOOOO aggravating to listen to so many others talk about this game and take it as absolute GOSPEL that Walker's "Who said I did?" line at the end of the 'Go Home' Ending is the game telling us that Walker is currently dying under the wreckage of his helicopter. I'll admit, the first time I played this game, I was way too young to understand the story and its meta context. (I was also probably too young to actually be playing it lol) But what I managed to take away from it was that Walker decided he had had enough killing and wanted his peace, but he knew that all the horrible things he had done would make that peace impossible. And so when the soldier asks him "how did you survive this?" and Walker responds "who says I did?" I took it as Walker saying "I'm never going to recover from what happened here, even when I'm back home in America." And I really liked that, the fact that even the """""Good""""" ending implies that what happened in Dubai will never be truly forgotten. But THEN you have all these artsy "head up their own @$$, I'm so much smarter than you!!" dicks who are like "Nope, Walker is dead under the helicopter, there is NO other answer, you're wrong and stupid for even DREAMING there was another way to interpret it!!" So again, I thank you for having an open mind willing to see that "who says I did?" doesn't automatically mean Walker is bleeding out under the wreck of his chopper.
Your commitment to the content shows in subtle clues throughout the video. Exhibit A: The chalkboard behind you saying "You're still a good person" at around 57:15. Hilarious, appropriate, creepy. I love it 👍
I've never seen your channel before but as someone who is a HUGE fan of Spec Ops the Line, Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness, I am very impressed in this video. Subbed.
It was delisted today. The first thing I did was find a PS3 copy. I feel this will be the game version of Hanya Yanagihara's "A Little Life" for me-beautifully written but you will be wounded so deeply..
One of the craziest thing about this game is that many of the 'bosses' are never fought, or rather, you can always choose not to fight them and none of them are particularly strong. The first rogue soldier, the guys interrogating Gould, the dangling prisoners, Riggs, the mob lynching Lugo, Konrad himself. You can choose not to fight these bosses or choose to have mercy on them but there is no 'good result' for doing so. Some bosses you must fight but the only two I can think of are the Hallucination of Lugo and the white phosphorus bombing. The bosses of this game are not about gameplay. They are about the player, about the turning points the player faces and continues to face for as long as they hold the controller. The game has the player kill innocents, betray their countrymen, slaughter refugees, destroy the water in a desert, leave the city doomed, and there is no moral choice, though the illusion of choice is presented. The real moral choice is to stop. Like the line from the classic 80s nuclear thriller "War Games” the only winning move is not to play. The final boss of this game is not a rocket launching bullet sponge with telegraphed super moves. It's a question phrased enigmatically by Konrad but the question is "Why didn't you just stop?". At what point is the player supposed to understand that there is no good outcome? The many of the bosses don't fight Walker and he gets past all of them but each one contributes to Walkers' defeat. I find Spec Ops the line to be a kind of case study in the Lucifer effect, where unthinking adherence to established norms can lead people to perform cruel actions. It veils this psychology in an engaging narrative but the chilling nature of the shadow of the human psyche is bared in frightening detail.
Can't help but think i have seen half of this mechanics before, and not just in Apocalypse Now. The whole narrative and analytical arc feels exactly like Golding's Lord of the Flies: (1) start out by wanting to have games and fun; (2) approach the exotic setting with a large dose of colonial entitlement and misplaced romanticism and want to have adventures and be a hero; (3) unwittingly let out the dark inner self in the process, bringing about one hellish nightmare after another, each one worse than the one before, but always going on because "what else is there to do"; (4) being saved at the end in a Pyrrhic way that leaves you unsure of whether you survived at all, and if so, whether that is any good and whether there is any point to it; (5) and looking at the whole story (or film, or game) in the hope of understanding the expectations, causalities and dynamics, to maybe make them less likely in the future. And then, on top of all that strangely familar narrative and analytic foundation, your brilliant analysis what interactivity (and Gamer Expectations in particular, as opposed to more general expressions of 1911 to 2021 era western maculinity) add on top of it.
The one thing I hate about art games is lots of them will try to hide their message - but a hidden message changes fewer lives for the better. I like games that a dummy like me can still learn some philosophical meaning from. Games that don't code the message to look smart.
I love how much in this game the players feel identified as Walker and not as an outsider looking in and experiencing this particular piece of entertainment (not all entertainment is fun of course) you are named and identified as the special guest in the beginning after all. And I've always found it a bit funny as to how loud people go "but the game gave me no choice!!" right...we can say all we want that Walker did not have a choice either, he didn't get a press B to save the city moment, in reality, no one does and while every criticism that I've seen or heard is laid on the WP scene is sometimes fair no one can deny the necessity or impact of that moment as an effective push for the narrative, making another route would have to mean changing almost the entire endgame, that costs money and time that Yager did not have. And the infamous loading screens, confrontational as they are, they are not pointed at you specifically, they're pointed at Walker, and Walker keeps hammering into his own head that he is not a good person, he is not a hero, he knows this and yet admitting to that is harder than just stopping it's almost impossible really, he literally has to lose his mind and confront his demons on a symbolic tower closer to heaven rather than just stopping and turning around, a lot of stories would have ended if the protagonist would have just stopped. I love this game...we need a modern Spec Ops: The Line, but people already know that war is terrible, the modern "war" games now don't pretend that the US is a perfect country, that the good guys are always going to win, that invading another country for "reasons" is incredibly dumb...huh, you know? I think Spec Ops already became obsolete, not entirely of course but the industry is so much better now (at least the indie side), that's good, that's pretty good
Absolutely love this game, fantastic analysis as always. I've seen so many thorough looks at it recently that I'm itching to go do another playthrough.
*looks quizzically at the hour-long video that explains what the game means and why it's worth playing, then back at this question asked in the comments of that very video*
@@TreguardD It doesn't hate you for playing itself in particular, but rather seeking out experiences just like it and expecting it to congratulate you because of it.
@@TreguardD No, you're being asked why you chose to play a game about modern war and expected to be the hero, when those modern conflicts are more often than not displays of imperialism and the jingoistic games that glorify them often being whitewashing of horrible events. Why do you feel the need to be congratulated for invading a country?
Even if the day comes when Spec ops stopes being as effective as it was back in 2012, it will never stop being absolutely brilliant. Fantastic video. Wish I found your channel sooner.
Another great video on one of the more thought provoking shooters of the past decade A minor correction, the term "positive feedback loop" generally means a loop that feeds itself like compound interest where the interest adds to the balance which generates more interest. It's more about the functionality of the gameplay loop versus the external benefits like affirmation of player behavior. Since a "positive feedback loop" can actually negatively impact a player like with the interest example but if applied to player debt to spiral things out of control. Or a system where once you take damage, the player character slows down making it more likely for the player to take damage. And in contrast a "negative feedback loop" is a loop that hinders itself like in football or basketball where once you score the ball is given to the player. Or invincibility frames upon taking damage to prevent the player from taking more damage.
I played and finished this all the way through almost 10 years after it originally released. I was far too young to play or truly understand it when it came out. (I was 11 years old.) now being almost 21, I was certainly ready. I can definitely say this is the “Come and See” of video games. It’s the one people will talk about for its horror and portrayal of what war is.
Never have I felt bad for killing people in a video game until this one. Everything is questionable and it's what I love about it. Captures the questionable nature of ones actions in war. Getting the point that war is hell is hard. Just look at Home Fronts struggle, but killing your own team really gets the gears going and really gets you in the mindset of a soldier. We don't know who the enemy is, we only see people until violence breaks out.
The line "who said I did..." can also allude to the Belly of the Whale phase of the hero's journey - which represents the final separation from a hero's known world and self. Walker went into Dubai with good intentions - to save people. But in his attempt had died and become reborn. _The Hero with a Thousand Faces_ by Joseph Cambell is a comparative analysis of mythology in which heroes from myths often tend to share similar journey (aka the hero's journey). Honestly, Walt Williams saying that "Walker was dead the whole time" makes sense because is definitely something common among soldiers (at least I think so). In _All Quiet on the Western Front_ , a novel by Erich Maria Remarque (a German veteran of World War I) Paul wishes he had never come on leave, believing that he has _changed far too much to live as he once did._
This game is fascinating to me on the same level silent hill 2 is. You are an extremely underrated channel man. Hang in there long enough and you will get to a million subs
Something I noticed missing in the summary is that the flashback at the end of the game tells us Walker's been hallucinating since well before the first 'noticable' hallucination. My own interpretation of the story is that while the protag didn't die in the helicopter crash, he does still walk in a circle around the city. That's why every enemy in the game approaches him like he's already infamous & known to them and it makes sense for both the comments of our squad as well as the endings. I feel like that reading would explain everything down to the first enemies we meet ingame.
Been watching analysis of this game and learn more about its conception and inspirations as I go. But I found your eloquent breakdown of the devs intentions to be the best so far. It really is a great skill you have there, being able to convey such nuance I might myself feel and understand, but feel unable to explain or even pinpoint myself. I’ve found myself nodding in agreement and saying “yup”out loud at some points, because your conclusions resonated so much with me. When you said “Spec Ops’ goal is its own obsolescence” I found myself finishing your sentence. That was because you were able to actively engage me with your analysis and made me reflect on my own thoughts about the game, and in the end so many things I wasn’t able to concretise finally had “names”. It just clicked, as if I understood a math problem as the professor solved it in front of the class, and I’d find myself solving the rest on my own as my conclusion gets simultaneously validated/confirmed on the blackboard. It’s a great feeling. So, bravo on being an excellent teacher. And restoring my faith in the media literacy and capacity for nuance of people.
MAJOR SPOILERS I remember the first time I played this game (On suicide mission) at the part where Lugo dies, at the refugee camp, and you have the choice to kill the civilians yourself, or have them die of thirst, I shot them because I was furious that they killed Lugo. But I also had a Scar-H when it happened, with the grenade launcher on the bottom, I could've saved that grenade for hostiles, I'm pretty sure it was my second to last one too, but instead I waited for the civilians to clump up as they ran down the one corridor, and I shot the grenade launcher to kill as many as I could, in the moment I didn't have a second thought about it, but looking back on it, it disgusts me. I turned into Walker, all the deaths throughout the game making me more irritated. And now I think I see walker, and the player (on first, unspoiled playthroughs) getting enjoyment by hurting people.
58:45 "I know you didn't have much in terms of choices this time. But everything you've felt, thought about during this mission is yours. And what you decide to do with them is your choice." -Solid Snake
this was a really great video! As a long time fan I think it's one of your best. I appreciated how thorough you were in covering a variety of different approaches to understand the game, and how you covered the whole plot without reducing parts of the video to basic summarizing and commentary. I felt very engaged the whole way through
Well done, absolutely bravo. I've been currently working on college literary assignments and have been looking at examples to help improve my understandings/readings of content and this one was by far the most helpful in doing so. Can't wait to further binge watch your channel!
Oh don't worry, I'm not rushing. But so long as I have a window of opportunity to do this full-time, I can get a lot more done! I did a video about it a couple weeks back if you want to know the full context.
The music at the end of this video (as well as the end of the game) creates a lump in my throat that only the worst things I've gone through (ie the death of my grandfather) can. Without context, it's a slightly eerie, sad-sounding song. With context, it brings with it nothing but pain and the awful realization that you are a monster, and that everything that happened is your fault.
Tangential to this video, but there's a video game called Yggdra Union that has a similar premise to Spec Ops but in the context of a Fire Emblem-esque tactics game. I wound up playing the first little bit on PSP back in the day, and I think it actually broke me a bit. For context, the story's nothing you haven't heard before. Evil empire, fleeing princess, brave bandit leader, magical sword. Thing is, there's this undercurrent of compromise and regret pretty much from the fourth map onwards. In one map, the army plows through a kingdom of mermaids who were aggressive for reasons completely outside of their control. In another, the player has to make a call to back one of two rival nobles, killing the other in the process. It never gets to the point of the white-phosphorous scene, but there's always the feeling of "wish I could have done that better." There's a recurring character who swoops in to save your army every now and again but she never sticks around, because she doesn't like the princess and sees this whole thing as "two imperial powers trying to dominate each other." I think what made that game work up to a point is that the Empire is a recognizeable threat that must be stopped for everyone's benefit. The fact that they straight-up try to enact a doomsday ritual when you start to gain ground against them just reinforces that. So I didn't mind that I was stomping into their Imperial homeland, slaying all their generals and smashing my way towards their emperor. Quite frankly, they'd brought it on themselves. They'd done all this and more to my homeland, it was only fair at this point. Then the game throws a bunch of imperial peasants at you. They have two bosses, they're all underleveled, and you rip through them like tissue paper. When I killed the first boss and the second one promptly screamed in anguish, I was done. It felt like I'd put my finger on a hot stove. Stupid and painful. I will begrudge that game for having a twist like that, because on some level it feels more like a "gotcha" than an accurate diagnosis. There's an entire third act of Yggdra Union that I've never seen, and I never will because why would I continue playing a literal goddamn war criminal. Sorry if that's a bit of a digression. Just seemed relevant.
That part where you have to choose between which of the two people to shoot really surprised me. You can shoot the one dude, or the other, OR you can open fire at the snipers! I'm not good at thinking out of the box, maybe it's coz I'm autistic, maybe I'm just not as creative as I like to believe, but that really changed how I felt about the game. And all this time, I had no idea there were more than two endings. This was a great game, and as bland as it starts, I love me a cover shooter, so I was into it the whole way. Pretty rewarding experience, I'm glad I played it.
I’ve lately been on a spontaneous desire to absorb more-or, rather, revisit Analysis content on a game that left me with significant though; Spec Ops the line. And that journey has led the algorythm recommend this video to me. I’m thankfull for that, as this video’s in depth references and critique to the developer mindset and deeper objectifications of this game’s story, along with a dev commentating on this video’s comment page, has produce what I-or my brain-interpreted as a nice story book end to the discussion and observation of what Spec Ops the line has set out to do. …I still remember, on my very last playthrough of that game, I made it a point to go all the way up to the first conflict scene in the very first mission and turn off the game shortly after that, at the very least to insinuate that at that point, Walker made the choice to do his mission and radio in to command. Felt-to me-like the right thing to do, or at least I didn’t want to leave the game at such a low note. I may not have liked Spec Ops the line. Why would I? I’m not fond of suffering through situations that turn to shit, and no good thing ends up happening in the end to confort those involved, and/or make things right. But I certainly grew a deep appreciation for Spec Ops The Line, as I first sat and watch everything go from bad to worse through a youtube playthrough, back at the game’s release. Thank you for this video.
hey everyone that's here in 2024: at the start of the video it is stated that is game is available on pc, however it is not, licensing issues has caused the game to be removed from online stores, however through physical copies on ps3 and xbox 360, you can play the game
Thank you so much for understanding how time works lol. Can't tell you how many people have commented to correct me on the availability of Alan Wake without realizing that video is several years old now. 😅
@@GameProf no worries dude, love your vids, i actually found you one day after first beating the game and as a person with autism and a few other disorders that didn't make playing the game easy, hearing you explain the game and what it means and the message behind it was great, this video and this game are my fav things to A): listen to or fall asleep to (vid) and B): listen whilest playing the game
You can still activate the game on Steam with a Steamkey, but you can only get those on shady grey markets, still sad to see this one go cause of copyright... I got a Steamkey myself and had a blast playing this absolute gem :D
we should pirate it
@@T42oqq I mean, I don't endorse piracy what so ever but hey, you do you
For some reason I am reminded of the achievement in Uncharted 4 called "Ludonarrative Dissonance" after you kill 1000 enemies. The idea that you're a loveable protagonist who is just trying to help while being an unstoppable killing machine.
There are games that tell us the consequences of our actions, yet, they never explicitly show us; all the while telling us (one way or another): "Good job".
I recall that the achievements on the PS or Xbox were removed exactly because they perpetrate the killings as something good, although ironically the game "implies" exactly that by doing mockery to most kill based games like Call Of Duty/Battlefield. "Do you feel like a hero yet?"
@@momchilandonov wait that specific achievement was removed?
@@theoneand0nly874 I dunno about the other game. In a review someone mentioned that an achievement about body count in Spec Ops was removed. But it was long time ago so I cannot find it and I don't have the game on Xbox. For Steam/PC I don't recall the achievements as well.
An interesting thing to note, yet I wouldn’t say that Spec Ops has an issue with it.
The entire ludology in Spec Ops is designed to make the point of its metanarrative.
That war and violence is all fun and games. Mundane and pedestrian in the world we inhabit today.
There isn’t really Ludonarrative Dissonance because Walker and by extension You, are a mass murdering lunatic with delusions of power and importance within the confines of Spec Ops.
Walker isn’t really a nice guy put into a bad situation where he has to step up and be a hero.
In fact his attempts to do so turn what was a bad situation into a death sentence for everyone else, and he a bloodthirsty psycho chasing voices in his head.
That heroic fantasy is what he wants to believe subconsciously, and in another sense we do as well.
"Too inhumane for use in war." That sentence is horrifying in its own right.
The sad thing is it's still used VERY frequently with little consequence. On paper, yeah it's "illegal". But if someone uses it, it warrants nothing more than a slap on the wrist from the UN.
@@josephpercy8772
Useless
Nobodies
@@giovannicervantes2053 Sounds about right
Willie Pete is a horrible thing.... the smell never leaves your senses.
The reality is that any concern over "humane" warfare is a luxury that only the wealthy countries can afford. When survival is at stake, the vast majority of people will use any means necessary, no matter how inhumane they may be. If you never have to make such decisions, then you are very lucky.
One of Nolan North's best preformances.
He's almost playing a dark parody of "Nolan North characters". I love it.
@@JRandomHacker Funniest thing about that is it's completely incidental. Yaeger weren't aware of Nolan North's public image at the time he was cast. The perfect punchline to their extremely specific satire, and one of Nolan's most memorable performances, all came together by happenstance.
That said, if I get that autograph opportunity, I'm going to ask if I can get one on Spec Ops and one on Saint's Row 3.
I still think it's a masterstroke that he's doing his 'Hero Voice' for the game. The Nathan Drake/generic burly protagonist voice. It's an extra layer of comfort for players that makes the later subversion even more impressive.
One of the game professor's best performances too
I recall Nolan North mentioned somewhere that it was his favourite performance.
This is it: The Definitive Analysis of The Line that actually understands the game, what it's trying to do, and how it interacts with the broader context in which The Line exists. Bravo.
This is a pretty good analysis but it missed some parts in my opinion. It should have talked about the subtle messages throughout the game. Like the wall with the 3 people having hollow eyes at the execution site, or the tree that was lush but becomes withered when you turn back to look at it or the lamp posts being normal looking lamp posts until Walker gets close and suddenly people were hung from them etc. There is also one ending that was missed which was the option for Walker to point the gun at himself and kill himself.
@@chrisl9934 doesnt walker pointing the gun himself and letting Konrad do it for you leads to the same ending?
@@igotbanned3timesfromyoutub883 I personally took Walker shooting himself as the ultimate form of accepting the responsibility. There's just something peculiar to just shooting yourself rather than let Konrad do it -- I feel like ending yourself would imply much more conscience, I think.
@@statisticserinokripperino I would argue that the opposite is also true -- that Walker shooting himself is the easy way out in that situation, avoiding having to face the pain caused by the realisation of his own actions. Depends on your beliefs of what it means to "accept responsibility", I suppose.
I can't speak confidently to the academic rigor re: the game's handling of PTSD, and it goes without saying that no one person's take represents anyone but themselves. That said, on a recent playthrough, Walker's mentalization struggles and preserverence in trusting his instinct to his own detriment, felt very true to my own past struggles. There was an especially chilling vibe throughout the CIA arc where the squad keeps filling up a laundry list of reasons not to cooperate with them and Walker can only ever retort "but this person has heroic qualities". When the brain is so hyperfocused on one framing of the past, everything in the present is felt by the value system of that framing. The notion of (Konrad's (fall from) ) heroism, and trusting it for every momentary decision, brings Walker a type of comfort that is otherwise completely mentally unavaible for him. That is a type of feeling I recognize.
I'm not sure the game says anything novel about the nature of trauma as much as it's a narrative tool. But, rhetorical question, isn't that fine? Keeping in mind the restrictions of the medium - which is to say, the restrictions inherent to any attempt at capturing a moment of subjective human experience onto an artpiece - Spec Ops scans to me as utilizing trauma with a lot of genuine care and competence. I think that's a high enough mark on its' own.
The voice acting was done in a single day, hence its brilliance. The actors were exhausted, just like their in-game counterparts.
I didn’t know this, but this is an amazing detail. But first, proof?
@@mikeaykut9592idk if they did it in one day but i think they did do their voiceovers for the whole game multiple times so that they’d be tired by the end of it
Yeah I heard that it was just a myth someone came up with and isn’t actually true
That sounds mildly unethical.
@@runefaustblack They got paid an exorbitant amount to scream into a microphone. I'd agree if they were doing something that actually looked like work.
Wow! Thanks for putting this together!
That we were creating something special became apparent to us at some point during the long, long development of this game. Quite a few of us felt as beaten up us Walker when we finally shipped this monster.
Seeing now what the game means to players, to analytic minds like yours makes it as you say: Worth it!
It is also videos like this that make me appreciate how we as a team have turned into a cohesive working something. You refer to elements and subtle details in the game and how they effectively contribute to the game as a cohesive whole. I remember vividly how some of those more felt like random but good ideas of very different people on the team. The player’s name in the opening credits is one such thing. The subtle and not so subtle showings of Walker’s increasing mental distance from reality is another as this was literally crowdsourced within the whole team to come with ideas here.
I think at some point there was an inner drive in a lot of us to find ways to contribute to making this game as special as it was in the end. My own little something was implementing a way to play the game with localized texts but still getting the original and simply outstanding English voice over. Unreal Engine 3 did not really support this at that time and me being a German player punished by bad German localizations time and time again basically hacked in a way for my fellow Germans and French, Italians and so on to get localized texts and most importantly subtitles while retaining the original voice over. I was doing that while being the Lead Programmer on the team and actually having no business in writing substantial code at that point. I was supposed to plan bug fixing and performance improvement work. Well … I just felt that the game needed that extra level of quality. I am telling you this not to make myself look good but to give you an idea of the kind of positive frenzy a lot of us on the dev team felt that was I believe substantial to deliver in the end.
So thanks again for your insights into our game and the insights into what this game did with and to you!
-Andre
I'm so glad you saw this and felt appreciated! I really do think the game is something special. Thanks for your part in it!!
Hey Andre.
Just wanted you to know that I really appreciate the work you and the rest of the team put into to making Spec Ops what it is.
Even now, almost 10 years later, there's still noting quite like it out there. The game left such a big impression on me that I still go back and play through it every now and then.
While it didn't get the attention I think it deserved at launch, I'm happy that it's still brought up every now and then, including long-form analysis like this video.
Even if all of you have long since moved on to other things, I still think about what an experience it is to travel to Dubai with captain Walker and the fabulous D-boys.
So from the bottom of my heart, thank you from making this game a possibility.
Ive played this game years ago when i was a teenager, i still think about it to this day, i dont believe oneself will ever be able to truly process what this game means, and the effect it has on us. This game is burned into my brain, and i would not have it be any other way.
Thank you for helping develop one of my favorite games of all time.
Thank you very much for what you did! I speak English myself but my friend to whom I wanted to show this game did not so the ability to keep the English voice over is immensely appreciated.
Thanks so much for making this game. I have just played through it for the first time and as a former soldier it has really made me think about my changing mindset during my service
I love that the first time you see the loading screen, the flag is clearly flowing in the wind. Almost too perfectly and movie like, but it’s upside down and Hendrix’s version of the Star spangled banner plays, a famously critical version of the song in response to Vietnam. This is just the first 3 seconds of the game before you even hit START and it already encapsulates the games theme and message.
An upside down flag is a sign of distress not disrespect.
Spec Ops: The Line: a game so morally traumatizing, it even managed to break Yahtzee Croshaw.
Spec Ops: The Line, a game that swapped the controls of the players viewpoint. The game literally plays with your emotions!
If that isn't high praise, I don't know what is
Ah your a man of culture I see
It's one of my favorite ZP reviews to date
*long, drawn out fart noise*
One cool thing to note is Walker going through the 5 stages of grief when confronting "Konrad"
"You're not real. This is all in my head" [Denial]
"No. Everything....all of this was your fault!" [Anger]
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone..." [Bargaining]
Then when he raises the gun it signifies [Depression] and when you pull the trigger on yourself represents the final stage. [Acceptance]....
*points it at Conrad* [Denial] again
And the hallucination starts allllll over again. Gentlemen, welcome to Dubai
My absolute favorite part of this game is in one of the earlier sections, going through a mall I think? It's been a while. But while going through this place, you're constantly weaving and bobbing through curtains, hung-up blankets, and vending stalls. In the midst of it, there is a SINGLE civilian, she pops out from behind one of the curtains on your left, and every time I see someone playing through the game they shoot her on sight without a second thought, and they don't even notice it. They just continue onwards. I accidentally shot her too when I played through the first time, and I was expecting some kind of dialogue about it. I was expecting something like "No, God damnit! I just shot an innocent woman." from Walker, or maybe some kind of "MISSION FAILED. TRY AGAIN?"... But no, an innocent person died by my ineptitude, my ineptitude AS THE PLAYER, and absolutely nothing in the game acknowledges it. It was a silent gut punch that I just had to move on from. I have no doubt that the Dev Team put her there on purpose for that express reason.
Oh and ALSO; I love that during the White Phosphorous scene, Walker's face can be seen in the reflection of the computer screen. Like the game is saying "Look at what YOU'RE doing."
Oh and ALSO ALSO, your camera lens had a smudge on it in the video. It shows right over your nose and mouth in the bits where you zoom into your face.
I am surprised to hear that, I actually hadn’t shot her on my first and only play through, so maybe that’s why some of the messages seemed cheap to me until I heard some alternate interpretations. I still don’t fully agree with some of the perceived messages people got from the game, but it has given me more insight and I respect it both as a game and as art a lot more now.
It was not an accident, you wanted to kill her so you did.
Wow, that makes me feel really special since I didn't shoot her because I have was low on ammo and somehow kept my cool
I honestly thought the game was bugging when i saw walkers reflection over the satelite visual but i guess the developer went a step ahead. This is one in a lifetime masterpiece game
Lol they are pixels on a screen calm down
I saw a point made and it was fascinating when it was brought up to support that 'Spec Ops The Line' is not the fall of Konrad, but of Walker. Both versions of Kurtz are full of justifications for their actions, insisting even in the face of obvious signs to the contrary that their actions were correct and necessary.
Konrad has no such delusions, you see it in the handful of glimpses we get at the real man, he is all too aware of the human cost of what he's done and ultimately he kills himself because he can no longer bear the weight. One of the most telling things we get from Konrad, to me at least, is his letter for his son (which you find as a intel file):
"Jeremy. Someday, people will tell you about your father. For that, I'm sorry. I love you.
- Dad."
That's it, no appeals for understanding of why he HAD to do it, no justifications, just an apology for the horrible story his son will one day be told. He already knows how history will judge him and he is not about to argue. The real Konrad (as revealed in this intel files) is for all intents and purposes a completely different person, with Boxleitner playing him as a much more sorrowful, thoughtful and softly spoken man. A man who was arguably experiencing a character arc closer to Adams; where like Adam's he ultimately decides he can no longer bear to be a part of this story.
Instead it is Walker who spends much of the narrative deflecting blame, insisting his actions were righteous and necessary even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary.
Indeed for all that he can leave Rigg's to burn as punishment for his actions, Walker's story is essentially Rigg's story; each performing actions in response to the 33rd's actions, which not only don't help the situation at all, but are arguably far worse than what the 33rd had already done, while insisting that what the did was necessary.
Riggs' thinks that in response to the failures of the 33rd's efforts to help, effectively the entire Middle East will rise up, putting aside all the differences that lie between them and declare war on America. This is a fantasy that allows Riggs' to be the hero and makes whatever he does to prevent it justified.
Walker thinks that that taking down 'Konrad' will somehow allow him to succeed where Konrad failed and rescue the civilians, ignoring that killing one man will in no way make him any better equipped to do that and that by the time he get's to Konrad, there are a lot fewer people left to 'save' anyway. This too is a fantasy. Ultimately all Walker can do once he 'wins' is repeat what Konrad did at the beginning and radio for help, which he could have done almost from the beginning of the narrative while inflicting a hell of a lot less pain in the process.
There were 5,000 people in Dubai the day before you arrived. How many are left now I wonder.
When we needed him the most, he returned with a banger
My personal theory is that we are going through Walker's PTSD; He is recalling what happened in Dubai, and we are along for the ride. Sure he might try to think of what it would be like if he did some things differently or not, but it always ends the same;
It's all his fault. And he has to accept it, whether he wants to, or not.
There are other theories were he died in the chopper crash and that he's reliving his mistakes as a form of hellish torment for his sins but I don't think it matters whether he is alive or dead, either way he's in hell, forever reliving where he went wrong and what he did different, you could even argue that the ending when he shoots himself is the true ending to the game as it ends the cycle of torment as he finally accepted the gravity of what he had done, what he had become, I feel that works if he's alive, at home probably living in a complete dump and suffering from PTSD, unable to sleep because every night he relives Dubai until he decides it's enough
The blackboard randomly featuring the horrific loading screen messages is a fantastic touch. Excellent video and analysis.
The loading screen with the flag man also tells its own story with the soldier next to an upside down flag signaling distress until his untimely demise which coincides with the flag being the right way up again, signaling the suffering is over him. Such a special game
And now 2K has pulled it from all digital storefronts so future players can't (legally) enjoy such a pivotal game themselves
I heard it was a copyright issue with music used, specifically people say the Jimi Hendrix song rights' expired, which is shame if thats in fact the case. That song is pretty much perfect for the themes of the game, so id if they re-released the game with a cheaper licensed song or something by an in-house composer, it wouldnt be the same.
12:24 I met Nolan North! He truly is an incredible actor.
He is hilarious yet as seen here, he knows when to get serious.
I know I met him at fan expo last year , he was cool as shit. he told me key to voice acting it depends character
I will always remember playing this game for the first time and on one of the loading screens it asked "can you even remember why you came here?" The chills that I got from that one loading screen have not been matched since. This game is fantastic and the video is also fantastic.
I always saw this as a horror game. Jacobs Ladder-esque. That's how it was sold to me by a friend. Maybe for me, it's intentions of indicting me as a player doesn't quite land because, since I'm a story guy, I go into it role playing as Walker. As a character in a work of fiction. But as a work of fiction in the video gaming medium? It's exemplary!
Jacob's Ladder was also the main inspiration for the Silent Hill games
I know this is late, but there are clues in the dialogue that subtlely point out the ludicrousness of FPS games in the context of real war. Lugo starts out with a comment about "beach to naked women ratios preferably being 1 to 3" (I think that's the quote, can't remember) which is obviously a reference to KDAs in the multiplayer matches... And Adams immediately follows up by pointing out just how ridiculous a thing that is to say. Then there's them talking about that sniper rifle you find on the rooftop. I remember how out of place the quotes about it felt. "It's a nice gun..." That one might be reaching but I'm almost certain there are more of these if you pay attention.
How does this game relate to Jacob's ladder?
TIL the electrical device that shows an electric arcing in a relatively safe enviroment is named from a movie. Confused me for a bit, there. Thank you!
@@sponge1234ify The device is named after the biblical story.
This game is a masterpiece, and I think looking at it as a criticism of gamers is selling it way short. It uses video games as a method to show the cost of violence. It shows how we can get caught up in doing things, not even realizing that we are working not just against our intended goal, but as lugo so precisely put it, turning us into killers. And it exposes just how much we enjoy violence, no matter how much we like to pretend we dont.
Read up on the Spanish American war in the Philippines and you'll see just how dark this stuff gets in real life. We went in with good; albeit misguided intentions. We came out of it making internment camps, and shooting mortars into a volcano sheltering women and children.
"the road to hell is paved with good intentions" I think that quote sums up the game, all wars, usually started with people wanting to do the right thing, sometimes for their own people out of fear as is the case for the Nazis, or religious fanatics who feel their very way of life is under attack by certain races or culture and so they feel war through extermination and persecution is justified. Other times, they make war for others, convincing themselves they are helping the downtrodden and oppressed, which is usually how the United States justify war only they end up doing more harm than good, like in Vietnam or iraq
One thing I will always recommend, even though it might seem "tedious", is to play through The Line on the hardest difficulties you can in a single sitting. By the end, you'll be exhausted to the point of not being sure which choice is "better"
I just finished playing on FUBAR last night and you are 100% right on that
@@insanedominator8176 Do you feel like a hero yet?
@@EdgarsPinkis what happened was out of my control
@@insanedominator8176 i just finnished my first fubar run and man i never was more angry at a game, yet understanding that the encounters are absolutly insane for a three man group. For me it cemented the fact that what we where doing was never our intended mission (the first few fightsare way easier to handle but the first encounter with the 33rd was absolutley brutal for me)
Its cool how the music during gunfights in this game (most of the time) I noticed isn't super adrenaline-pumping typical intense music. Its slow, dramatic, and makes it seem like one of those scenes where the characters are fighting till their last breath, destined to lose. Which in a way is true.
15:31 actually those statues allude to whatever you chose to do with Riggs. If you shoot him, one of the statues will be pointing their finger at the other in the shape of a gun. If you let him burn, they'll have those cracks. If you point the camera at them long enough, they'll go back to normal.
Already watched this on Patreon but so glad you’ve emerged triumphant over the copyright goblins.
Also, Walker's first name, Martin, might be a reference to Martin Sheen's role as captain Willard in Apocalypse Now
I'll never forget when I first played this a while after it came out, and I was picking up on the main idea of the game was going for but not fully clued in. I was at the boat section proud to have survived the helicopter section but getting my pride hurt by being constantly killed. I was "locked in" to beat the challenge, forgetting any nuance or moral dillemas the game had brought up about my violent actions and just playing the game to see more of it, getting used to the sight of the loading screen after getting killed showing me that sandy boat and increasingly meta hints about gameplay and rapidly hitting buttons to get back into combat.
When suddenly I die and rather than a loading screen a cutscene plays, showing a shadowy figure and Adam's voice screaming at me to "STOP! JUST FUCKING STOP!"
When the game loaded back in I had to pause and actually stop playing to collect myself. I wasn't scared, but I was shook. Like the game literally paused to shake me out of the zone I was in intentionally. I began reflecting on what actually Walker was doing anymore in Dubai and finally picking up on the meta commentary that the real reason he keeps going is because I keep playing, forcing him to.
Not many games have gotten me like that, and none to the degree of making me feel like a sweaty CoD fanboy who's missing the point and getting mad at a game like Spec Ops The Line.
Every squad member has changing dynamic dialogue. It's not just that scene that changes their behavior, but several major plot points, giving them this beautifully executed gradual downfall
The vehicle used in Death From Above is not a helicopter. It's a heavy-duty transport plane refitted with howitzers used for long distance fire missions. The largest gun has a effective range of 11.5km, well beyond the distance at which you can even see the aircraft, let alone return fire. This is established in the previous mission when you see a fire mission carried out from the perspective of the ground and it comes out of the skybox, out of nowhere. The reason the crew is so disengaged is because they are in absolutely no danger, as opposed to an attack helicopter that has to be close enough to at least be visible is order to engage
This one struck the best chord. Being an Afghanistan vet and seeing this type of person in real life is scary. I never questioned my nature, only my purpose. Being solid in who you are is a big part of coning back from the brink. Something narcissists don't understand because their very sense of self is a delusion. Those are the ones that fall prey to the emptiness of war. They don't get good at anything else and justify their bad actions because their uniform bears a flag. A complete false sense of self I've personally watched fall apart in front of me in an ambush. I cried, but never for myself and in the safety of my FOB.
Never before did I play a video game then immediately do a google search for a literary analysis of that game. This game is special and unlike anything I've ever played before.
Dude same. Haven't played a game this thought-provoking since Nier Automata
@@FirstnameLastname-jz1ux I've heard so many great things about that too. I really need to play it.
Gotta second the recommendation, it's really something special. And the first game, Nier Replicant, has been remastered too; they're separate enough you can play them in any order, but they're both incredible and Automata hits harder if you've played Replicant. I can't recommend them both highly enough!
The statues glowing isnt a reference to the white phosphorus, its a reference to the fact that you left Riggs to burn under the lorry. By contrast, if you shoot Riggs like he asks then the righthand statue will hold up finger guns at the left statue. Just wanted to point that out.
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play"
-War Games
I think that even in 2022 Spec Ops: The Line is still a very valuable and "entertaining" game when you look at it more as a psychological horror experience than some deep critique of this and that. The descent of Walker's character is still just as impactful even when the same descent isn't trying to be cast onto the player, it's a sad yet interesting experience. As odd as the comparison is, playing Spec Ops: The Line feels like watching Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion for the first time, even if you're expecting the sharp downward turn it's still compelling.
😊😊
46:40 At least in Call of Duty's case, many including myself believe that they didn't so much as ignore the war-critical elements of CoD 4 but were actively told to put it to the side by the Pentagon because they saw the mass protests of the Iraq War, had flashbacks to the Vietnam era, and decided they needed to up the propaganda through the roof so they never lose the blessing of the population again.
Also, I like how you occasionally replaced the title of the game on the blackboard with particularly stand-out loading screen text from the game.
The difficulty I had with seeing the critique being on "the attitude of expecting validation that players bring to the experience" is that if the player doesn't bring that attitude (I was told the story was good, so my goal wasn't a power fantasy, but to experience the story) then it makes the intuitive interpretation closer to the "criticizing the player for playing" one. I'm really glad you did this video, because your interpretation makes a lot more sense when thinking about things from the average new player perspective, which I hadn't done.
Great work!
Interesting. Likewise, I bought this game because of what I've heard about the story, so I definitely wasn't expectiong a power fantasy. (More specifically, I had heard that the game tricks you into thinking you are playing a standard military shooter before deconstructing the genre, that it's filled with references to The Heart of Darkness, and I had seen spoilers from the white Phosphorus scene).
However... Unlike you, I felt like I wasn't really the target of this game's criticism. Rather, it felt like it was targeted at some hypothetical "generic Call of Duty player trying to live some sort of war hero fantasy without thinking too much about it, or about the real-world consequences of war." (And also towards video game companies that keep selling this fantasy in a country that already glorifies war.)
Which is much closer to this channel's interpretation, but... It also lead to some feelings of detachment. Like... The game isn't really speaking to me, but towards some other hypotetical uncritical player. And Walker is a separed character whose story I'm following, not the avatar for my own actions. So I mostly engaged with the story with intelectual curiosity, rather than feeling directly involved.
Still worth it, though. Even when viewed from a mostly detached perpective, the story is really written, and there is a lot to unpack here. Although I might have missed out a bit when compared to people going in completely blind. On the other hand, I'm not into FPS games and I had never even played a military shooter for more than 15 minutes before, so I doubt I would have given this game a second glance if it wasn't for the spoilers. ^^;
Yeah, Spec Ops: The Line is definitely a game that falls apart if played without the attitude it expects. SOTL is was made to communicate a specific message to a specific audience, and it doesn't work without it.
You can enjoy it as the descend into insanity of a man who refuse to dispel his delusion.
@@mdd4296 Yeah that's how I played it. It was a time when narrative moves like Bioshock's were still innovative, so I was down for the twist, even if I wasn't the reactionary, gun-ho COD target audience. Also I was down with the game's implicit critique of US involvement in Iraq, and since a game taking that stance was unheard of at the time I actually got a kick out of the critical turn. It was also just a really mind-bending experience. Whenever I replay it I still enjoy it just as a really visually striking and creative piece of storytelling that's on the right side of history.
I don't even understand that argument. Do people actually play games like CoD to feel powerful? I thought people mainly played those games because in the end, it's a video game made to be entertaining.
It's so good to hear from you again, you've been one of my favorite channels for a very long time! I first played this a few years ago, but I would never have picked up all this nuance without your analysis.
You can also notice that after witnessing the white phosphorus scene (10:46), Walker's irises look like broken glass- which i like to think the devs included to symbolize his shattered/warped perspective
super late but his eyes are shattered from the very start of the game. Kinda puts a creepier spin on it
@@bigupsliquidrichard3227He already did all those things so it makes sense right?
That shot of the burnt woman covering her child's eyes in an attempt to shield them from the horrific reality of what transpired, but being unable to spare them of the immense pain of being burned alive, is one of the most memorable and haunting things I've seen in any game
In my opinion, Spec ops storyline is on par with the level of story telling in the last of us, even before LOU even exist. It's so massively underrated
That’s the only other game I could think of that hit similar…. But even Joel’s descent was nothing close to walkers. I can’t say which story is better, but I can say that spec ops went much, much further down the rabbit hole at the very least.
Something interesting in my own play through; I recognized immediately that those targets were civilians and that really took the 'big reveal' out from under me as I was forced to shoot them. However, your teammate says, "There's always a choice." and Walker says there, "No, there's really not" and meta commentary like that (especially in hindsight) is why Spec Ops: The Line is special to me.
This title definitely was the start of my fascination with the whole idea of genre deconstruction. Highly recommend "Killing is Harmless" to anyone that hasn't read it
That's a great book!
@@cameronratliff305 glad to find others that have read it!
In addition to Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now there's also HeartS of Darkness, which is a documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now and how the film's production ALSO mirrors the journey to the centre of some dark place and the madness that grows there. Definitely worth checking out.
It's always nice to see more stuff on Spec Ops: The Line! This game reminds of the Milgram Experiments, or what I remember learning about them in College. Hopefully, my memory isn't lying to me. In short, Milgram wanted to see what people would do if they were just following orders, and the answer ended up being "quite a bit."
Spec Ops feels like it's that same experiment; pretty much the only reason we have to keep moving forward is because of the objective marker and/or Walker saying so, both of which could be considered a voice of authority in the context of the game. Events and such move quickly and give us little time to think critically about what's going on. I guess you could always pause, but whatever. When I took some extra time to slow things down and think about why Walker was doing things in the story, I often found he was usually rushing into a situation and had little to no information to go on. Early on, for example, they see a bunch of 33rd soldiers rounding up civilians. Delta assumes that they're going to execute the people, so they move in quickly to try and keep the 33rd from killing anyone, when the soldiers were actually just transporting the civilians to a different part of the city, no intention to harm, as far as I know. Walker also assaulted the gate with little knowledge beyond Gould had a map with that place circled, and look how that turned out.
There is also the Riggs arc where we saw Walker has faith in the agent's ostentatious mission of decisively defeating the Damned 33rd by stealing their water supply, despite the gut feelings (via Konrad) of Riggs doing something else more sinister.
On the other hand, the game's premise is also about the "neutrality vs. intervention" dilemma, and taking situations out of context.
It's seen in why Walker went down the rabbit hole in the first place-that he had to take the proactive initiative by choosing to rescue the survivors in Dubai when he felt that sticking to his intended recon mission and let the main attacking force do the job would have wasted the time and opportunity to save the lives in question.
This channel may not update often, but when it does it makes my day
The game which advocates for its a obsolescence - the line so simple yet so true on that many levels, it's genius
Something i like a lot about this game that wasnt mentioned is the fact that if you sneak up on enemies and dont kill them you can hear them have small talk and conversations something that all the big shooters dont seem to do they would rather just have them speak in a foreign language so it takes away another human aspect of them because you dont know what they are saying
When I first beat the game my initial interpretation of the ending was that walker died in the plane crash and the rest of the game from that point is him in hell, which is shown through the hellish imagery and the hellish red color scheme that surrounds this point in the game rather than the orange and blue hues that did before, and that Konrad is a demon or maybe even the devil himself torching him as the personification of the villain walker made up in his head, and that in the end, the only way to end his hellish suffering is to admit to himself that what he did was monstrous despite his desperate claims to himself that non of the suffering here was not his fault. Siltifying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. With multiple playthroughs, my take on the game has changed but I thought I would just though out my two senses on my initial takeaway of the games ending.
Either way, this Protagonist is going through Hell itself.
Moral Accountability is crawling up his spine with every action he takes,
His sins are weighing him down further than the downhill level design
and even if he were alive, he's already burning on the inside from everything he did.
It's truly insightful when Video Games can evoke the Human Conscious that cannot be physically measured.
Thought provoking themes such as these should make us stop and reflect on how we were made for more than just mere power and survival. Something inside us sees People as infinitely valuable and Art can be a fantastic tool to display this if handled correctly.
This Hell interpretation works both ways whether he died at that plane crash or stayed alive.
Either way, the weight of his sins is crushing his conscious.
But hey, Killing for Entertainment is harmless...right?
I don't necessarily agree with that statement. I feel the whole "You were dead all along!" thing just cheapens the experience and takes away from the seriousness of what was happening. Specially since people in a psychotic state do often report things like pre-cognition or being given information by dead people they couldn't possibly have known. I instead prefer to think that Walker didn't die physically, but died spiritually and emotionally. He became a zombie, a ghost haunting his own body and is himself cursed to haunt the ruins of Dubai like a spector for all eternity.
Ah Spec Ops, the game that disguised itself as a generic FPS to brutally call out how self destructive and selfish the mindset of most FPS players truly is if it's applied in the real world. I can see why this game is so divisive.
But its a third person shooter.
Technically true, but in the comment you're replying to kinda irrelevant.
It also doesn't help that the type of game they're disguised as isn't just pro-war and anti-browns, it's also aimed at *teenagers and kids.* And that demographic isn't exactly known as the most instrospective bunch.
@@sponge1234ify I definitely don't think that those games were usually aimed at kids at the time, even if kids did play them. Maybe now, with the advent of stuff like Fortnite, but from playing games around that time, I got the impression that the devs of FPS and third-person shooters were usually aiming for teens and adults as an audience. They typically weren't challenging their perspectives on war, but I never got the impression that they were intentionally made for kids. COD: World at War felt like it was trying to be a war game for people who already thought WWII stuff was cool and interesting, not to be baby's first introduction to the conflict.
Love the detail of the chalkboard changing to the messed up loading screen messages.
I never really had an issue with shooting US soldiers when I played the game. I kinda just felt like an “Oh OK we’re doing this then,” mainly because my first shooter was Half-Life, and in that game you rather famously fight off the HECU marines. I was used to the idea of the U.S not being on the right side of things, and I was ok with just saying “they’re the bad guys now,” up until the white phosphorus attack. Similar to the end of Half-Life’s “On a Rail,” where you eavesdrop on two soldiers discussing the actions of Gordon Freeman, the player, and later on hear the soldiers complain about their orders to harm civilians, this recontextualizes the rest of the game, and makes you think. Great vid man! :)
I had actually re-watched some of your videos recently and just beat this game as well! Gonna watch as soon as I'm able.
The idea of game narratives just being context for gameplay just answered so much on my search for meaningfulness in video games. Thank you for another incredible video!
"A game advocating for its own obsolescence." That's just... such an amazing way to describe a piece of art. I think that's the goal for a lot of critical art. I sincerely hope every work with a message about the environment or bigotry or capitalism becomes obsolete someday.
Hell yeah I love communism :D
As the game sometimes quotes in its loading screens, "I exist and I find it nauseating."
This game screwed with me so much, so I love seeing what other people think about of it.
Amazing analysis of a truly compelling gaming experience.
Adaptation part minute 36... Kinda shatters me and I really feel connected "how everybody sees them as terrorists". As a guy that hear this "jokes" so often from almost every salty western I totally agree. Little did you know there are more to that. Locals in the game speak Persian (Farsi). They are themselves refugees from Iran to Dubai (having a background you'll see why, Dubai is a wealthy Arabic country and altho similar by the looks of our writing scripts which is Arabic, Persian countries almost have nothing in common with the Arab world, more on this below*). The American troops nor the audience don't even acknowledge them and they have the stereotype "if we cannot understand them, they are the enemy" mindset of a military game. It so much reminds me of "Mademoiselle Noir" song and I don't think it's a mistake it's a low-key comment and a conscious choice (at least I'd like to see it that way).
In the game locals mostly just say have lines like, "so why you are here? to kill more of us?", "when Americans gonna leave us?" and so forth... Lugo saying only two Persian lines "We are here to help" (in the first encounter) and "What are you doing" (when they are hanging him) further suggests that he is just saying things and barely understand the people he is dealing with as never really holds a fluent conversation and switches to his fallback native language after the sentences (except when they hang him).
Arab world as depicted in the game is a wealthy world. As one might expect having that much wealth probably most of them evaced before the events of the game even begin. The current citizens are probably refugees trapped here. This in my personal point of view is another commentary on how the world sees the Persian countries, Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, etc. These countries are all war torn with people "just wanting the peace" as Konrad puts it and they almost all lost of their original cultures and history to wars, whether being it Afghanistan "liberations" by the US, Arabs "Islamic conquest" marching to the east or Tajiks writing in Cyrillic and "Tajiki" because well that's what we Russians call it after we "liberated you". The story implicitly shows that these people are just stranded here and in an conflict that is not even theirs to begin with. They reach there in the promise of "Free water" and its a full on military crap life in which everybody's family's lives worth a bottle of water. They simply exist as "examples" to quote Konrad. To show the western world that "this is you if you don't pay your taxes".
Didn't the high class or the actual Dubai people left quietly and silence the broadcast about the sand storm? Something that likely possible considering how Dubai treats non-arabs
@@John_winston Perhaps I couldn't make my point clear. Yes, that's what I'm saying... They left and they are probably safe. Only the "lowest" and "weakest" get left behind in "the military playground". As Yas says: "Only the people are fuel to the flames of politics"
So I just want to say Ive been watching you a long time now. One of my fav games to analyze is Spec Ops. I have watched all other youtube content on it. I happened to check your channel about 30 minutes after you posted and I was absolutely giddy. Seriously amazing. Thank you for putting the tim in to do these videos.
I told my old high school teacher that she is the reason I will watch hours of analysis about a videogame :)
The Return Of The King! Gonna watch this tomorrow on my commute!
THANK YOU!!!! God, it is SOOOO aggravating to listen to so many others talk about this game and take it as absolute GOSPEL that Walker's "Who said I did?" line at the end of the 'Go Home' Ending is the game telling us that Walker is currently dying under the wreckage of his helicopter.
I'll admit, the first time I played this game, I was way too young to understand the story and its meta context. (I was also probably too young to actually be playing it lol)
But what I managed to take away from it was that Walker decided he had had enough killing and wanted his peace, but he knew that all the horrible things he had done would make that peace impossible. And so when the soldier asks him "how did you survive this?" and Walker responds "who says I did?" I took it as Walker saying "I'm never going to recover from what happened here, even when I'm back home in America."
And I really liked that, the fact that even the """""Good""""" ending implies that what happened in Dubai will never be truly forgotten.
But THEN you have all these artsy "head up their own @$$, I'm so much smarter than you!!" dicks who are like "Nope, Walker is dead under the helicopter, there is NO other answer, you're wrong and stupid for even DREAMING there was another way to interpret it!!"
So again, I thank you for having an open mind willing to see that "who says I did?" doesn't automatically mean Walker is bleeding out under the wreck of his chopper.
Your commitment to the content shows in subtle clues throughout the video. Exhibit A: The chalkboard behind you saying "You're still a good person" at around 57:15. Hilarious, appropriate, creepy. I love it 👍
I've never seen your channel before but as someone who is a HUGE fan of Spec Ops the Line, Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness, I am very impressed in this video. Subbed.
I'm glad you liked it! I hope you enjoy the rest of my videos too. 🙂
It was delisted today. The first thing I did was find a PS3 copy. I feel this will be the game version of Hanya Yanagihara's "A Little Life" for me-beautifully written but you will be wounded so deeply..
One of the craziest thing about this game is that many of the 'bosses' are never fought, or rather, you can always choose not to fight them and none of them are particularly strong. The first rogue soldier, the guys interrogating Gould, the dangling prisoners, Riggs, the mob lynching Lugo, Konrad himself. You can choose not to fight these bosses or choose to have mercy on them but there is no 'good result' for doing so. Some bosses you must fight but the only two I can think of are the Hallucination of Lugo and the white phosphorus bombing.
The bosses of this game are not about gameplay. They are about the player, about the turning points the player faces and continues to face for as long as they hold the controller. The game has the player kill innocents, betray their countrymen, slaughter refugees, destroy the water in a desert, leave the city doomed, and there is no moral choice, though the illusion of choice is presented. The real moral choice is to stop. Like the line from the classic 80s nuclear thriller "War Games” the only winning move is not to play. The final boss of this game is not a rocket launching bullet sponge with telegraphed super moves. It's a question phrased enigmatically by Konrad but the question is "Why didn't you just stop?". At what point is the player supposed to understand that there is no good outcome? The many of the bosses don't fight Walker and he gets past all of them but each one contributes to Walkers' defeat.
I find Spec Ops the line to be a kind of case study in the Lucifer effect, where unthinking adherence to established norms can lead people to perform cruel actions. It veils this psychology in an engaging narrative but the chilling nature of the shadow of the human psyche is bared in frightening detail.
I did not expect "Door-Fighter!!" to show up in this video, but it fits well how it's used.
I've been searching for an excuse to feature Doorfighter for YEARS
Can't help but think i have seen half of this mechanics before, and not just in Apocalypse Now. The whole narrative and analytical arc feels exactly like Golding's Lord of the Flies: (1) start out by wanting to have games and fun; (2) approach the exotic setting with a large dose of colonial entitlement and misplaced romanticism and want to have adventures and be a hero; (3) unwittingly let out the dark inner self in the process, bringing about one hellish nightmare after another, each one worse than the one before, but always going on because "what else is there to do"; (4) being saved at the end in a Pyrrhic way that leaves you unsure of whether you survived at all, and if so, whether that is any good and whether there is any point to it; (5) and looking at the whole story (or film, or game) in the hope of understanding the expectations, causalities and dynamics, to maybe make them less likely in the future.
And then, on top of all that strangely familar narrative and analytic foundation, your brilliant analysis what interactivity (and Gamer Expectations in particular, as opposed to more general expressions of 1911 to 2021 era western maculinity) add on top of it.
The one thing I hate about art games is lots of them will try to hide their message - but a hidden message changes fewer lives for the better.
I like games that a dummy like me can still learn some philosophical meaning from. Games that don't code the message to look smart.
Bold of the game to assume that I am or even want to be the hero. I’m here for an experience.
Yahoo good to have you back teach it's been a while!
I love how much in this game the players feel identified as Walker and not as an outsider looking in and experiencing this particular piece of entertainment (not all entertainment is fun of course) you are named and identified as the special guest in the beginning after all. And I've always found it a bit funny as to how loud people go "but the game gave me no choice!!" right...we can say all we want that Walker did not have a choice either, he didn't get a press B to save the city moment, in reality, no one does and while every criticism that I've seen or heard is laid on the WP scene is sometimes fair no one can deny the necessity or impact of that moment as an effective push for the narrative, making another route would have to mean changing almost the entire endgame, that costs money and time that Yager did not have.
And the infamous loading screens, confrontational as they are, they are not pointed at you specifically, they're pointed at Walker, and Walker keeps hammering into his own head that he is not a good person, he is not a hero, he knows this and yet admitting to that is harder than just stopping it's almost impossible really, he literally has to lose his mind and confront his demons on a symbolic tower closer to heaven rather than just stopping and turning around, a lot of stories would have ended if the protagonist would have just stopped. I love this game...we need a modern Spec Ops: The Line, but people already know that war is terrible, the modern "war" games now don't pretend that the US is a perfect country, that the good guys are always going to win, that invading another country for "reasons" is incredibly dumb...huh, you know? I think Spec Ops already became obsolete, not entirely of course but the industry is so much better now (at least the indie side), that's good, that's pretty good
Didn't know I needed this until right now.
An autographed spec ops the line case is akin to literal pure gold
12:43
Absolutely love this game, fantastic analysis as always. I've seen so many thorough looks at it recently that I'm itching to go do another playthrough.
Why do you want to play a game that hates you as you play it?
*looks quizzically at the hour-long video that explains what the game means and why it's worth playing, then back at this question asked in the comments of that very video*
@@TreguardD It doesn't hate you for playing itself in particular, but rather seeking out experiences just like it and expecting it to congratulate you because of it.
So, yes, it hates you for playing it, or any other FPS.
I am being blamed for being railroaded.
@@TreguardD No, you're being asked why you chose to play a game about modern war and expected to be the hero, when those modern conflicts are more often than not displays of imperialism and the jingoistic games that glorify them often being whitewashing of horrible events. Why do you feel the need to be congratulated for invading a country?
I got this game for Christmas, I was honestly bummed out for not getting cod black ops 2. Since then the games I played were forza and Minecraft.
Oh, hey! I've been worried about you, my man. Glad to see you back in action.
Even if the day comes when Spec ops stopes being as effective as it was back in 2012, it will never stop being absolutely brilliant.
Fantastic video. Wish I found your channel sooner.
Another great video on one of the more thought provoking shooters of the past decade
A minor correction, the term "positive feedback loop" generally means a loop that feeds itself like compound interest where the interest adds to the balance which generates more interest. It's more about the functionality of the gameplay loop versus the external benefits like affirmation of player behavior. Since a "positive feedback loop" can actually negatively impact a player like with the interest example but if applied to player debt to spiral things out of control. Or a system where once you take damage, the player character slows down making it more likely for the player to take damage.
And in contrast a "negative feedback loop" is a loop that hinders itself like in football or basketball where once you score the ball is given to the player. Or invincibility frames upon taking damage to prevent the player from taking more damage.
Agree with you. I think the term he was trying to refer to is behaviour affirmation where the game rewards the player for positive behaviour.
I played and finished this all the way through almost 10 years after it originally released. I was far too young to play or truly understand it when it came out. (I was 11 years old.) now being almost 21, I was certainly ready. I can definitely say this is the “Come and See” of video games. It’s the one people will talk about for its horror and portrayal of what war is.
Never have I felt bad for killing people in a video game until this one. Everything is questionable and it's what I love about it. Captures the questionable nature of ones actions in war. Getting the point that war is hell is hard. Just look at Home Fronts struggle, but killing your own team really gets the gears going and really gets you in the mindset of a soldier. We don't know who the enemy is, we only see people until violence breaks out.
The line "who said I did..." can also allude to the Belly of the Whale phase of the hero's journey - which represents the final separation from a hero's known world and self.
Walker went into Dubai with good intentions - to save people. But in his attempt had died and become reborn. _The Hero with a Thousand Faces_ by Joseph Cambell is a comparative analysis of mythology in which heroes from myths often tend to share similar journey (aka the hero's journey).
Honestly, Walt Williams saying that "Walker was dead the whole time" makes sense because is definitely something common among soldiers (at least I think so). In _All Quiet on the Western Front_ , a novel by Erich Maria Remarque (a German veteran of World War I) Paul wishes he had never come on leave, believing that he has _changed far too much to live as he once did._
This is a game I told myself no matter what I will always have in my collection...
This game is fascinating to me on the same level silent hill 2 is. You are an extremely underrated channel man. Hang in there long enough and you will get to a million subs
Great to see you back, and what a game to tackle! One of my absolute favourites!
Something I noticed missing in the summary is that the flashback at the end of the game tells us Walker's been hallucinating since well before the first 'noticable' hallucination.
My own interpretation of the story is that while the protag didn't die in the helicopter crash, he does still walk in a circle around the city. That's why every enemy in the game approaches him like he's already infamous & known to them and it makes sense for both the comments of our squad as well as the endings. I feel like that reading would explain everything down to the first enemies we meet ingame.
Been watching analysis of this game and learn more about its conception and inspirations as I go. But I found your eloquent breakdown of the devs intentions to be the best so far. It really is a great skill you have there, being able to convey such nuance I might myself feel and understand, but feel unable to explain or even pinpoint myself. I’ve found myself nodding in agreement and saying “yup”out loud at some points, because your conclusions resonated so much with me. When you said “Spec Ops’ goal is its own obsolescence” I found myself finishing your sentence. That was because you were able to actively engage me with your analysis and made me reflect on my own thoughts about the game, and in the end so many things I wasn’t able to concretise finally had “names”. It just clicked, as if I understood a math problem as the professor solved it in front of the class, and I’d find myself solving the rest on my own as my conclusion gets simultaneously validated/confirmed on the blackboard. It’s a great feeling.
So, bravo on being an excellent teacher. And restoring my faith in the media literacy and capacity for nuance of people.
MAJOR SPOILERS
I remember the first time I played this game (On suicide mission) at the part where Lugo dies, at the refugee camp, and you have the choice to kill the civilians yourself, or have them die of thirst, I shot them because I was furious that they killed Lugo. But I also had a Scar-H when it happened, with the grenade launcher on the bottom, I could've saved that grenade for hostiles, I'm pretty sure it was my second to last one too, but instead I waited for the civilians to clump up as they ran down the one corridor, and I shot the grenade launcher to kill as many as I could, in the moment I didn't have a second thought about it, but looking back on it, it disgusts me. I turned into Walker, all the deaths throughout the game making me more irritated. And now I think I see walker, and the player (on first, unspoiled playthroughs) getting enjoyment by hurting people.
58:45 "I know you didn't have much in terms of choices this time. But everything you've felt, thought about during this mission is yours. And what you decide to do with them is your choice." -Solid Snake
you just earned yourself a sub, sir, what a well crafted video and analysis of one hell of an unforgettable game
Love to see a sequel, Spec Ops the [subtitle], with new characters, another vinnette. Take another classic novel and give it the same treatment
this was a really great video! As a long time fan I think it's one of your best. I appreciated how thorough you were in covering a variety of different approaches to understand the game, and how you covered the whole plot without reducing parts of the video to basic summarizing and commentary. I felt very engaged the whole way through
Well done, absolutely bravo. I've been currently working on college literary assignments and have been looking at examples to help improve my understandings/readings of content and this one was by far the most helpful in doing so. Can't wait to further binge watch your channel!
The sneaky "You're still a good person" replacing the game title on the blackboard at 57 minutes in oh my god
That's not even the only such sneaky loading screen message! 😁
God i wish there were more youtubers like you! You take the quality of your videos so seriously I LOVE it.
Thanks, glad you like them! I'm trying to get more out than usual for a while and hoping I can do this full-time, so expect plenty more coming up!
@@GameProf Rad! Please don't pick quantity over quality, though.
I'd rather have 2 well thought out uploads a year than rushed content!
Oh don't worry, I'm not rushing. But so long as I have a window of opportunity to do this full-time, I can get a lot more done!
I did a video about it a couple weeks back if you want to know the full context.
@@GameProf Rad I might check it out. I'll definitely check out your analysis videos tho
I saw your FFVII video, and after both that one and this I think you've earned yourself a subscriber!
I probably would have never even played this game unless you told me about it back at core so thank you so much.
Oh hey, an actual former student! Happy to see you here!!!
@@GameProf Thanks!! It's Brenden, I decided to change my user name.
Oh cool, hey! Hope you're doing well!
@@GameProf Thanks I am and I hope you are as well.
The music at the end of this video (as well as the end of the game) creates a lump in my throat that only the worst things I've gone through (ie the death of my grandfather) can. Without context, it's a slightly eerie, sad-sounding song. With context, it brings with it nothing but pain and the awful realization that you are a monster, and that everything that happened is your fault.
Tangential to this video, but there's a video game called Yggdra Union that has a similar premise to Spec Ops but in the context of a Fire Emblem-esque tactics game. I wound up playing the first little bit on PSP back in the day, and I think it actually broke me a bit. For context, the story's nothing you haven't heard before. Evil empire, fleeing princess, brave bandit leader, magical sword.
Thing is, there's this undercurrent of compromise and regret pretty much from the fourth map onwards. In one map, the army plows through a kingdom of mermaids who were aggressive for reasons completely outside of their control. In another, the player has to make a call to back one of two rival nobles, killing the other in the process. It never gets to the point of the white-phosphorous scene, but there's always the feeling of "wish I could have done that better." There's a recurring character who swoops in to save your army every now and again but she never sticks around, because she doesn't like the princess and sees this whole thing as "two imperial powers trying to dominate each other."
I think what made that game work up to a point is that the Empire is a recognizeable threat that must be stopped for everyone's benefit. The fact that they straight-up try to enact a doomsday ritual when you start to gain ground against them just reinforces that. So I didn't mind that I was stomping into their Imperial homeland, slaying all their generals and smashing my way towards their emperor. Quite frankly, they'd brought it on themselves. They'd done all this and more to my homeland, it was only fair at this point.
Then the game throws a bunch of imperial peasants at you. They have two bosses, they're all underleveled, and you rip through them like tissue paper. When I killed the first boss and the second one promptly screamed in anguish, I was done. It felt like I'd put my finger on a hot stove. Stupid and painful.
I will begrudge that game for having a twist like that, because on some level it feels more like a "gotcha" than an accurate diagnosis. There's an entire third act of Yggdra Union that I've never seen, and I never will because why would I continue playing a literal goddamn war criminal.
Sorry if that's a bit of a digression. Just seemed relevant.
After playing and beating this game this past week this video is a great Hors d'Oeuvres.
That part where you have to choose between which of the two people to shoot really surprised me. You can shoot the one dude, or the other, OR you can open fire at the snipers! I'm not good at thinking out of the box, maybe it's coz I'm autistic, maybe I'm just not as creative as I like to believe, but that really changed how I felt about the game. And all this time, I had no idea there were more than two endings. This was a great game, and as bland as it starts, I love me a cover shooter, so I was into it the whole way. Pretty rewarding experience, I'm glad I played it.
I’ve lately been on a spontaneous desire to absorb more-or, rather, revisit Analysis content on a game that left me with significant though; Spec Ops the line. And that journey has led the algorythm recommend this video to me. I’m thankfull for that, as this video’s in depth references and critique to the developer mindset and deeper objectifications of this game’s story, along with a dev commentating on this video’s comment page, has produce what I-or my brain-interpreted as a nice story book end to the discussion and observation of what Spec Ops the line has set out to do.
…I still remember, on my very last playthrough of that game, I made it a point to go all the way up to the first conflict scene in the very first mission and turn off the game shortly after that, at the very least to insinuate that at that point, Walker made the choice to do his mission and radio in to command. Felt-to me-like the right thing to do, or at least I didn’t want to leave the game at such a low note.
I may not have liked Spec Ops the line. Why would I? I’m not fond of suffering through situations that turn to shit, and no good thing ends up happening in the end to confort those involved, and/or make things right. But I certainly grew a deep appreciation for Spec Ops The Line, as I first sat and watch everything go from bad to worse through a youtube playthrough, back at the game’s release.
Thank you for this video.