The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
Spec Ops: The Line
It’s story is based on Heart of Darkness, the same book Apocalypse Now was based on, so they share some commonalities.
Gameplay wise it’s a pretty standard 3rd person cover shooter, nothing really memorable.
But man that game fucks with your head and expectations of a shooter. While you mow down hordes of fellow American soldiers who have gone AWOL with their commander, the tone of the game constantly shifts ever so slightly. You lose people from your team, you get to be more and more vengeful and violent. And at first you think nothing of it, because that’s almost every shooter I’ve played.
But they let you see yourself in a mirror, so to say.
I think the first time it really hit me was when on one of the loading screen tooltips, that usually said stuff like “You can throw grenades back.” or “Flank your enemies.” it just said “Do you feel like a hero yet?”. Felt like I’d been punched in the gut. It gets more and more intense from there and I can’t really describe it all, because it’s been a decade or so and it was mostly the sum of a lot of smaller things.
I know some people called it corny and pretentious but it really stuck with me.
It’s a shame about the game’s uninspiring name and generic box art. Probably kept a lot of people from playing it. I only played it on a recommendation like yours.
I think a lot of the genericness is part of it.
It’s supposed to feel like every other game, until it doesn’t. The name, the plot, the art, the genetic cover shooter gameplay. It’s even got Nolan North voicing the main character.
I think the first time I noticed something was amiss was when some civilian darted out in front of me and I riddled her with bullets. No red X’s, no “do not kill civilians” messages. Just the game silently going “well, I won’t tell if you don’t…”
The genericness was very much a large component.
People don’t realize that gaming used to have a lot of “Well, this is sort of like X which I liked so I guess I’ll play it”. That is how we had stuff like the Codemasters version of Operation Flashpoint and so forth. Saints Row and True Crime were this to GTA. The multiple Medal of Honor reboots were this to CoD. And so forth. Hell, the fricking Camilla Ludgarden Tomb Raiders were this to Uncharted (… which was that to Tomb Raider). As opposed to these days where people can’t stop talking about how much they hated Outer Worlds for… making an “elder scrolls” game closer to Fallout 3 than Skyrim.
Which is what makes things “work”. You get a new gun. Time for your obligatory Uncharted style “kill 300 people with this” trophy. Oh no, it is the obnoxious turret sequence. Oh cool, we are doing an airship sequence with these mortars…
Because it is less “Wow, soldiers are assholes” and more “So… remind me. Why did you want to play this? Why did you leap at the opportunity to play a generic ‘murder brown people’ game?”
Which is also why we will NEVER see another game like this. A B-game built around “the twist” that actually encourages the player to question themselves. Release that today and… you get the responses this post got. “Well, I was always above it all so it didn’t impact me” and open discussion of The Twist.
Because when an indie game does this? Oh, golf clap. Really nice but not my thing. When a “mainstream” game does it? #NotAllGamers and this was just a shitty Call of Duty and I hear that they got Clint Eastwood’s son in the new one and that is gonna be so lit.
That game is probably one of the best mind-fucks in gaming. The white phosphorous scene for me was so powerful that I immediately went into Youtube and looked up how other streamers reacted to it.
Something I don’t often see people talking about this game is the ending, which probably had the largest effect on me of any game I’ve ever played.
spoiler
Before I played Spec Ops: The Line, I was staunchly against suicide in all instances.
The ending puts you in a situation where you’ve more or less committed genocide (or at least horrifying war crimes), for ultimately no real cause. There’s no solution to make amends, you can’t undo what you’ve done.
It then puts you in a position where you can effectively choose to commit suicide.
If given the choice, most people would go back in time and kill hitler. But what if you WERE hitler, and suddenly realized the true implications of your actions. You were responsible for the torture and murder of millions on innocent people, actions that are impossible to forgive. Would the moral and ethical action be to kill yourself? Even if doing so wouldn’t prevent further death or harm to others?
That ending made me rethink my stance on suicide, the topic is far more complicated than I used to think it was. To this day, every now and again, I still think about the choice at that ending.
Why should I believe you? You’re Hitler!
I watched my roommate play that game, and we just sat there in stunned silence.