Spec ops the line questing morality. (Warning spoilers)

I just finished the game Spec ops the line yesterday, and I swear to god i feel like the worst person in the world! I know its just a game, but its so terrible. when you get past the mission were you use White Phosphorus, i fucking cried! MY GOD, i just did that to all those people, they burnt alive. Its horrible, I know its just a game, but why!

The rest of the game its still fucked up, and i understand that's what people do in war, but why the mindless destruction of human lives. Sometimes that is what you have to do in war to win. because every body involved in the war is fucked up.

Its creepy and very impact full. When i looked up today countries that have used White Phosphorous in the last 20 year Saudi's in Yemen, USA every once in a while, Israel in Gaze, and Palestine, Lebanon. Nato in Lybia i felt just the horror from the visions of the game come back and haunt my mind. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus) I know it say in the Geneva Convention not to use the weapons against civilians, but really why use it all! or even in just in cases of dire emergency like a nuke, or agent Orange.

This game makes me wants to inform all people of the world from using the weapon ever, but humans will be humans.

This game makes me hate the wepon as well as Israeli military for using so much more in recent years.

I am not going to rant about Israeli government, Netanyahu, and military and what they are doing the Palestine's and there Land encroachment in extensive deal. because that would just be kind of waste of time, and some people would call me a Anti-Semitic (I don't really care thought if i was called one).

But here is my question to you Reader.

What do you think of the game Spec Ops the Line people of BOMB-a-verse? How did it game impact you or not?

To keep it short and spoiler free, I thought the game was going in an interesting direction, then beat it and saw it didn't and hated it. Then, after listening to an interview with the writer and hearing they actually did go where I thought and I just missed something, I loved it.

In something like 2 hours I went from listing it on ebay to loving it and keeping it in The Collection.

I think it could've used less of a cinematic focus? I'm not usually the type of person to scream "TOO MANY CUTSCENES", but in this case, cutscenes aren't doing the message justice.

It shocked the hell out of me. It was a sad moment and to realize people in this world really use that is just horrific.

The white phosphorus incident is probably the pinnacle of how Spec Ops: The Line's storytelling and message are just so absolutely and powerfully awful. The game gives you "moral" choices to make up to that point, and sometimes you do have a "third option" but many times the game will just try to make you feel bad about your choice regardless of what you choose.

Then the game forces you to use the white phosphorus. You don't get any sort of option as to what your character does. The game makes your character do this, not the player. And then the game constantly tries to make you the player feel bad about something that you had absolutely no input in and absolutely no ability to change in any way.

The game's message in deconstructing the modern military shooter is entirely based on making a complete assumption about the mindset of the player and constantly degrading them for having this assumed mindset. And when it's based around plot and character contrivance making everything you do something you should feel bad about (especially when the game refuses to let the player do the obvious not-completely-stupid thing), it becomes clear that smashing the message in with all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer and absolute refusal to allow the player to do anything that didn't further delivering this message was more important to the developers than having the implementation of player choices be anywhere near consistent and sensible.

And on top of that, it's just not very fun to play.

The Gamespot podcast Jeff was on where they talked to the writer was pretty good.

Yea, this is about what I wanted to say, albeit from a wildly different angle. The game feels like a movie, which allows the player to distance themselves from their own actions. Not the type of thing you want in a game like this.

This should be under the Spec Ops forum and not off topic but ya it's a good game. I've talked about it extensively on the Spec Ops The Line forum here as well as in a podcast in 2012 or something.

I unfortunately knew what the game was up to before I played it (I wouldn't have touched it if I didn't, though), so a lot of the impact was lost.

But it was still a fun shooter with some powerful story beats. I just can't feel guilt about following mandatory objectives in a video game. In my mind (and in reality), I'm not committing atrocities, I'm advancing the story and gameplay. I just can't get past that disconnect.

The fact is that I'm always aware that I'm simply playing a game. I'm not in danger, I'm not really an all powerful super soldier and I sure as hell am not the person deciding to take out a stronghold regardless of casualties.

I rarely play anything in the military shooter genre, but when I do I am generally so far removed from the mindset of the character that they frankly do anything and I'd have had the same reaction.

In fact that is my biggest problem with shooters in general. I simply cannot relate to the gung-ho nature of the characters and the writers assumption that I am always in agreement with their course of action. It is the biggest reason that I prefer RPG's as at least then I feel somewhat in control of my actions (to the extent that anything created by another person can allow of course). Not that a shooter can't be fun, just that the story and writing generally leave a lot to be desired.

If anything the fuss over the Spec-Ops storyline reminds me that games are still a very young medium and I honestly feel that if that scene took place in a movie or a novel it would have barely warranted a mention. In many ways I find it encouraging as it means that the medium is starting to mature and tackle subjects that would never have been broached previously. Hopefully the positive reaction to the writers trying to give more depth to story means it is the start of a trend and not just a one off attempt at injecting more depth into the parts that tend to get forgotten amongst graphics and gameplay.