Giant Bomb Presents: This Guy Wrote a Whole Book on Spec Ops: The Line

It seems kind of obvious to point this out and I'm surprised no one has mentioned it, but you can just watch Apocalypse Now, they're about the same length and you'll have a much better time. I know they admitted it was an influence, but c'mon son, it was a straight rip.

There is a name for people like that, they're called a, "Bullshit artist". Writers often add fake meaning after the fact, or leave the door open for others to attach meaning to something that really, is very simple.

After that article about how video games fund gun manufacturers (everyone should read it), it's kind of hard to swallow another modern military shooter. Or any other shooter after Spec Ops, that doesn't acknowledge what kind of character someone is after killing hundreds of people e.g. Tomb Raider.

That would work for Far Cry 3 where whatever the writer was talking about post-mortem with the crazy interview on RPS is not really in the game, and more in his head.

But everything that's talked about Spec Ops The Line is in the game that are quite some subtle cues because the game delivers in-game storytelling more than usual games that rely on cutscenes. Konrad on the posters, "wait...we've been through this before", Walker's hallucinations, the loading screens, how most of the levels you're actually always descending, etc.

Maybe because they're in-game and easy to miss goes to explain why some people missed out on the implicit details.

Haha what? You can call Spec Ops shit all you want but don't infer that it's unoriginal.

2.5 hour movie versus 6-7 hour video game. One has the illusive man and the other has nathan drake. One is an oscar winner and the other coasts on metacritic. Apples and oranges son.

But it follows a very similar storyline. Of course they have different main characters, and 6-7 hours? Christ. How can you not see the similarities between Apocalypse Now and Spec Ops?

@mordeaniischaos: That's the thing. As the game goes on, it's become less about "fighting the good fight" and more about "lead protagonist keeps on fighting to satisfy his hero complex." Therefore, it's showing exactly what you said: killing without reason is wrong.

I read this book when it first came out. I'd say it was better than the game. But having played the game first it was interesting reliving through the author's eyes.

I think most of the commentors on this post should listen to the GameSpot interview with the writer of Spec Ops. The fact that the game is set in Hell is very interesting. The main character being dead and being forced to relive his actions, eternally tormenting him is a really cool concept

I appreciated what Spec Ops was trying to say, although I couldn't get past the fact the part where you actually play it, was pretty bad. I liked the fact that the the little touches like player calls out were getting getting more unhinged, and the loading screen tool tips were becoming more abstract and leaning against the forth wall, but after I had spent an hour at the same checkpoint, not being able to move more than 10 feet without getting a million bullets in me, seeing the words "Its all your fault" starts to feel less like a clever use of loading screen tool tip, and more like a snarky personal jab. I actually ejected it from the drive saying "No it's fucking your fault, I would have taken another look at that fucking AI". Good ideas wasted on a frankly average game.

lol video games

To be fair, all journalism is just hyperbole these days, so it's in good company.

EDIT: Also, I haven't played Spec Ops myself so I don't have much of a take on the guy's opinion, but as both a writer and a pedant I feel the need to point out: 50,000 words is not a "book". Maybe a thesis, a novella at most, but not a book. I've seen "short stories" that reached 30K. :B

A separate podcast feed should be created for these... I'd love to get them automatically.

Yes, listened to the interview and read the book. I guess this is more me not being a native speaker -- in Finnish and Swedish "kritiikki"/"kritik" pretty explicitly mean only assessing the merits and faults of a work of art, while in English it can apparently also have a broader meaning of analyzing and studying the art without going into whether it's good or bad. TIL.

@mordeaniischaos: Before going on such a rant, you should probably familiarize yourself with the subject at hand. Only Walker himself thinks he's "fighting the good fight", and I'm not even so sure about that for the later part of the game.

Spec Ops the line was such an incredible experience for me. And I still think about it all the time, nearly a year after I finished it.

Thanks Patrick, this PAX coverage stuff you're doing is awesome. I'm very excited to dive into this.

I'll get some art made and pop it up on iTunes hopefully next week.

@nakke:

He talked a bunch of shit that had nothing to do with the games, including other games and "people." I wasn't talking about his thoughts on the game, I was talking about his asinine point of view that America is some massive evil pile of shit that goes around raping other countries. Agree with America's foreign policy or not, you cannot pretend with a sound mind that our conflicts have been with good people. And saying that 'anyone who's killed that much has to be a monster' is incredibly ignorant of what real service members go through. He acts like anyone who kills like that must ENJOY the killing, and must be doing it because it makes their dick bigger and gives them a chance to piss on anyone who's not born and raised in America.

As someone who knows some folks who have killed some bad people, I find his complete lack of tact pretty unpleasant. I don't care if you don't believe in the wars America is in. Don't try and make it out like our service members are assholes or monsters just because we kill, or that the worst possible thing you could do is encourage a strong sense of patriotism, at least if you're talking about American patriotism.

I'm pretty sure I said that I don't mind his critique of the game, it's his willingness to blindly talk shit in general without having a single original thought in his head.

I don't mind liberal points of view, as I'm a fairly liberal person myself. But this guy blows out the evils of military shooters to an extreme. First of all, they are video games. Second of all, they are FICTIONAL instances.

He just comes off as someone that'd talk down on anything that is Patriotic from the American perspective. Which maybe makes sense considering he comes from the "least patriotic" place in Europe. But not understanding patriotism doesn't make it reasonable.

Sounds like you are going based on the interview, and the other guy is going based on the actual book. It's easy to through "critique" around without using it the right way. Happens a lot in this industry, for whatever reason.

Besides the fact that everything he said was completely accurate to the game, and requires absolutely zero mental gymnastics (unlike, say, the Indoctrination Theory for ME3) that's a good point.

@assinass: Precisely.

Yeah, we arent talking about Lost here. The things the writer talks about on that podcast are all firmly planted in the story, its just that most people didnt look at the story in that way. It doesnt even take much mental gymnastics to make spec ops a commentary on video games, its pretty clear the game was written with that at least partially in mind.

@phished0ne: I think at the end of the day, it's MUCH more about people actually being upset that someone was actually able to slip something past the millions of internet microscopes scrutinizing every piece of media that passes them so that they may be the FIRST to see it/proclaim how lame and obvious it is.

I always feel a great, uncontrollable urge to post this video anywhere The Line gets mentioned. Watch it, and understand why. He does a great breakdown of the metatextual commentary contained within the game, of course, spoilers.

Played through the game very recently on "suicide mission", the story is worth mentioning, the gameplay itself a bit clunky though. All in all i recommend it a 100% if you can pick it up for cheaps.

@vikingdeath1: yea it was a pretty strange ending indeed. that whole game made me feel like shit i gotta admit.

Funny that he'd mention Bastion seeing as Greg Kavasin worked on Spec Ops.