@DeF said:
@MrBeanTroll said:
Every time I read or hear anything about this game I really want to play it yet I know I don't have the patience for average shooter gameplay.
I actually don't get what's so "average" about that part. In my opinion, it's a far better shooter than the Uncharted games and Mass Effect games are and we're all playing those regardless, right? During my time with the game I felt compelled to use different weapons depending on the situation, the combat arenas were varied, well paced and forced me to make use of all the resources available to me (including running out of ammo which forced me to leave my safe cover occasionally). Aiming felt responsive and the weapons were different enough for me to have certain favorites and debating which weapon I should keep in my two slots for the next battle. I resent the notion that "average" should suggest "bad" in this case which is what seems to be what's happening here. It's all functional, effective and useful. Average does not mean sub-par. It's average because it does nothing unique with the shooting since the game is not about the fun of the shooting mechanics like a Gears of War, it's about supporting the narrative and context of the world which it does successfully.
Glad you posted this, I think this is so true. Though I don't play many generic genre titles out of disinterest to begin with so I might just be less numb to it. Plus the story really hit me hard. Very rough, anger-inducing (in the right way), thought-provoking and well executed. I also didn't personally get the vibe that it dragged out the turning point to long. The foreshadowing, specifically in terms of the exceptional level design (with the wall paintings and graffitis), is very effective if one pays attention. Granted that effect might be almost destroyed if shooter conditioning is strong for a player and leads to rushing through all of it like one tends to do in CoD et al. Though I think you'd have to be a little simple minded to miss all the myriad surrealistic cues. Or maybe I'm a little too smug just because I already knew to expect something somewhat unusual due to all the prior coverage I was exposed to.
Either way, I'm a little ashamed I put playing this off for so long. Spec Ops may not exactly be the triumphant new direction for military games that the genre could use, but holy shit is it a huge step in the right direction in my opinion. I think the game will comfortably make it to my favorites of this year. I'm going to replay it at least once as well to check out some the variance of the proceedings. I'm glad Jeff's perspective on it ultimately convinced me to give it a shot sooner rather than later.
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