Crossing The Line

Video games are means to many ends. Some play them to escape mundanity, others for the high-flying camaraderie experienced with friends - and some cuss into the microphone as their way of reaching out. I consider games to be something more however; art. Their ability to portray complex messages and themes makes them such a unique and exciting medium. As I've often said, the best stories I've heard haven't been from movies or books, but games. Narratives that make you think beyond the obvious and touch on something deeper.

(Warning: chronic spoilers ensue)


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6021-Spec-Ops-The-Line

(For anyone who wants a slightly funnier and less spoiler-filled take on it)

Spec Ops: The Line looks painfully ordinary. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't even give it a second glance. Start playing the game and I doubt you'll change your mind. Your character, Captain Walker, and two colleagues arrive in Dubai to find Colonel Konrad (to be the antagonist) and locate survivors after a giant sandstorm destroyed the city. Get in, get out; that's the mission. In the first few minutes you're shooting bad guys to the beat of machine guns, rock music and American jingoism.

Abnormal things start happening however, and what started as a patriotic party spirals into 'the valley of the shadow of death.'

Spec Ops increasingly gets more mature and starts exploring issues you didn't expect. Especially when you realise you're fighting other Americans. The biggest smack to the face comes when you ambush a large enemy force using a mortar with white phosphorus. You do this from the ethereal and comforting position of an overhead-drone - akin to the AC-130 Gunship section in Call of Duty 4. But where COD lets you go free after your presentation of masculine firepower, Spec Ops shows you the limbless remnants of your deed.

The game trudges you through the scorched expanse of land as you watch the remaining survivors die of heinous burns and blood loss. One of them even mustering the strength to say, 'Why? We were helping.' A few steps further and you discover what you thought were a large group of soldiers on the drone's infrared monitor, but in actuality were civilians huddled together trying to avoid the blasts. Where games like Call of Duty say 'fantasy', Spec Ops says 'reality'.

It's now you discover this isn't a war game; it's satire. The people who made this game are making a show of FPS culture. Keep playing and Captain Walker's actions don't get any less bearable, but he's convinced he's doing the right thing and so marches on (as do you). The moral line becomes blurred, and you're no longer sure if playing the game is an ethical misstep in itself. Everything comes to a head at the end, when you meet Konrad, who in a condescending tone says 'the truth is, you're here because you wanted to feel like something you're not...a hero." He's saying that to you by the way.

I've never felt so pathetic for playing a game before. The fact I had fun playing it at times makes me feel even guiltier. That's the sign of a well-thought-out experience. You have to keep moving forward because you got the game, it should be played and finished, but at the same time I'm being challenged as to my reasons for that. We game out of desire for satisfaction - to be commended for our skill and be in command of someone stands as a shining example of human courage. Spec Ops shows how ludicrous that illusion is. Obviously it is, 'cause we need to keep playing games just to feel likes heroes. The soldiers in World War One were excited about  the conflict - they thought it'd be an adventure. But you could see it in the photos, the trepidation they carried in their faces - it was pandemonium.

No doubt I'll go back to playing shooting games and try to leave this behind. What else can we do? Stop playing? I don't think that's the answer. Rather, go on as we did - respecting the subject matter with a mindfulness that it's just slapstick of the real thing.