Spec-Ops: The Line
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Spec-Ops is a third person shooter, it was released in 2012 to critical acclaim. Most games dealing with the subject manner of war and killing often glorify and make light on the details of those affected in an unrealistic manner. The most prevalent perpetrator of this is the very popular Call of Duty series. War is not fun and games, and it is refreshing when once in a while a game comes out and demonstrates this. Soldiers and their commanding officers are often tasked with making impossible decisions. one’s actions have consequences and the trauma that comes from taking another’s life is not just shrugged off like in other games namely COD. Spec Ops: The Line, published by 2K Games and developed by Yager Development, is one of the few war-based video game titles that effectively shows the other side. The topography is mainly sand, players often have to deal and contend with sandstorms that hinders the player's actions and also conceal enemies.
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Spec-Ops puts the player in the role of Captain Walker, leader of a three-man Delta squad, sent in to perform reconnaissance in Dubai after the United States Army fails in their evacuation attempt. What the game soon lets you know is that the situation is far more complicated and eventually a three-way conflict is born. As Walker leads his troops through the storyline, the player is forced to make terrible choices and commit atrocities of necessity to survive. Some of the choices the player must make consist of: choosing between saving innocent civilians or a fellow soldier with valuable information, choosing between killing a man who stole water for his family or killing the American soldier who was ordered to kill the former’s family in response to the theft, and choosing to shoot or spare the civilian mob who you find after they have lynched one of your squad mates. All choices affect how the game will progress and how it will end. It is important to note that there is no right choice just the consequences of your actions.
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Another element that the game throws your way, is the unreliable narrator. Walker, throughout the story, develops hallucinations as a result of PTSD from his former service. These hallucinations grow steadily worse as the plot progresses and Walker is forced to commit greater atrocities. Towards the end, Walker’s mental state has become so unhinged that nothing is as it seems.
It would not be wrong that the game is used to foster empathy, however comparing this to a game such as Darfur is Dying would be inaccurate. The game deals with perhaps real dilemmas a soldier must face but the plot is fiction. It is up to the individual player to interpret the game, and perhaps it shines a light on what service men and women often face when ambiguous situations inevitably arise quite often. The game demands our attention and to be emotionally involved. As Bogost states “when it comes to the world we inhabit today, it is the vulnerable…. who deserve our empathy”(Empathy, 23). Throughout the story and the inevitable decisions, you must make we realize that the monster is not the enemies but yourself. Walker himself is the monster, operating with intense hallucinations as his driving force.
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Spec Ops: The Line is one of the strongest examples of why video games can be viewed as literature. It has sparked a great deal of debate in gaming society. Its story and execution offer the player a new medium that can accomplish more by putting the audience directly into the character’s shoes instead of witnessing it from the outside.