Spec Ops: The Line

[e-freak]

seen the animation talk at fmx on tuesday - that game has some great ideas and some nice tech you guys developed now give me a pc demo!

[Mazy]

Downloaded the demo yesterday, haven't checked it out yet tho~

[Izuno]

hmm....not a lot of chatter on this so I guess not too many people played the demo? I tried it at E3 for a few minutes and kind of hated it.

But...

I gave it another chance and downloaded the demo. If the game is like the demo it seems to have some flaws, the most major being what appear to be respawning enemies? or shit was I just to lazy in this one part to move forward? In any event, overall I actually like this game a lot more from playing the downloadable demo compared to the few minutes of playtime I got at E3. Definitely on the rental list now...and if I really like it I will actually buy it (yes...a new copy zomg)

Game comes out tomorrow, so we'll see how it does. And as for Nolan North voice acting the lead in this, I guess I'm over it and don't mind. So better dust of some AC and play that.

[Daze]

Juhuuu it's out!

Reviews are dropping in and so far it's going quite good, some of the early ones:

http://www.destructoid.com/review-spec- ... 0003.phtml

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/26/ ... ine-review

http://www.edge-online.com/reviews/spec-ops-line-review

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2012/06/26/ ... ox-360-pc/

Quite thrilled!

[onji]

If the game is like the demo it seems to have some flaws, the most major being what appear to be respawning enemies? or shit was I just to lazy in this one part to move forward?

Noticed this respawning too, it just seems to be scripted in some areas of certain maps if you turtle without pushing forward.

Combat is pretty good, but not great. I'm not big on the whole idea of mapping vault & melee to the same key. Executions are fun the first few times, but kind of leave you open to get shot at. The environmental traps are pretty fun, and watching sand fill a room looks nice. The story does the job so far, and I'm hoping it pulls off the adaptation from Heart of Darkness well.

And there's a few goofs as well. SCAR-H has 30 rounds, and appears to have as as little stopping power as the M4.

Overall it's a lot of pretty goods, but nothing really remarkable. But I did love the colour grading in the opening scene against the sand dunes, very nice.

[Rick_D]

i knew i wasn't going to be blown away when i heard a completely pointless "fuck" in the opening "america is great" story

[Izuno]

If the game is like the demo it seems to have some flaws, the most major being what appear to be respawning enemies? or shit was I just to lazy in this one part to move forward?

Noticed this respawning too, it just seems to be scripted in some areas of certain maps if you turtle without pushing forward.

Combat is pretty good, but not great. I'm not big on the whole idea of mapping vault & melee to the same key. Executions are fun the first few times, but kind of leave you open to get shot at. The environmental traps are pretty fun, and watching sand fill a room looks nice. The story does the job so far, and I'm hoping it pulls off the adaptation from Heart of Darkness well.

And there's a few goofs as well. SCAR-H has 30 rounds, and appears to have as as little stopping power as the M4.

Overall it's a lot of pretty goods, but nothing really remarkable. But I did love the colour grading in the opening scene against the sand dunes, very nice.

SCAR-H / M4 stuff I didn't notice since i'm not up to speed on guns in games...but yeah those are details that show it lacks polish in places. I have the disc sitting here but I won't have time to fire it up until later this week.

Quick question for those who played this and Max Payne 3...MP3 imo has some of that "Rockstar" touch. Could you say the same for Spec Ops? Demo doesn't fully make that clear other than somebody obviously worked hard on the story/dialog for Spec Ops, even if you think said story/dialog aint that great.

[onji]

It doesn't really 'feel' like a Rockstar game

In my opinion the engine is responsible for a large amount of the feel of a game, and since Spec Ops is running Unreal 3 as opposed to Rage it does feel and handle differently. The mouse control feels even dodgier (makes me think of the Halo port to PC) in Spec Ops than it does in MP3, but the movement feels more reactive. I'm not sure what they've done here but the mouse movement between axes does not feel solid. While the Mass Effect series, to refer to another 3rd person Unreal 3 game, has great mouse controles.

One of those elements that you can really tell in Rockstar games is that they feel like they've been thoroughly polished, and repolished. Spec Ops feels polished, just not to that level you'd expect from a huge studio like Rockstar or Blizzard.

I'm enjoying the storyline so far, but the character animation and script doesn't let it down a bit. Then again these guys are soldiers so I'm not sure how much character they should be showing.... It reminds me of Black Hawk Down in that the characters do their job in telling the story, but it's not exactly a performance by Marlon Brando. On the technical side it would've been nice to see a bit more time put into facial animation since the faces look rather stiff.

I also didn't really care for one encounter where you get strafed by an armed MH-60 (the chopped that drops you off in Modern Warfare 2, Gulag level). You're sitting in a building with plenty of cover to avoid it's guns, but you're health constantly drops unless you run to the next area. I mean if you want to add a sequence where you have to escape minigun fire don't cover in AND drain health from the player.

I played a bit more yesterday and spotted another goof. They included the HK417, but it's only semi-auto instead of selective fire. The game version only has 10 rounds per clip, but the model looks to be displaying a 20 round clip..... Sorry I'm a military nut, so I notice these small things. Then again one could also spot goofs in a more popular title like Modern Warfare 2, why do the Russian solders in 'Wolverines' sporting the TAR-21 rifles? These aren't exported to Russia.

I don't really want to speak too poorly of Yager, I think they've done well and produced a very good game, not great but it's a solid product. Hopefully I'll have something really positive about this game when I've played some more. I really want to enjoy this game since they've based it on such a cool book.

[Marvin.Star]

I think this game looks pretty solid, I like the idea of a third person military shooter that focuses on characters and story. Watched a bit of this game being played through and it looks solid, appears as though the aiming handles well, and the story progresses steadily enough. I'm curious if their is anything in the story that might actually be exceptionally well written, so far from what I've seen the writing/ dialogue has been stunted by the need to drive the game on. Or perhaps the dialogue is just not the best. Either way, I'm interested, may pick this one up some time.

[Rick_D]

I played a bit more yesterday and spotted another goof. They included the HK417, but it's only semi-auto instead of selective fire. The game version only has 10 rounds per clip, but the model looks to be displaying a 20 round clip..... Sorry I'm a military nut, so I notice these small things. Then again one could also spot goofs in a more popular title like Modern Warfare 2, why do the Russian solders in 'Wolverines' sporting the TAR-21 rifles? These aren't exported to Russia.

[Thrik]

Haha. Sometimes I think it's a bit crazy to worry about details like that, but then I'll be watching 24 or some shit and get all because they're using ridiculous technical terms and:

[knj]

[Sentura]

definitely one of their better episodes, but still not on par with the cricket one!

[Marvin.Star]

lol! At first all I heard was cursing... but it was pretty amusing by the end

[onji]

Hey these guys review games as well as that Kevin guy on Gamespot.