Max Ayala

Visual Art and New Media

December 7, 2012

The visual medium of video games has quite a long way in the last few decades, growing from a small-scale pastime for hobbyists to a full-fledged multi-billion dollar industry. At the forefront of this industry - at least with regard to budget, advertising, and mass-market or cultural recognition - is the genre of the first-person shooter. Massive franchises including Halo, Call of Duty and the Battlefield series set the standard for gameplay, production, and multiplayer interactions. Because of the great success and longevity of these franchises, their common design elements and expectations set for the person playing the game have become the established norm for the gaming experience. However, one recent game attempts to question some of the things we've come to accept as normal in the shooter genre.

Upon initial inspection, Spec Ops: The Line - a third-person shooter created by Yager Development and 2K Games - seems to be just another game made in an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the commonly seen shooter genre. The game fills out all of the standards set by previously mentioned franchises. Modern military setting - check. Cover-based, squad-based combat - check. Real-world location, weaponry, and vehicles - check. But the real purpose Spec Ops has behind putting all of these common elements in place is to subvert our perceptions of shooters and gaming as a whole. It does this through the story and character development, ambiguous moral choice system, and its constant disregard for the fourth wall.

The story of Spec Ops begins in a sandstorm-covered Dubai, where a Delta Force team consisting of Captain Walker, Lieutenant Adams, and First Sergeant Lugo are sent in to establish contact with survivors of the storm and call for reinforcements. The team discovers a group of
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Max Ayala

Visual Art and New Media

December 7, 2012

soldiers known as the "33rd," who were in Dubai to maintain order after the storm, but the occupation quickly descended into violence. Walker's squad is mistaken for CIA operatives sent in to cover up the events in Dubai and attacked by remaining members of the 33rd, who also take civilians with them deeper into the city. The rest of the story follows the Delta team's journey through the wrecked city to rescue the civilians and find out exactly what happened after everyone was stranded by the storm.

Gameplay is primarily cover-based shooting and squad combat, with a few vehicle sections as well. The player takes the role of Captain Walker, who commands the Delta squad. One unique way the game immerses the player in this role is in the opening scenes, credits are displayed, and one of the lines in the credits reads "Special Guest" and then whatever the player entered as their name. Walker is the quintessential shooter-genre hero: he's a brown-haired, blue-eyed tough guy with a stern voice and an assortment of guns at his disposal. But throughout the course of the game's events, Walker becomes more haggard-looking. His gait and voice change over time as well - he becomes less of an invincible action hero and more of a real person, who is actually affected by the previous events that have occurred. There is also a sense that something is inexplicably wrong with Walker. When the bodies of soldiers from the 33rd are discovered early on in the game, Walker changes the objective of Delta's mission from recon to rescue and continuously insists on accomplishing this mission in the face of many situational changes. This is one of the common elements of the shooter genre - heroic characters disregard orders and make up their own. He seems obsessed with completing the nondescript objective of "rescue" that he inexplicably sets for himself, which could stand as a commentary on the way
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Max Ayala

Visual Art and New Media

December 7, 2012

players view games from the outset - we want to achieve whatever victory condition is set for us by the developers, despite whatever motivations we have for playing the game. When a game becomes too difficult - when it stops being "fun," what is it that keeps us playing? We want to win. In the final chapter of the game, Walker's drive to complete his mission is revealed as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the things he experienced on the way to that point. He blames Colonel John Konrad - the man in charge of the 33rd - for all of the chaos in Dubai and the things that have happened to him, despite the fact that it is revealed that Konrad has been dead since before Walker arrived.

The other two members of Delta squad who accompany the player throughout the game are Lugo and Adams. They follow the player's orders without question during gameplay, but in the development of the story there arises conflict between the two of them depending on what choices that the player makes. In a few of the moral choice situations, Lugo and Adams each offer different suggestions on what to do, and they react differently based on what the player does. The conflict between these two characters could be interpreted an external narrative representation of the conflict within Walker or between Walker's actions and the player's thoughts. It's revealed in the ending sequences that some of the things that were played through in the game were hallucinations by Walker, and in these scenes Lugo and Adams are shown to be acting normally and questioning what's going on with Walker. Depending on the amount of dissonance between Walker and the player, another perspective arises - the player could come from the perspective of one of these two secondary characters, questioning why it is that their avatar within the game world - Walker - is making decisions that they would be
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Max Ayala

Visual Art and New Media

December 7, 2012

completely opposed to, such as continuing on in a misguided "rescue" mission instead of attempting to figure out another way to approach things.

When the Delta team first arrives in Dubai, the enemies they encounter are all local insurgents citizens who are fighting against the 33rd. But as the plot unfolds and the 33rd begins attacking Walker and his squad, we are forced to question our notions of friends and foes. Convention has it that the American troops would be the "good guys" and the local people would be the "bad guys," but allegiances are called into question throughout Spec Ops. The 33rd soldiers are broken into several different splinter groups, there are citizens and CIA agents involved in the conflict, and Delta is caught in the middle of it all. There are many situations where it's up to the player to decide who to trust, and with the amount of different groups involved the distinctions of friend and foe become blurred until eventually everyone outside of Delta squad becomes an enemy.

Moral choice systems have been done in many different games already, but Spec Ops offers a different take on this well-established mechanic. As previously mentioned, the other members of Delta Force usually offer or represent a few of the choices available to the player, but ultimately it is up to them what they want to do. Rather than have a specific dialog or distinct option box presented, choices in Spec Ops are made through the game mechanics. However, the choices made don't modify the core game mechanics as some games do. One of the first choices in the game involves rescuing a captured CIA agent or protecting a group of civilians, and while both choices ultimately lead in the same direction, there are narrative consequences
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Max Ayala

Visual Art and New Media

December 7, 2012

to each. If the player chooses to rescue the CIA agent they end up in a large firefight, but are able to acquire information about what's going on, whereas if the player aids the civilians they avoid the firefight and get to feel warm and fuzzy inside.

The main consequence of the moral choice system is the feelings of the player. Because there are no particular "good" or "evil" choices, no effects on the gameplay mechanics as a result of the choices made, and the narrative - outside of the final choice the player makes that determines the ending - also proceeds in a linear way, the player thinks more about the choices they make, rather than make the choices that give them the biggest gameplay advantage or the "best" storyline. We are forced to think more about what kind of consequences the choices made would actually have, which pushes these characters we interact with one step closer to reality.

In keeping with its effort to evoke thoughts of reality, Spec Ops also deals with real-world issues of morality, including the desensitization to violence common in modern culture and the question of obeying orders or acting in the moment. The combat in the game is gruesome, with enemies' heads exploding from accurate shots and explosives blowing people apart. Another thing the game does - which is also seen in other shooters such as Max Payne - is slow down when the player makes a particularly accurate shot to enhance the "cinematic" feel of the game. There are also brutal executions available - a la the Gears of War series - but a notable aspect of this execution option is that it is by no means necessary throughout the course of gameplay. Once an enemy is on the ground, they're no threat to the player whether they're still
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Max Ayala

Visual Art and New Media

December 7, 2012

alive or not. Shamus Young writes, "The game never makes you kill these guys. It just offers the option. In passing, as it were. Oh by the way, this human being can be effortlessly murdered if youre of a mind." This sheds a negative light on much of the violence for its own sake present in many modern military shooters; it has become almost expected that a game in this genre is to be excessively violent.

One of the major turning points of the story comes when the Delta group encounters a heavily dug-in section of the 33rd, and discover a cache of white phosphorus. While it is possible to attempt to fight the 33rd, it is effectively impossible to win - tanks, jeeps, snipers, and other difficult enemies overwhelm the player quickly. The only way to survive is to use the phosphorus mortars on the troops - which we are shown the gruesome effects of in a scene leading up to this section. Lugo and Adams are both reluctant to attack, but Walker goes ahead and sets up the targeting computer. The soldiers of the 33rd are easily dispatched using a common motif of modern military shooters - the player looks through a black and white heatmap of enemies and directs the deadly artillery where to strike. An especially large group is waiting near the back of the battlefield, but with the phosphorus mortars they are easily defeated. However, once Walker and the rest of Delta make their way through the encampment, they discover that the 33rd weren't harming the civilians they had captured earlier - they were trying to protect them from the CIA operatives (and presumably Delta) who had been sent to silence them. The camp is a terrible scene with burned civilians all around, and this is where we begin to see Walker's spiral into madness. The tension between Lugo and Adams also escalates, and they bring up an important question present throughout the game 6

Max Ayala

Visual Art and New Media

December 7, 2012

should they be following orders (given by Walker) or disobey orders and do what is presumably best in the moment? This is precisely what Walker did in the beginning of the story, and we see Lugo and Adams increasingly disobey orders in favor of more pragmatic options as the story progresses. In one sequence where the team finally finds the man broadcasting across Dubai on the radio, Lugo shoots the radio man immediately after he secures the radio for himself. The justification he presents is that the radio man would ultimately betray them, but there were no signs of malice in the friendly demeanor he presents himself with up to the point he is shot. The question of following orders or acting independently turns out to be highly ambiguous and contextual, as portrayed throughout the game.

The final major aspect of Spec Ops to examine is its questioning of reality and constant breaking of the fourth wall. From the beginning sequence where the player's name is present in the credits, the player's presence in Captain Walker is constantly pointed out and questioned. The sequence with the white phosphorus is a prime example of this - the player, in the control of Walker, sits down at a targeting computer to destroy the enemy. On the computer, Walker's reflection is clearly visible, which could be interpreted in a few ways. The first way this could be examined is as a mirror - Walker is forced to look himself in the mirror as he commits this gruesome act of violence. The other way the reflection could be seen is as a representation of the player within the game. Walker's reflection on the screen makes the player more aware of their own reflection on the screen they are playing the game on, which draws the player even more into the position of Walker. Another noticeable bit of dialogue that breaks the fourth wall is nearer to the game's conclusion, as Delta team is escaping a rooftop in a helicopter. At the
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Max Ayala

Visual Art and New Media

December 7, 2012

very beginning of the game, the player goes through the exact same sequence that ends with a violent sandstorm before moving to the team's arrival in Dubai. However, at the beginning of the sequence as played through later in the game, Walker comments - "This isn't right. We did this already!" This shows some sort of awareness in Walker of the player's experience, and echoes the player's thoughts when they discover that the helicopter escape sequence they are playing through is exactly the same as the beginning of the game. Another major source of fourth-wall-breaking content is found in the dialogue of Colonel Konrad, especially in the game's finale. In one earlier sequence, Konrad is taunting Delta over the radio broadcast, and asks them, "Where is all this violence coming from, man? Is it the videogames? I bet it's the videogames." This line brings to question the violence present in the standard of modern shooters and gaming as a whole. There have been many controversial debates over the presence of violence in videogames and their correlation to real-world violence, and this dialogue raises the question again, albeit satirically. Konrad's dialogue at the ending sequence of the game is where the player is really identified. After fighting through all of Dubai, murdering countless civilians, and losing both members of his squad in the process, Walker arrives at the tower where Konrad has been hiding. As he rides the elevator to the top floor, Konrad asks him, "Do you feel like a hero yet?" This of dialogue is almost meant more for the player than it is for the character, and is expanded upon immediately afterwards by Konrad. He continues, "It takes a strong man to deny what's right in front of him, and if the truth is undeniable, you create your own." Creating our own truths is basically what playing a videogame is all about, whether you want to become a wizard or a war hero. That Konrad so blatantly addresses this is reflective of the game's self-awareness and purpose. "The truth is,
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Max Ayala

Visual Art and New Media

December 7, 2012

Walker, that you're here because you wanted to feel like something you're not - a hero." Walker's desire to press forward continuously from the beginning was a misguided attempt to be a "hero" and rescue people, but this quote from Konrad is also more directed at the player. "Franois Truffaut famously stated that there is no such thing as an anti-war movie, because the action always looks exciting on the screen. In any game designed to be fun, it's similarly impossible to convincingly claim that war is hell. The burning question would be then, is there a way for the developers to avoid falling victim to Truffauts dilemma? Within the framework of game design, I would say that there isn't. Games are designed as a form of recreation, and with it being big business nowadays, that agenda is going to continue. Spec Ops: The Line sidesteps the problem by being purposefully unfun. The player is intended to start out having a good time, but by the end they should be shaken or outright nauseated. Walker can never reach his destination and the player is not intended to enjoy the journey." Ultimately, we play games because we want to be the hero - we want to save the day and have fun doing it. But in the case of Spec Ops, the player becomes as misguided as Walker in their "heroism" - we never save the civilians or have any positive effect on the situation in Dubai, and we are denied the fantasy of being a hero in the game world, which places us closer to reality.

The way that Spec Ops critiques the modern shooter is by setting up all of the common building blocks of the genre and then deconstructing them through the use of a strong narrative and characters - two things usually not present in modern shooters - and its examination of morals and the player as a character. The focus on the single player experience over a finely tuned multiplayer experience - in an interview one of the developers, Cory Davis, said that a
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Max Ayala

Visual Art and New Media

December 7, 2012

multiplayer mode was "literally a check box" to fill before they could finish with the game - also shows Spec Ops' resistance to all of the established hallmarks of the genre. Altogether, Spec Ops stands as an example of a game that challenges the assumptions we hold about videogames, and the shooter genre in particular, and this is demonstrated through the massive amount of critical analysis by reviewers and players alike.

Works Cited Howitt, Grant. "This Changes Everything." The Escapist. N.p., 26 2012. Web. 8 Dec 2012. <http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/features/9990-Spec-Ops-The-Line-ThisChanges-Everything>. Pitts, Russ. "Don't Be A Hero: The Full Story Behind Spec Ops: The Line." Polygon. N.p., 27 2012. Web. 8 Dec 2012. <http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/14/3590430/dont-be-a-hero-the-fullstory-behind-spec-ops-the-line>. Professor, Doctor. "Tropes and Trolls: When the Game Is Not What You Think It Is." Pixel Poppers. N.p., 3 2012. Web. 8 Dec 2012. <http://www.pixelpoppers.com/2012/12/tropes-andtrolls-when-game-is-not-what.html>. Young, Shamus. "Spec Ops: The Line." Twenty Sided. N.p., 22 2012. Web. 8 Dec 2012. <http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=16869>.

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