Spec Ops the Line Review

The sand in your boots, the desert heat burning the top of your head and 1000 bullets whizzing past by you is the norm in Spec Ops: The Line. The full review is right after the Jump!


The story in Spec Ops: The Line starts out innocently enough, a massive sandstorm has hit the city of Dubai trapping thousands of civilians so the US Army decides to send in the 33rd Battalion to Dubai to help with rescue efforts but as their mission went on the 33rd lose contact worrying military command so they decided to send in some Delta Operatives to investigate what happened.

Dubai is more...sandy...than usual don't you think?

Players take control of Captain Walker one of the Delta operatives as they try to investigate what really what happened to the survivors of the sandstorm and the 33rd. What was supposed to be a routine rescue mission becomes a struggle for survival and a battle to keep one's sanity. The story is paced in such a way that the player will disregard it as nothing more than a cliché America saves the day plot in the first few minutes of the game but after the prologue section of the game the whole thing gets rear ended and everything that a gamer could have predicted in a story got thrown out of the top floor window of the Burj Dubai.


The thing that strikes out most about the story is the sheer humanity seen in the characters and throughout the game we can see all the main characters go through a transformation, the player character known as Captain Walker is the prime example of this. Whereas most games would paint the hero or player character as capable of doing no wrong Walker can be considered the exact opposite. Walker goes through many events in the game that literally wreck him as a human being and the best part of this character development is that at the very beginning we actually do see him as the stereotype GI Joe but after a setpiece event that happens early in the game we see Walker descend into the realm of madness and it shows not only in the brilliantly acted cutscenes but in the gameplay as well. The fact is that by the time the game finishes the player will feel miserable and sad at what happened but at the same time they will feel so connected to their character (Walker) and that alone is an achievement in its own right.

Yeah...this ain't Disneyland folks. 

The voice acting is superb and just adds to the storyline, Nolan "I appear in every videogame known to man" North plays as Captain Walker. North does a brilliant job because he adjusts his voice to suit his character's mental state as the game progresses, whereas he sounded like a confident military man in the beginning of the game he devolves into sounding like a psychopath towards the end. Some other standout acts include Colonel John Conrad who was the commanding officer of the 33rd Batallion played by Bruce Boxleitner and the DJ played by Jake Busey, both these characters do their job of making you angry so well that you just can't wait to kill them.

The gameplay of Spec Ops the Line can be summed up one word... cliché. But just because it's cliche does not mean it's a terrible game it just means that it does nothing new. Spec Ops the Line is a third person shooter with a cover mechanic and limited squad commands to your two AI controlled buddies. There are a variety of weapons that suit all situations from the ever handy rifle to the long reaching sniper, it has all the hallmarks of a standard run of the mill shooter.

 The enemy AI is both a hit and a miss, for the most part they do take cover and they do flank you but at other times they just charge at you head on without bothering to head to cover, their strength lies in their numbers as dozens of enemies will come at you from all directions forcing you to shift from flank to flank to make sure that you are outmanoeuvred. There are a variety of enemies as well from your standard rifle wielding grunt to a up-close in your face shotgunner to snipers and heavily armed juggernauts to insane knife wielding maniacs who will charge at you. Like in many modern shooters you can only have two guns in any situation. The shooting mechanic is fluid, I had no problem in aiming my gun and pulling of a few well aimed shots to the heads of enemies.

Bob and Earl realized that climbing the sand hill was a huge mistake. 

Your AI partners however are quite competent, they will kill enemies by themselves and they will head for cover and to make them even more deadlier they can be given orders like laying suppressing fire on an enemy behind cover, throwing a flashbang which blinds enemies or taking down one particular enemy. The cover mechanic does work but there is a chance that instead of getting out of cover you will melee attack the thing that you are crouching behind.

The only unique thing about this game is sand...yes sand. Sand is used in two ways in the game, one is an environmental weapon in which the player can shoot out certain parts of the environment to drown a group of enemies under a huge mountain of sand but this feels so scripted that you will get tired of it real fast. The other way sand is used is when a sandstorm occurs, this creates some great tension as your field of view is limited and you do not know where the enemy will be coming from but unfortunately this does not happen that often throughout the game.

I wish I had my goggles with me... 

The multiplayer in the game can be quite fun and should not be looked over, there is your standard deathmatch and King of The Hill matchtypes but there is also a team objective based mode where teams are forced to work together to bury the enemy base's vital points under sand. This game mode requires great teamwork where a team will split into groups to defend their homebase's vital points while the other group will go to the enemy base's vital points. Team objective modes are always fun and this is no different and works well and is by far my favourite game mode.

The graphics are above average at best, Dubai does look beautiful from a distance but when faced up close there are some blurry textures here and there. The character models look good, as the game progresses Walker will be covered in blood and grime.

The game has its faults for sure, the enemy AI could be improved, I would have also like the third person shooting to be something more special and the whole bury your enemy under sand is nothing more than a scripted event. But the fact is that the story is brilliant, the acting is superb and the fact that as a player I felt remorse for my actions is a mark of a good game.

Spec Ops The Line
Developer: Yager Development (Single Player) and Darkside Game Studios (mulitplayer)
Publisher: 2K Games
Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360 and PC
Platform Used For Review: PS3
My Purchase Date of the Game: July 19th 2012