Spec Ops: The Line — “We live as we dream — alone.”

LATE TO THE PARTY!

Spec Ops: The Line can be referred to as “Feels Bad, Man: The Game.” It does make me want to reread Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the famous work that inspired Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, and from which this title draws many parallels.

The game is a third-person shooter developed by Yager Development and published by 2K Games. On the surface, it’s about a three-man Delta Force team investigating a radio broadcast from a Lt. Col. John Konrad, leader of the 33rd Battalion. It seems the 33rd was caught in the middle of dangerous dust storms assisting in relief efforts to evacuate the denizens of city-state Dubai. Nobody except Konrad and his men knows what happened, but as the game progresses (in a short, but very eventful five-hour campaign), you discover that not everything is as it seems.

There honestly isn’t a whole lot to Spec Ops’ mechanics. The focus prioritizes narrative over game. Normally this is a big pet peeve of mine because many games tend to compromise gameplay and the segregation to plot becomes arbitrary and inconsistent. The player controls Walker (performed by famed VA Nolan North, who really sells Walker’s intensity even in light of hearing Nathan Drake), the leader of this three-man team to Lugo and Adams. He will take cover, leap over waist-high structures, aim down the sights, and fire at many enemies. His partners do their part to minimize enemy count and will happily toss stun grenades to ease typically intense firefights.

Staying in cover is pivotal as Walker takes very few hits before going down. Even his teammates can go down and the player must reach them and revive them reminiscent of Rainbow Six: Vegas. This gets somewhat frustrating if you have to replay several minutes’ worth before getting back to where you originally died. In addition, unless you’re using the default M4, ammo can get pretty scarce and could turn players off to experimentation. I did enjoy using the UMP45, which has a medium range since it’s a submachine gun. More powerful weapons come along the way which will be necessary for heavily-armored enemies.

The title screen says more about the game than you realize.

The start of the game puts you in a firefight against Middle Eastern insurgents. It not only serves as the tutorial, but helps to make the plot twist that soon follows more dramatic and thoughtful. When the trio overhears an insurgent talking to an American soldier, something seems very off. It’s there that Delta Force and the player learn that the 33rd have gone rogue, and in a plot involving the CIA, it seems American soldiers will be killing other American soldiers. Without going into specific events, the narrative overall questioning themes like loyalty, morality, ethics, choice, and even sanity. I’ve already sort of spoiled the direction of the story by referring back to Heart of Darkness. The story is actually worth experiencing anyway, as the player can then go back and pick out contextual clues that help the story make sense and still have an interpretation of the characters and what they face.

Even a moment where the developers more or less force the player to do something horrendous is open to interpretation as to whether it hurts the impact of the narrative, or employs a new theme from within. Arc words include “We had no choice,” and “You brought this on yourself.” For me, the most powerful moment in the game is when Lugo, introduced as the care-free and witty sniper, later screams in sheer fury after said event that there is always a choice. Walker replies, “No. There’s really not.”

Spec Ops: The Line didn’t sell particularly well, but received a fair amount of praise for its goal of deconstructing these modern military shooters. The story does a great amount to make up for the shortcomings of its mechanics, which aren’t even necessarily bad, just vanilla.

Miscellaneous summer musings…about games

I had a plan which completely nosedived the moment Valve unleashed its Steam summer sale on me. I find when I make some sort of schedule, or plan, involving playing a single game, it just doesn’t work out as well as I would have hoped. Back in April, I had picked up the highly praised Xenoblade Chronicles for Wii. I had spent a significant amount of time with it for the better part of April, but the moment I couldn’t handle a particular enemy, I shut it off thinking I would go back to it later. I never did.

The goal to complete Xenoblade Chronicles in as few sittings as possible was not realized, and I’m not sure when I’ll pick it up again. Instead, I focused my efforts on smaller games and THQ’s Darksiders, which is faster paced than Xenoblade, although it takes the combat mechanics of the God of War games and the exploration of The Legend of Zelda and puts it in front of biblical lore, so familiarity is the appeal. I managed to see that through to the end, and ended up mostly enjoying it, but I felt as it the team behind it tried their hardest to extend the game where it didn’t need extending. It was worth the $10 I paid for it, nevertheless.

I also tried to put some time in with Final Fantasy XIII-2, which I’d been anticipating for a while despite mixed opinions from a lot of people. I’m enjoying it enough, having played for close to 20 hours. It’s fun when it’s fun. I enjoy the combat most of the time, and sometimes I think it’s too much work to find the right strategy. I don’t always feel clued in to the next objective, since the game’s plot involves a lot of time travel and allows the player to manipulate and change events already experienced earlier. I intend to see it all through to the end, but I think it’s my anticipation for The Last Story, from XSEED Games, that puts me out of focus with it.

I think the lesson I’m learning is to simply play what I feel like. It sounds ridiculously obvious. I do enjoy trying to hammer through a game as quickly as possible, but not to a point where the fun stops. It’s a twisted game in and of itself. It’s why I also went back to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, one of the best games from 2004 I’ve played through twice, and being on PC allows me to enjoy it in high resolution. I’ve also been readjusting to life in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, where my character is now the guildmaster of the Thieves’ Guild. Strangely, she still gets treated like a rookie by the others.

“Play what you feel like.” Did I mention I purchased three Shin Megami Tensei: Persona titles for PlayStation Vita? Oy vey.

Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Episode 1 — Zombies take a backseat.

The first game I played from the people of Telltale Games was the first episode of Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures on my Xbox 360. They helped popularize a genre that hadn’t seen much success since the late 1990s: the point-and-click adventure. After tugging at the heartstrings of geeks with interactive adventures based on beloved properties like LucasArts’ Monkey Island series and Steven Spielberg’s Back to the Future and Jurassic Park, they have taken on a darker route with the first episode of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead, available on Steam, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, is based on the popular comic series which was later adapted into a hit television series for AMC. Rather than adapt the story of Rick Grimes and his family again, the game goes farther back into its timeline around the beginnings of the outbreak. It is told through Lee, a professor convicted of murder, which plays a significant role in the core of the game. The game introduces its mechanics with a simple conversation between Lee and a sheriff’s deputy, and then suddenly there is a car accident and he is having his first zombie encounter.

We are now in a time where games featuring the undead feel one and the same, where studios try to capture the same influence Resident Evil carried with it in the late 1990s, and Left 4 Dead in the late 2000s. Even the hit Call of Duty series has a bonus mode that crossed tower defense with first-person shooting. The Walking Dead, thankfully, brings a newer perspective to games and zombies. In true Telltale fashion, it’s an interactive story, focusing more on characters, relationships, and overall decision-making than a direct conflict with the monsters.

What I enjoyed about Episode 1 of this five-episode series is how we learn a lot about Lee without knowing too much about him. His first interaction is with a young girl named Clementine, whose parents were away and it is presumed did not survive the outbreak. Lee offers his help, and the player can guide their relationship as they travel for help. There are a number of environmental objects to interact with, and while some objects come into immediate use, others are stored away for potential use later in the story. While I didn’t get to play much of Back to the Future or any of Jurassic Park, it would seem that the focus of the game is the player’s snap decision-making as opposed to the puzzle solving and logical implementation seen in other point-and-click games. Every response to an action, a question, or statement has a time limit on it. Any non-player character interacting with Lee will take account the player’s decision, which will either benefit them or hurt them later. I hastily had one character punch another and towards the end of the episode, I paid for it.

As slow as they are, zombies sure are a pain.

There are actual confrontations with the zombies in timed presses of a button and highlighting the cursor in the right area for interaction. Sometimes you’ll mash a button until a meter fills up, and hopefully you’ll push the right button after that or become a zombie’s next meal. Nothing too difficult, but it is definitely a secondary mechanic compared to the interaction with other characters. The zombie scenes add a lot of tension and a sense of urgency and fear when it’s time to accomplish an objective.

There is a new cast of survivors, each with a different attribute in mind. They don’t behave in very distinctive ways, but they are not empty in personality either. They simply survive “until the whole thing blows over.” There are familiar faces who play important roles as opposed to a simple cameo. I think the one surprise is that these particular characters have, so far, seen the most sympathy from me compared to most of the comic and TV series’ leads. It is that sympathy that makes the decision-making even more integral, since it can be assumed relationships will change and roles will come into question.

I had little interest in the game since I’m not great at these kinds of games, and I am a casual fan of The Walking Dead comics, not so much the TV series, but if my input and direction help drive the story as I would live it, I’ll gladly stick around for longer. I suppose if I took issue with the game, it’s that sometimes the timer for the decision-making is a little too fast for my liking, and the lack of the wonderful and intense TV theme. Regardless, I hope the rest holds up.

E3 2010: Sony and Nintendo: ‘Hey! This isn’t Harry Potter…’

Time passes rather quickly. Already my writing an entry on E3 may already come off as ancient history, but while the event was taking place, two major events captured my attention: the madness of pre-ordering an iPhone 4, and the madness of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the vuvuzelas that come with it.

I say this time, let’s cut to the chase so we can get back to our soccer/football/futbol, shall we?

Nintendo’s approach to appease its ‘hardcore’ fan base, the folks who enjoy jumping on Koopa Troopas and launching fireballs as the company’s mascot plumber Mario over a shooting gallery at a virtual carnival starring their Mii characters, used to offend me. Their only answer to this ‘problem’ was to just throw another Mario game at them, but folks ate them up. Games developed by third-party developers that aim to a less casual audience tend to flop and appear dead on arrival (Sega’s The Conduit and MadWorld, and EA’s Dead Space: Extraction are two examples). This year, Nintendo brought in the big guns, and while I won’t be playing some of their future titles right away, it brings me a sense of relief that they will be there. We have a new Legend of Zelda game, titled Skyward Sword, for the Wii. I have yet to play Twilight Princess, released in 2006, and during that period I had considered myself “retired” from the franchise. In 2007, I had attempted to play the Phantom Hourglass game on the DS, but gave up on it for a number of reasons. Skyward Sword boasts a visual mixture of Twilight Princess, and the love-it-or-hate-it Wind Waker (Gamecube, 2003). It has an extra flavor of an oil painting/illustrated storybook look that drew me in despite series creator Shigeru Miyamoto’s awkward demonstration of the game at the Nintendo presentation last week.

Nintendo spent a lot of the presentation discussing the capabilities of the Nintendo 3DS, and with games like a new Golden Sun (the first since The Lost Age, the second episode, released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003). I had to actually look up the title of the second Golden Sun game. I hadn’t played it since 2004. In addition to the first-party games (a potential new Star Fox and a Kid Icarus game after all these years), there is a lot of third-party support from the big names, including a Resident Evil game from Capcom, a Splinter Cell game from Ubisoft, and a Metal Gear Solid title from Konami. Color me sold.

I regret that I don’t have a whole lot to express about Sony’s time on the stage because, as I remember it, I was physically tired having been awake for a lot of the previous night. Sony discussed their premium service, of which I have no interest in. They managed to show up the Kinect with Move, their take on motion control, by showing a demonstration of a wizard-ing game called Harry Pott– I mean Sorcery. It can be generically described as “interesting,” and absolutely nothing to get excited over. I will stick with my Wii, that I have even decided to touch for the first time in over a year (thanks, Super Mario Galaxy 2!). One of the stronger highlights was the appearance by Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, and his promotion of the much anticipated Portal 2. That wasn’t the big deal. We all knew that. The extra added punch came in the announcement of Steamworks, which allows Mac and Windows users to play multiplayer games on the same servers with one another, and its compatibility on the PlayStation 3. That about topped off the sundae, chock full of Kevin Butler and his motivational “We’re gamers!” speech that provided some genuine humor, with the cherry on top that was the development of a Twisted Metal game, the first since Twisted Metal: Black (PlayStation 2, 2001).

That about does it for this year’s E3, among other things. I need to dock points here, though, or maybe throw a yellow flag on the field.

Microsoft — 5-yard penalty for that creepy Kinectimals segment.

Nintendo — 5-yard penalty for the awkward Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword demonstration. An addition 10-yard penalty for the GoldenEye remake and failure to understand why it was the monster that it was in 1997. They announce the 3DS and its lineup. The penalty is declined. First down.

Sony — 10-yard penalty for an uninteresting presentation. Kevin Butler speech and PS3 Steamworks. That penalty is declined. There is an additional 5-yard penalty for the inability to sell me on a PSP after five years, as well as the failure to sell Move.

Next time: I talk about the iPhone 4.