As far as shooting dudes goes, there's nothing I saw in the hour-and-a-half of Spec Ops: The Line shown at last week's demo event (on Xbox 360) that I haven't seen a dozen times before. As a third-person perspective modern military shooter, it's definitely competent, but not distinguished. You and two AI teammates barge into cover-based firefight after cover-based firefight against waves of soldiers using the usual array of weaponry, kicking down doors and tossing grenades until the bad guys stop moving. What's unusual and remarkable about Spec Ops is that, during the lulls between gunplay, it has the balls to depict war as nasty, bloody, and emotionally traumatic business, rather than a consequence-free action adventure.

Dubai Debacle

After a prologue scene of shooting down helicopters from a machine gun turret for no specified reason, the main character, Captain Martin Walker, and his two squaddies arrive in the deserted middle-eastern city of Dubai, which has been rendered uninhabitable by intense sandstorms. Their mission: find John Connor Konrad, a heroic US Army Colonel who'd gone missing along with his entire unit after refusing an order to evacuate the city.

If you're going to take cover behind a car, shouldn't it be a luxury sports car?

There's a lot of confusion -- is the CIA evil? Who's the bad guy?
Chasing a distress signal from Konrad, the squad discovers a trail of dead American soldiers, and it's not long before there's a run-in with restless natives who appear to be working with a CIA operative and against Konrad's men. There's a lot of confusion -- is the CIA evil? Who's the bad guy?

In one kind of hilarious moment in the tutorial battle, Walker kicks down a door and sends the insurgent behind it sprawling. The screen flashes a prompt to push a button to execute him, and Walker snaps his neck like a twig. He stands up, grimaces angstily, and says "I thought we were supposed to be helping people." Er... you didn't have to kill that guy just now. Just sayin.'

I hate when Mommy and Daddy argue.

But I digress. The battles are fought over a ton of different terrain, from deserted streets full of abandoned cars and buildings to an opulently decorated hotel to an underground mall-turned-bunker, and briefly fighting in a fierce sandstorm where visibility is reduced to nearly zero.

Nodding to the Apocalypse

Stepping over hundreds of bodies rotting in the streets, swarming with flies. Graphic
torture and executions. Grisly depictions of massacred civilians.
Heads up: mild spoilers follow. It's revealed that Konrad and his men have gone rogue, Heart of Darkness-style, and Walker and his men start working with the CIA operatives to bring him down, even though that means reluctantly fighting American soldiers. The battles that ensue are punctuated by some pretty gruesome stuff: Stepping over hundreds of bodies rotting in the streets, swarming with flies. Graphic torture and executions. Grisly depictions of massacred civilians. Scenes of the horrific effects of white phosphorus-based weaponry, which is effectively napalm 2.0. Walker and his men react in a very human way, balking at doing what they have to do and eventually starting to break under the pressure (though they'll still fight as effectively as ever when the bullets start flying).

Dubai even looks good when it's trashed.

There's some player interaction as well. At one point the action pauses to offer a choice: should the team rescue a CIA officer with mission-critical information, or rescue civilians being taken off to be executed? In this particular case the end result is the same, but the squad reacts differently to you based on your decision.

White Hot

The final scene in the demo shows Walker's team deciding (with no player input) to use the enemy's white phosphorus against them, creating another stomach-turning scene of hellish chaos -- only to imply another major story twist that maybe Konrad's men aren't as evil as we've been led to believe. With all its twists and turns, this will certainly end up being a more interesting and reality-grounded tale than the typical "Shoot everything that moves who cares why hey look now I'm riding a snowmobile to outer space!" nonsense.

Yup, that's a little creepy.

It's a little surprising that there won't be co-op available, given the squad-based setup, though that decision does make sense considering how story-driven Spec Ops is. But 2K confirms that there will be some sort of competitive multiplayer mode. We can expect to hear more about that before Spec Ops: The Line makes its debut later this year.


Spy Guy says: The decision is obvious: always rescue the spy! We're much more important than boring, non-stealthy civilians. I'm not sure about a shooter that makes me feel guilty about pulling the trigger -- do you want your action games to make you question your actions, or pat you on the back for mowing down enemies on sight?