Spec Ops: The Line

If you're just joining us, you should go back and read Spec Ops: The Line, Part 1 and Spec Ops: The Line, Part 2 first.

As before, a reminder:

When we last left off, the boys of Delta Force marched through a valley of death known as Dubai while in pursuit of Agent Gould. They emerged on the other side of the valley and found fire. Ubiquitous amounts of fire.

We reach Gould just in time... to watch him be interrogated, anyway. The 33rd is threatening hostages to try and get him to talk. The questions they ask him mean little to me. Something about a “gate,” and another agent named Riggs.

I’m presented with a choice. The 33rd takes the hostages into a back alleyway while they continue to torture Gould.

“Let me take the shot, Walker. Gould’s our mission, the civies aren’t.” Lugo says.

Adams encourages me otherwise. “We have to save the hostages.”

This time the choice is very binary. Lugo waits with his sniper rifle at the ready, while Adams tries to wave me towards a path along the wall that will take us to the hostages. Below me, Gould is being strangled to death. I don’t need a countdown timer on the screen to know I have to make a choice soon.

I go with Adam and leave Gould. Before we can even sneak our way to the hostages, we have to wait for the Soldier to finish the job. Its only a few seconds of game time, but its a very painful few seconds. I’ve no doubt I could give in to the temptation to save him and pull the trigger, but doing so would doom the hostages for sure. I have no line of sight on both.

Just like before, I leave my finger on the trigger and let things play out. Only this time I feel less confident I’m making the right choice.

We save the hostages, but Gould is dead. In his pocket was a battle plan of some kind; a co-ordinated attack on a place nearby called “The Gate.” Walker decides if Gould was willing to die for it, Delta will carry it out for him.

At this point I’m becoming more concerned. Walkers decision isn’t necessarily wrong, but it is odd. I haven’t forgotten the original orders yet; “find survivors, then radio from outside the storm wall.” We found survivors, but Walker is determined to press on. I figure perhaps he knows something I do not; maybe Walker doesn’t think reinforcements will arrive in time to stop a bloodbath. Maybe he thinks he can become a big damn hero before its all over. And maybe the fact we’re thinking alike is the reason I don’t spend too long to contemplate it.

But Lugo does. He didn’t agree with my choice, and he doesn’t understand why we’re still here. He voices the thought I only entertained for a second myself. As Adams tries to protest, Lugo explodes. “You’re the one fine just sittin’ around waiting for things to un-fuck themselves!’ He yells. The two start to scuffle.

Walker reminds them they’re soldiers, tells them we’re going to finish Gould’s op, and we press on.

We can still be heroes.

When we arrive, an army awaits below. I don’t know what Gould planned on attacking The Gate with, but it wasn’t enough. The team takes cover and starts to plan, until Adams notices white phosphorus and a mortar.

Lugo rejects the plan immediately. Walker and Adams insist it’s the only way to get through the barricade, but Lugo remains firm. “There’s always another way.”

As Walker loads the mortar, I’m torn between my knowledge of how horrible what we’re doing is and my morbid curiosity. The last time White Phosphorous was involved, the game gripped my attention entirely and took on a whole new atmosphere. I’d be lying to myself if didn’t look forward to seeing it again.

The actual firing of the white phosphorous takes place from a top down view. I paint the targets with a reticule and fire. It looks like nothing more then a cloud of white as I fire rocket after rocket. There’s a lot of screaming and noise. Occasionally I’m taking damage from something, and that only makes me fire off a lot more mortars then I need to. Adams (or Lugo, I can’t tell which over all the noise) says something about an APC near the back. I unload on it. I notice many troops lined up beneath a bridge. I assume it to be a barracks and light it up.

Only for a second does it strike me as odd that no one in the barracks area is running as I fire.

I try to leave the screen, but nothing seems to happen. “That’s the last of ‘em” Adams says.

When we walk down, I see familiar scenery. Another hellish landscape.

My morbid expectations are satisfied.

“This was too much,” says Lugo as we walk through all the charred bodies. Again people walk towards us, reaching out for help. Walker says to leave them.

We reach a dying soldier who asks us why.

“You brought this on yourself,” replies Walker.

Walker misunderstood. So did I.

“We were helping.” He motions as well as a dying man can off screen. Its the last thing he says before he dies.

Walker turns a corner.

My gut twists. Those barracks looked odd because they weren’t barracks.

It was civilians. The ones from the nest.

We lit them up. We did this. Me, and Walker.

Adams and Lugo are arguing, but Walker isn’t paying attention. And neither am I. I’ve seen so much violence in games much like this one, and its rare something leaves me shaken. But the following image did it.

Walker snaps out of it. He turns and tells Adams and Lugo that we need to move on. That we need to find Konrad and punish him for what he’s done.

But I don’t feel like Konrad is the one who needs punishing anymore. Not now.

This is the moment that changed everything. Even as Walker marches our men away from our greatest failure, I don’t see how anything I thought five minutes ago can remain. I no longer think Spec Ops is an above average Call of Duty clone. Its something new now, something unexplored. In this one moment, Spec Ops announced to me why it deserved to be remembered. It accomplished something no other war game has.

It assured me I could no longer be the hero. Even if Konrad and his 33rd are brought to justice, even if we succeed now where Konrad could not and evacuate Dubai, we cannot leave feeling accomplished.

I can still end this game, but I can no longer “win” it.

I notice something unusual about Walker’s behavior now. He’s not acknowledging what just occurred. In fact, he’s ignoring it entirely. He becomes consumed with a desire to hunt down Konrad and make him pay for the crimes that we committed.

His mission is no longer mine. It leaves me feeling unsettled. Walker’s been my hand all this time, the tool through which I’ve made my choices. He’s thought like me, and been the straight man. At this point, I no longer feel the same connection.

The basic aesthetics I’ve experienced so far are starting to change around me as well. The military lingo I’ve become accustomed to is no longer being spoken. “Tango down” has become “I got the bastard!” Walker no longer shouts to “Take out that turret.” He shouts, “Kill that fucking turret!”

Even the execution moves have changed. Walker now executes downed foes with a fearsome brutality instead of cold efficiency.

After progressing through another shootout, we arrive at yet another mass execution scene. Walker investigates it.

“Phosphorous,” says Adam, confirming the method of execution I already knew.

“I knew these men,” he says as he thumbs through their dog tags. They are some of Konrads most trusted men. Or at least they once were. Their bodies are horribly burned.

Suddenly a voice sounds out over a radio. “No better than I did, I promise you that. They led a mutiny, foolish in a place like this.”

I’ve never heard the voice, but I know very well who it is. “Everything is teetering on the edge of everything.”

Walker picks up the Radio. We now have contact with Konrad.

“Welcome to Dubai, Gentlemen.”

We stand on the edge of a building, looking out over the familiar ruined cityscape.

“It’s Konrad,” says Walker. “He did it. All of it.”

I know we’re going after him next, and I can’t help but shake the feeling we’ll all be buried with these horrors in Dubai.

Continued in Spec Ops: The Line, Part 4
(view all parts)