Six Days in Fallujah Is Complicated and Painful For Those Connected to the Real Events - Those with connections to the Second Battle of Fallujah discuss the Middle East in media and mistrust of the US military, and ask who the game will actually ask players to empathize with.

[Dom Cruise]

I actually like Spec Ops : The Line, but I’m sick of assholes who think every shooter should follow its footsteps or else it’s “bootlicking propaganda”. Ffs, there’s a million sways to portray the military experience, and portraying it with active hostility is among the worst.

Spec Ops the Line ruined the modern shooter genre because now it's nothing but breadtube tier communists complaining about the games. "Modern Warfare is evil for putting the US in a good light" or at this game "is bad for not being anti-war globohomo propaganda".

I like Spec Ops : The Line too but it's one of those things that was exciting when it was new, but it set a bad tone and started a bad trend.

Now every pretentious western developer wants to make the next Spec Ops : The Line, ie "deconstructionist" games, this culminated in The Last of Us Part II.

Once you go deconstructionist and meta with something, the medium's days are pretty much done, it's like how grunge killed Rock n Roll, because while it may have been exciting at first with bands like Nirvana, it eventually led to Nirvana wannabees like Puddle of Mudd and now 20 years later Rock n Roll is pretty much a dead artform, if Spec Ops: The Line is Nirvana, The Last of Us Part II is Puddle of Mudd.

Deconstructionism is akin to a magician showing you how he did his tricks, it takes all the magic out of it and consequently all the fun, once you really make a big fuss about pointing out the "tropes" of a medium or genre, as Anita and her ilk just fucking love to do, all you're really doing is ruining something.

There are rare instances of something surviving a deconstructionist take, but there also times where it flat out kills something dead which might be what's happening to western developed video games, the tone set by "Tropes vs Women" nearly a decade ago is bleeding the artform dry.

In the specific case of Spec Ops : The Line though I like the game not just for the sole reason it's a "deconstructionist" take on military shooters but because of the added element of surrealism and mysteriousness as the game goes on, to where some fans have theorized that at some point the characters die and are actually in some form of Hell, there's simply more to chew on than typical "subverting your expectations" stuff tends to do, at least these days.

There's also the fact that Spec Ops : The Line is simply interesting when put into historical context of all the type of military games it followed, including what it was a revival of, Spec Ops, which was a series of budget priced straight forward military games, the kind of game you'd find in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart or getting sun bleached on the selves of Blockbuster, this was among many other military games in the 2000s that presented war in a very straight forward way, games like the Conflict series, the SOCOM series and so on.

But Spec Ops : The Line, arriving in 2012, after years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, now brought a very different tone that was reflective of changing attitudes about war as a whole and that's interesting, even if it did sadly set a bad precedent.

On a side note though the western deconstructionist trend in video games didn't actually start with Spec Ops : The Line but it started with Bioshock, which Spec Ops : The Line to some degree is kind of like "Bisohock but it's about modern military warfare"

Long story short deconstructionist video games were fun for a while but now is definitely the time to go back to less pretension and more just wanting to entertain people.

They didn't mention Gamergate at all - which is legitimately astounding to me.

They did however refer to that Anita bitch, which is nearly as bad.

In some ways it's even worse since Anita has been around for longer, I myself never wanted to imagine people would still remember her after nearly a decade.

"She and many other developers..." implies they think she's a developer, too.

Honestly, the Iraq war was a shitshow. You had stories of US Soldiers being ambushed by locals they considered friends. The most horrifying of one I can remember was a barber that the soldiers would chat with on their patrol route, they'd stop and ask him how his day is, etc. Then one day he walks up to them to chat, he has a live grenade in his hand, blows himself up and injures the soldiers. There was nothing to suspect he would do this, they chatted like normal just yesterday and right up till he revealed the grenade.

The very idea the US Military was a one-sided evil is ludicrous. It was a dumb war, but they were humans dealing with a fuckton of psychological fuckery. If you saw or heard stories of the barber, with a very real threat of guerilla war, you'd fucking shoot civvies just to be safe.

Iraq a shitshow that never should have happened in the first place but I don't blanket blame all the US soldiers, most of whom who simply tried to make the best of a bad situation, I blame the assholes that put them there in the first place.

 

[“Fun”times]

Speaking of Spec Ops The Line:
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God I despise that game. Seriously it’s the Rick and morty of FPS games where it’s “so deep” and the fans are insufferable midwits that act like high IQ jackoffs for playing the game and understanding the hamfisted narrative.
Anytime some CoD shooter comes out that doesn’t explicitly say “your bad and you should feel bad” all these brainlets come out the woodwork and start comparing it to spec ops the line acting like it’s the narrative of the century, when it’s really a mediocre cover shooter with very explicit in your face “feel bad” moments.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I like Spec Ops : The Line too but it's one of those things that was exciting when it was new, but it set a bad tone and started a bad trend.

Now every pretentious western developer wants to make the next Spec Ops : The Line, ie "deconstructionist" games, this culminated in The Last of Us Part II.

Once you go deconstructionist and meta with something, the medium's days are pretty much done, it's like how grunge killed Rock n Roll, because while it may have been exciting at first with bands like Nirvana, it eventually led to Nirvana wannabees like Puddle of Mudd and now 20 years later Rock n Roll is pretty much a dead artform, if Spec Op: The Line is Nirvana, The Last of Us Part II is Puddle of Mudd.

Deconstructionism is akin to a magician showing you how he did his tricks, it takes all the magic out of it and consequently all the fun, once you really make a big fuss about pointing out the "tropes" of a medium or genre, as Anita and her ilk just fucking love to do, all you're really doing is ruining something.

There are rare instances of something surviving a deconstructionist take, but there also times where it flat out kills something dead which might be what's happening to western developed video games, the tone set by "Tropes vs Women" nearly a decade ago is bleeding the artform dry.

In the specific case of Spec Ops : The Line though I like the game not just for the sole reason it's a "deconstructionist" take on military shooters but because of the added element of surrealism and mysteriousness as the game goes on, to where some fans have theorized that at some point the characters die and are actually in some form of Hell, there's simply more to chew on than typical "subverting your expectations" stuff tends to do, at least these days.

There's also the fact that Spec Ops : The Line is simply interesting when put into historical context of all the type of military games it followed, including what it was a revival of, Spec Ops, which was a series of budget priced straight forward military games, the kind of game you'd find in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart or getting sun bleached on the selves of Blockbuster, this was among many other military games in the 2000s that presented war in a very straight forward way, games like the Conflict series, the SOCOM series and so on.

But Spec Ops : The Line, arriving in 2012, after years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, now brought a very different tone that was reflective of changing attitudes about war as a whole and that's interesting, even if it did sadly set a bad precedent.

On a side note though the western deconstructionist trend in video games didn't actually start with Spec Ops : The Line but it started with Bioshock, which Spec Ops : The Line to some degree is kind of like "Bisohock but it's about modern military warfare"

Long story short deconstructionist video games were fun for a while but now is definitely the time to go back to less pretension and more just wanting to entertain people.


In some ways it's even worse since Anita has been around for longer, I myself never wanted to imagine people would still remember her after nearly a decade.


Iraq a shitshow that never should have happened in the first place but I don't blanket blame all the US soldiers, most of whom who simply tried to make the best of a bad situation, I blame the assholes that put them there in the first place.

I'll only argue that in games gameplay is god, so you can't really kill genres by deconstructing them because people will still play a fun game. Plus games in general have very little basis in reality so there is no point in tearing down tropes.
Deconstruction mainly killed video games writing because modern devs are itching to call you out as a bastard for exploring gameplay options that they themselves programmed because we should treat video game data as real people.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I like Spec Ops : The Line too but it's one of those things that was exciting when it was new, but it set a bad tone and started a bad trend.

Now every pretentious western developer wants to make the next Spec Ops : The Line, ie "deconstructionist" games, this culminated in The Last of Us Part II.

Once you go deconstructionist and meta with something, the medium's days are pretty much done, it's like how grunge killed Rock n Roll, because while it may have been exciting at first with bands like Nirvana, it eventually led to Nirvana wannabees like Puddle of Mudd and now 20 years later Rock n Roll is pretty much a dead artform, if Spec Op: The Line is Nirvana, The Last of Us Part II is Puddle of Mudd.

Deconstructionism is akin to a magician showing you how he did his tricks, it takes all the magic out of it and consequently all the fun, once you really make a big fuss about pointing out the "tropes" of a medium or genre, as Anita and her ilk just fucking love to do, all you're really doing is ruining something.

There are rare instances of something surviving a deconstructionist take, but there also times where it flat out kills something dead which might be what's happening to western developed video games, the tone set by "Tropes vs Women" nearly a decade ago is bleeding the artform dry.

In the specific case of Spec Ops : The Line though I like the game not just for the sole reason it's a "deconstructionist" take on military shooters but because of the added element of surrealism and mysteriousness as the game goes on, to where some fans have theorized that at some point the characters die and are actually in some form of Hell, there's simply more to chew on than typical "subverting your expectations" stuff tends to do, at least these days.

There's also the fact that Spec Ops : The Line is simply interesting when put into historical context of all the type of military games it followed, including what it was a revival of, Spec Ops, which was a series of budget priced straight forward military games, the kind of game you'd find in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart or getting sun bleached on the selves of Blockbuster, this was among many other military games in the 2000s that presented war in a very straight forward way, games like the Conflict series, the SOCOM series and so on.

But Spec Ops : The Line, arriving in 2012, after years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, now brought a very different tone that was reflective of changing attitudes about war as a whole and that's interesting, even if it did sadly set a bad precedent.

On a side note though the western deconstructionist trend in video games didn't actually start with Spec Ops : The Line but it started with Bioshock, which Spec Ops : The Line to some degree is kind of like "Bisohock but it's about modern military warfare"

Long story short deconstructionist video games were fun for a while but now is definitely the time to go back to less pretension and more just wanting to entertain people.

Unironically this.

I honestly think more creators need to counter the deconstruction trend with (for lack of a better term) reconstruction.

Just go in with the no frills attitude and say "Let's just have fun again and let genres just be genres. Don't like it? Then don't buy it." and drop all the pretentious pseudo-intellectual punk rocker mentality.

 

[Dom Cruise]

God I despise that game. Seriously it’s the Rick and morty of FPS games where it’s “so deep” and the fans are insufferable midwits that act like high IQ jackoffs for playing the game and understanding the hamfisted narrative.
Anytime some CoD shooter comes out that doesn’t explicitly say “your bad and you should feel bad” all these brainlets come out the woodwork and start comparing it to spec ops the line acting like it’s the narrative of the century, when it’s really a mediocre cover shooter with very explicit in your face “feel bad” moments.

There's a little more to it than that in the case of Spec Ops: The Line

Like I said there's a surrealism/mysteriousness element where it isn't clear what is real and what isn't after a point, heck, it's even implied the entire thing might just John Conrad's dying dream.

I find all that interesting, not everything has to be shallow and straight forward, it's perfectly ok, maybe even preferable, for a game to be a little arty.

But there's a difference between art and pretentiousness, in fact this brings us to a wider issue of what's been going on in gaming for a while now, the "games as art" movement got hijacked by the SJW movement and now people confuse art with political propaganda.

Spec Ops: The Line is of course political, but I wouldn't really call it propaganda, the game raises unsettling questions and doesn't provide any real easy answers, propaganda is all about taking complicated matters and boiling it down to an easy answer, which these days boils down to "just shut up and accept Woke and Diversity already and everything will be fine"

When The Last of Us Part II has a trans looking character beat the white male protagonist of the previous game to death, there's a clear propagandistic message being sent and it's an ugly and nasty one.

But with Spec Ops: The Line, there's no getting around the fact that the basic idea of "Apocalypse Now but for the War on Terror era" was simply a clever and interesting one and like Apocalypse Now while the trappings were political and focused on a specific conflict, the deeper message was more about the human condition in general, was more universal, that right there is one thing that sets art apart from propaganda, art has a message for any era, propaganda only has a message for the specific time in which it was made.

And if we're going to compare it to movies, Apocalypse Now didn't prevent later, more straight forward but still great war movies like Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down from being made, it may be a case of it's less about what you do, but whether you just keep doing the same thing over and over again, if everything starts doing deconstructionism then it simply gets boring after a while, variety is the spice of life after all.

Now is certainly the time for games to start focusing more on fun after close to a decade of deconstructionism.

I'll only argue that in games gameplay is god, so you can't really kill genres by deconstructing them because people will still play a fun game. Plus games in general have very little basis in reality so there is no point in tearing down tropes.
Deconstruction mainly killed video games writing because modern devs are itching to call you out as a bastard for exploring gameplay options that they themselves programmed because we should treat video game data as real people.

I like a good story in games and the stories have really been getting shit in recent years, they just traded one set of tropes, for another "Woke" set of tropes ie "strong female characters", "diverse cast", "large number of gay characters" etc.

The original tropes in games developed naturally as that's just what people liked to see (ie hot women), this new set of tropes is enforced artificially by political correctness and it sticks out like a sore thumb, they just fucking hate what gaming was in the 2000s so much and bend over backwards and go out of their way to ensure a game can never resemble what a game would have been like in the 2000s.

 

[iceteayo]

I like Spec Ops : The Line too but it's one of those things that was exciting when it was new, but it set a bad tone and started a bad trend.

Now every pretentious western developer wants to make the next Spec Ops : The Line, ie "deconstructionist" games, this culminated in The Last of Us Part II.

Once you go deconstructionist and meta with something, the medium's days are pretty much done, it's like how grunge killed Rock n Roll, because while it may have been exciting at first with bands like Nirvana, it eventually led to Nirvana wannabees like Puddle of Mudd and now 20 years later Rock n Roll is pretty much a dead artform, if Spec Ops: The Line is Nirvana, The Last of Us Part II is Puddle of Mudd.

Deconstructionism is akin to a magician showing you how he did his tricks, it takes all the magic out of it and consequently all the fun, once you really make a big fuss about pointing out the "tropes" of a medium or genre, as Anita and her ilk just fucking love to do, all you're really doing is ruining something.

There are rare instances of something surviving a deconstructionist take, but there also times where it flat out kills something dead which might be what's happening to western developed video games, the tone set by "Tropes vs Women" nearly a decade ago is bleeding the artform dry.

In the specific case of Spec Ops : The Line though I like the game not just for the sole reason it's a "deconstructionist" take on military shooters but because of the added element of surrealism and mysteriousness as the game goes on, to where some fans have theorized that at some point the characters die and are actually in some form of Hell, there's simply more to chew on than typical "subverting your expectations" stuff tends to do, at least these days.

There's also the fact that Spec Ops : The Line is simply interesting when put into historical context of all the type of military games it followed, including what it was a revival of, Spec Ops, which was a series of budget priced straight forward military games, the kind of game you'd find in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart or getting sun bleached on the selves of Blockbuster, this was among many other military games in the 2000s that presented war in a very straight forward way, games like the Conflict series, the SOCOM series and so on.

But Spec Ops : The Line, arriving in 2012, after years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, now brought a very different tone that was reflective of changing attitudes about war as a whole and that's interesting, even if it did sadly set a bad precedent.

On a side note though the western deconstructionist trend in video games didn't actually start with Spec Ops : The Line but it started with Bioshock, which Spec Ops : The Line to some degree is kind of like "Bisohock but it's about modern military warfare"

Long story short deconstructionist video games were fun for a while but now is definitely the time to go back to less pretension and more just wanting to entertain people.


In some ways it's even worse since Anita has been around for longer, I myself never wanted to imagine people would still remember her after nearly a decade.


Iraq a shitshow that never should have happened in the first place but I don't blanket blame all the US soldiers, most of whom who simply tried to make the best of a bad situation, I blame the assholes that put them there in the first place.

I think westerners in general overate and treat "Deconstructions" far too seriously. Another, genre ripe for this is anime with 2 big ones being Evangelion and Madoka. I like both of these anime but they always have 2deep4u assholes thinking they are the deepest shit in their genre ever made. When in reality they really aren't fucking Sailor Moon a magical girl show everything thinks was "kiddy" had their main characters die too and other magical girl shows typically tackled serious themes as well.

Like people will typically go on and on about CODs pro American nature and how its brainless. Fucking redditors do not play video games the most popular characters in modern warfare are 2 SAS operatives with their campaigns being the "main" ones while the side campaigns were typically the American ones. The main antagonist of MW2 was an American general who was a massive warmonger. Its just people wanting to look smart and frankly I am sick of it irony and everything is just killing writing in general instead of good superman stories its just "what if Superman but EVIL???"

 

[White Devil]

I liked Spec Ops and don't think I'm somehow special for it. I enjoyed the story and the adaption of Heart of Darkness. The first time you play through it, yeah it feels like a moral quandary, but thats what they set out to do. The actual gameplay mechanics were mediocre, even for the time but not as bad as Kane & Lynch's controls.

I've been looking forward to SDiF since it was originally announced in the early 2000s and honestly cannot wait to play it. I hope I'll get as much replay out of it as I did Conflict : Desert Storm back in the day. Or Full Spectrum Warrior.

 

[The Last Stand]

At its core, Spec Ops: The Line was a generic third person brown shooter.

You'd think with how gaming has evolved with mechanics, graphics and storytelling, it wouldn't be difficult or discouraging to create a compelling, fun military shooter without excessive immersion breaking techniques or political soapboxing.

Call of Duty: World at War managed to do a deep, compelling take on World War II. A game from 2008.

 

[Secret Asshole]

I mean, Spec Ops: The Line was clearly an adaption of the heart of darkness and slowly going mad in a mad country. The game pretty much emphasizes that. It isn't so much as a deconstruction as a decent into the insanity of everything. Its not really 'deconstructing', and I don't think it seeks to insult the player. It wants to drive you crazy. Play it on the hardest difficult and it will drive you as insane as the protagonist, which is the way its meant to be played.

The thing is Spec Ops was not meant to be a realistic portrayal of war. It was an adaption of The Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now which tried to mimic the absolute decent into madness. This is even done by the the loading screens subtly becoming crazier and crazier. I didn't feel like it was admonishing the player "Fuck you for playing our game lolz", just more a meta experience to see how you can make the player experience what the MC is experiencing. IE: Going fucking crazy in that sort of world. That's what I like it for, the insanity elements and the literary adaption. Not to mention you're not even sure if anything you're seeing is real or a projection.

I think the thing is Spec Ops is basically lightning in a bottle and a lot of factors came together to make it what it was, some unintentional that really helped and some intentional. Trying to recreate that has been a problem, because Spec Ops is largely just a homage to 'The Heart of Darkness' and attempting to do it in a meta way. The bad gameplay unintentionally helped it, especially on the hardest difficult because it drives you crazy. So some things weren't on purpose. Its full effect is really only able to be felt by playing through the hardest difficulty in one sitting. Otherwise it sort of loses what its supposed to be.

But again, that was basically a happy accident. This is why it hasn't been able to be recreated. Honestly, I don't much care. They could have just used a fake Middle Eastern country with a similar war with a fake city to express the same themes. But they chose Fallejuah because its more marketable. And to be honest, nobody gives a fuck what Sarkessian thinks. She's a dumb cunt grifter trying so hard to remain relevant its laughable. Most people will probably just ignore the article. My money is it being a medicore shooter with a multiplayer focus attempting to mimic spec ops but failing like all the others.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

I mean, Spec Ops: The Line was clearly an adaption of the heart of darkness and slowly going mad in a mad country. The game pretty much emphasizes that. It isn't so much as a deconstruction as a decent into the insanity of everything. Its not really 'deconstructing', and I don't think it seeks to insult the player. It wants to drive you crazy. Play it on the hardest difficult and it will drive you as insane as the protagonist, which is the way its meant to be played.

The thing is Spec Ops was not meant to be a realistic portrayal of war. It was an adaption of The Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now which tried to mimic the absolute decent into madness. This is even done by the the loading screens subtly becoming crazier and crazier. I didn't feel like it was admonishing the player "Fuck you for playing our game lolz", just more a meta experience to see how you can make the player experience what the MC is experiencing. IE: Going fucking crazy in that sort of world. That's what I like it for, the insanity elements and the literary adaption. Not to mention you're not even sure if anything you're seeing is real or a projection.

I think the thing is Spec Ops is basically lightning in a bottle and a lot of factors came together to make it what it was, some unintentional that really helped and some intentional. Trying to recreate that has been a problem, because Spec Ops is largely just a homage to 'The Heart of Darkness' and attempting to do it in a meta way. The bad gameplay unintentionally helped it, especially on the hardest difficult because it drives you crazy. So some things weren't on purpose. Its full effect is really only able to be felt by playing through the hardest difficulty in one sitting. Otherwise it sort of loses what its supposed to be.

But again, that was basically a happy accident. This is why it hasn't been able to be recreated. Honestly, I don't much care. They could have just used a fake Middle Eastern country with a similar war with a fake city to express the same themes. But they chose Fallejuah because its more marketable. And to be honest, nobody gives a fuck what Sarkessian thinks. She's a dumb cunt grifter trying so hard to remain relevant its laughable. Most people will probably just ignore the article. My money is it being a medicore shooter with a multiplayer focus attempting to mimic spec ops but failing like all the others.

Whenever I think Spec Ops and Insane difficulty, I immediately jumped to the fucking helicopter segment. FUCK! THAT!

 

[Snekposter]

I mean, Spec Ops: The Line was clearly an adaption of the heart of darkness and slowly going mad in a mad country. The game pretty much emphasizes that. It isn't so much as a deconstruction as a decent into the insanity of everything. Its not really 'deconstructing', and I don't think it seeks to insult the player. It wants to drive you crazy. Play it on the hardest difficult and it will drive you as insane as the protagonist, which is the way its meant to be played.

The thing is Spec Ops was not meant to be a realistic portrayal of war. It was an adaption of The Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now which tried to mimic the absolute decent into madness. This is even done by the the loading screens subtly becoming crazier and crazier. I didn't feel like it was admonishing the player "Fuck you for playing our game lolz", just more a meta experience to see how you can make the player experience what the MC is experiencing. IE: Going fucking crazy in that sort of world. That's what I like it for, the insanity elements and the literary adaption. Not to mention you're not even sure if anything you're seeing is real or a projection.

I think the thing is Spec Ops is basically lightning in a bottle and a lot of factors came together to make it what it was, some unintentional that really helped and some intentional. Trying to recreate that has been a problem, because Spec Ops is largely just a homage to 'The Heart of Darkness' and attempting to do it in a meta way. The bad gameplay unintentionally helped it, especially on the hardest difficult because it drives you crazy. So some things weren't on purpose. Its full effect is really only able to be felt by playing through the hardest difficulty in one sitting. Otherwise it sort of loses what its supposed to be.

But again, that was basically a happy accident. This is why it hasn't been able to be recreated. Honestly, I don't much care. They could have just used a fake Middle Eastern country with a similar war with a fake city to express the same themes. But they chose Fallejuah because its more marketable. And to be honest, nobody gives a fuck what Sarkessian thinks. She's a dumb cunt grifter trying so hard to remain relevant its laughable. Most people will probably just ignore the article. My money is it being a medicore shooter with a multiplayer focus attempting to mimic spec ops but failing like all the others.

Well, no. That sort of Apocalypse Now video game is Far Cry 3, which does a much better job of it and doesn't beat the player over the head with any sort of pseudo-intellectual messaging. Instead of "You did a bad thing and you need to feel bad" like we see in SpecOps, FC3 says, "You did what you needed to to live. Doesn't that feel good?" Instead of "just quit playing the game" tier nonsense your closest guy tells you to torture him for both of your sakes, which is far more horrifying than dropping WP on an angry mob.

 

[iceteayo]

Well, no. That sort of Apocalypse Now video game is Far Cry 3, which does a much better job of it and doesn't beat the player over the head with any sort of pseudo-intellectual messaging. Instead of "You did a bad thing and you need to feel bad" like we see in SpecOps, FC3 says, "You did what you needed to to live. Doesn't that feel good?" Instead of "just quit playing the game" tier nonsense your closest guy tells you to torture him for both of your sakes, which is far more horrifying than dropping WP on an angry mob.

Tbh not a lot of guys delve into Jason the protagonist from FC3 in how he mimicks a player when it comes to open world sand box games. Jason goes from freaking out over everything to a remorseless killer who jokes and revels in the death. Even his friends comment on all the strange tattoos he’s gotten and all the weapons he carries now. The drugs, death, and weird tattoo powers did something to him.

 

[Snekposter]

Oh, yeah. It wasn't until the slaughter in the evil villain's office that I as a player was able to snap out of the violent surreality thanks to the game doing such a good job of sucking me in.

 

[gaystoner]

'feels bad for shooting people in a game'

Man these people must have major issues with Grand Theft Auto.

I just hope the NPC die more realistically in VI

 

[A_Callow_Youth]

The problem with trying to sort out Spec Ops is the same problem with trying to sort out Metal Gear. There's so many layers of dense, vague, often self-contradictory bullshit both within and around it that any notion of truth just gets buried by a million interpretations. Just take some ways to read the WP scene
>Devs railroad you into doing a thing and then blame you for it. So deep, much sad.
>WP scene is critical to Walker's descent into madness, but is the fatal chink in the meta commentary
>Walker denies his culpability in the WP scene, therefore players doing the same only reinforces the meta commentary
>implying "turn off the game" is a choice
>implying "I didn't have a choice" was ever an effective coping mechanism
>ARMY MAN BAD
So what was it? Was it the devs sucking their dicks about how much they hate gamers? Ambition gone awry? Was the meta commentary one to many plates to juggle? Was it actually genius and the deniers are trapped in a bubble of their own delusion? Have we been reading the whole game wrong and it was actually a comedy this whole time? If games are art, then games Spec Ops and Metal Gear lie firmly on the abstract side of the spectrum: the only thing you get out of it is what you put in.

 

[Snekposter]

Well, the thing about Metal Gear is that Kojima is at least somewhat aware of his fart-huffing absurdities, unlike the SpecOps devs. Its a dumpster fire, but when you have a guy firing bullet bees at you, its a dumpster fire you don't try to think too hard about for your own sanity, unlike SpecOps which tries to be super-serious with how it presents matters. Metal Gear is a mix of the absurd, surreal, and real, and it ends up actually working in terms of presentation even if you don't know or especially because you don't know what's going on, but since SpecOps tries to be grimderp about war it just ends up being a clusterfuck.

 

[White Devil]

I think we should focus more on Six Days and less on Spec Ops, considering they're not even remotely tangentially related besides being shooters.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I think we should focus more on Six Days and less on Spec Ops, considering they're not even remotely tangentially related besides being shooters.

I think the problem is that there's not all that much to say about Six Days. The article that spawned this thread is just your standard pearl-clutching at games and gamers being evil. In the late 2000s it would be the right doing it, now it's the left.

 

[White Devil]

I think the problem is that there's not all that much to say about Six Days. The article that spawned this thread is just your standard pearl-clutching at games and gamers being evil. In the late 2000s it would be the right doing it, now it's the left.

I'd rather speculate than hand wring over the same arguments about Spec Ops that have been done for years...

Like SDiF is proported to have a co op campaign. I wonder how that's going to work, I wonder if you'll be able to select your loadouts, etc. I noticed in the gameplay trailer the Marine was using irons. I believe by 2004, most if not all infantry Marines were issued ACOGs for their M16A4s. I also noticed that modeling for the KAC rail covers seemed a little off.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I'd rather speculate than hand wring over the same arguments about Spec Ops that have been done for years...

Like SDiF is proported to have a co op campaign. I wonder how that's going to work, I wonder if you'll be able to select your loadouts, etc. I noticed in the gameplay trailer the Marine was using irons. I believe by 2004, most if not all infantry Marines were issued ACOGs for their M16A4s. I also noticed that modeling for the KAC rail covers seemed a little off.

Cool, you can keep doing that on the general SDiF thread and we're all happy.

To be frank, this thread is kind of pointless in this forum. It belongs in A&N because the article isn't about games, it's a political piece disguised as "games journalism". Which is why it got derailed into talking about SpecOps: the article was clearly "war BAAAAAAAD" and SpecOps is the poster child for "war BAAAAAAD" shooters. This has fuck-all to do with Six Days in Fallujah, it's just handwringing from idiots trying to pretend they care about the military now that "their guy" is in charge.