Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Yager
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7, 2.0 GHz Core2Duo or better CPU, 2 GB RAM, 256 MB GeForce 8600/Radeon HD2600 XT or better graphics card, DirectX-compatible sound device, DirectX 9.0c, 6 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

“I love the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.” Not really; that would make me a homicidal maniac. But the farther I progressed through developer Yager’s long-awaited shooter SpecOps: The Line, the more parallels I uncovered between this game and one of the greatest war movies ever made, and the story upon which it’s based.

Nature has reclaimed the glittering towers of the city of Dubai, unleashing a storm of biblical proportions that has covered the desert city in sand. American Col. John Konrad and his unit, known as the Damned 33rd, have entered the city to organize an evacuation of any survivors, but neither he nor his troops haven’t been heard from in a long time. You and your two squadmates are sent in to finish Konrad’s mission: find survivors and lead them to an evacuation point. But you soon discover that all is not as it seems, especially when you and your men are attacked by members of the 33rd. This adds another objective to your trip: locate Konrad and find out what happened to him and his men.

SpecOps is a straightforward military shooter set in an environment that has gone all to hell. Your task is simple: if they shoot at you, shoot back until they’re all dead. You can hold two firearms and three types of grenades. Ammunition is plentiful provided you’re carrying the right weapons; scooping up guns from dead enemies is the best way to make sure that you don’t run out of bullets. As you move through the sand-enveloped city, you’re taunted by the voice of a radio announcer, which provides the game’s only real comic relief; most of what you find along the way is grim and disturbing. Bodies hang from freeway light poles or lie huddled together in clumps after being burned alive by incendiaries. There are some images in this game that are not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

Combat is fast-paced and almost constant, which helps alleviate the fact that it’s also very repetitive. Much has been made about the idea of using sand against your enemies by shooting glass windows and burying them in it, but this option only presents itself a couple of times. For the most part, every time you turn a corner there will be a battle to fight. But mixed into the unrelenting violence is a series of moral choices that must be made to continue the story. Some of these dilemmas can have surprising outcomes, so there’s no real good-vs-bad choice, only bad-vs-worse. Enemy AI is excellent; they frequently attempt to flank you instead of sitting still and waiting for you to ventilate their skulls. Occasionally a slow-moving heavy soldier will enter the fray. The heavy is difficult if not impossible to take down on your own, so you can use your middle mouse button to designate him for concentrated fire from your squadmates. If one of your comrades goes down, you can move to him to revive him, but this frequently puts you in the line of fire of the enemy. A progress bar above your wounded teammate lets you know how long you have to revive him before he dies. The visuals are somewhat disappointing. They can appear washed out and not as detailed as you might expect, but they are redeemed by the harrowing depictions of the consequences of war. The voice cast is excellent, including actors Bruce Boxleitner and Jake Busey, as well as the ever-reliable Nolan North. Multiplayer options are limited to deathmatch, team deathmatch and a mode named Buried, in which you have to destroy vital points on the map to reveal the ultimate target. There is a nice twist, though: sandstorms develop during matches from time to time, rendering your radar screen unusable if you’re standing outside a building. You can play on a LAN or online through Steamworks; online matchmaking is fast and painless.

SpecOps‘ strength is also its biggest weakness: there’s really nothing to do through your eight hours in the campaign except kill people. There are no puzzles to solve, the path through the maps is very linear, and the graphics aren’t interesting enough to take a step back and admire them. There are some intense firefights that require some strategic thinking, but for the most part it’s one-size-fits-all gaming. Instructions are not very detailed, even when they’re offered; I was halfway through the story before I realized that holding down the grenade button gives you an arc that you can use to target your throws. And the story seems to have been liberally inspired by the 1979 Francis Ford Coppola classic Apocalypse Now and the book upon which it’s based, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which could be why the antagonist of the game is named Konrad. In both the game and film, the main character heads into the unknown in search of a rogue military commander. The hero has to make painful decisions to proceed to his objective. Both soundtracks include 1960s rock-and-roll, with some tracks by legendary guitar hero Jimi Hendrix in the game. And if that’s not evidence enough, at one point you’re attacked by a helicopter with the pilot singing classical music (Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” is replaced by a section of Verdi’s Requiem). Some of these commonalities give SpecOps the edginess it needs, but most of them are simply distractions for those of us who’ve seen the film or read the book.

I’m a simple gamer, and I like simple games. So the idea of killing almost everything that moves should be welcome to me. But sometimes I want a little chocolate with my vanilla, and SpecOps: The Line doesn’t give it to me often enough. I like the addition of morality decisions that are more gray than black-and-white, and some of the visuals are a punch in the gut that reminds us that soldiers aren’t the only casualties of war. But I needed variety to keep me wanting to move to the next building and the next firefight, and the game didn’t provide it for me. It’s not a bad game; it just needed to take some chances.

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