Spec Ops: A confused satire of heroic fantasy, or tragic tale?

Well first off, if you haven't read my other article on Spec Ops yet back when I was in the middle of it, your probably should do so now. In it I discuss the basics on how the game was a solid cover based shooter with some flaws that attempted to take on a good sense of context within its shooting. With all that being said I would also like to make one major thing clear before we begin, as this article isn't made for people who haven't played or at least watched a walk-through on Youtube. Its full of things that strip the surprise out of the game and analyze them. So with that in mind...

Now as I was saying, the game makes it clear that rather than being a mission with some fun set pieces or gunplay the game focuses on making you realize how brutal this concept was to begin with. It is a shooter after all. However to how far its intent goes is a pretty good and possibly dual sided question and I feel like one potential direction falls way flatter than the other. A guy on Youtube known as Campster or Irrational signal did a good job digging into the plot and story elements of this game, and reveals most (or all?) potential meanings. I don't necessarily agree with his Content 100% of the time, but he makes some good thought provoking stuff and I would seriously suggest looking at his views before mine here. He also sort of acknowledges the rant I had in the other article (about players being beaten with morals they didn't make themselves), yet justifies it is done that way on purpose. I might get back to that later, but for now lets talk about the potential different target goals of this game overall.

Lets first look at it from the perspective of a character driven tale. The game's narrative is based around 3 characters trying to survive in Dubai. Walker is the player's character and the leader of the core cast. He's the one calling the shots, and the one held more responsible for the actions of the squad. As the game degrades him and his squad by pushing them through countless sandstorms, testing them to extreme situations where they severely cripple the civilians they originally desired to save, and endure fighting what was supposed to be their own allies, it all amounts to the cast feeling at horrible. Their original goal to run into Dubai, call an evacuation team, and rescue everyone was some heroic fantasy that was way out of their reach. Instead they find chaos out of strange conflicts and have to pretty much kill a bit of everybody in the process of survival. Yet its not just survival. The captain (player's character) names the face responsible for it all and starts weaving out his own mission of vengeance. Suddenly because saving the people is too complicated, he wants to hurt the "bad guy". While the villain seemed a bit plausible at first, it was nothing more than a badly imagined conflict made up for an excuse to keep killing, and eventually the main character can do nothing else to keep himself believing his own heroism. You can't end the game on a good note, he either dies and ends it all, goes crazy by himself in Dubai (killing his only means of escape in the process), or goes home scared for life and presumably needs help. If the game was about this adventure, this changing character and his pals, and the horrors of true conflict, then it was an amazing narrative.

There's even subtle effects throughout the game that make it all even better. The squad continues to show more wear and become visually as torn as they are within their minds. Meanwhile Walker's ability to order his men range from a serious tone of orders, to hate filled swears stating a death sentence. ...Though with that last bit in mind, its odd hearing it from the same guy that voices deadpool. Another thing throughout the game is moments like in the mall when he starts going crazy enough to see mannequins as enemies, showing a lack of control to really tell who his enemies are. In other terms he begins to just want to destroy things, even if its not the real threat. His tale from captian of a rescue crew to blood thirsty maniac is actually felt throughout the game and even transfers into the elements the player works with, truly capturing the effect of the narrative and marking a big story on how mentally terrible this whole conflict has become for a solider. The other supposed goal of the game is the message that this is all the player's fault, that the player should never have tried to be the "hero", and that the game is scolding you for ever thinking you could "win" a hyper violent piece of content. Its about how you should be ashamed of yourself for playing games like these for your own desire to be heroic. This is the side of it I feel falls a bit flat on its face....

With a big serious splat

Now as a whole, its not a terrible idea. The idea might have been a bait and switch aimed at certain gamers, (likely COD/MOH or "dudebro" gamers) and to go from generic shooter to something a lot more hateful in tone. That's why the gameplay is mostly playing it safe, the setting is the way that it is, and its going against the common trend of course. Still even with interesting intentions it kind of falls apart when you step back and look at it. I feel like it might be the wrong genre, I would think COD or mainstream gamers play for the multiplayer rather than heroics. Heroics sounds like something Nintendo, Adventure, and possibly some RPG gamers play for. In those kind of games its actually played up loud and clear that you're on one campaign that always ends with saving the world, and (exempting RPGs) the mechanics are often too limited to really aim for much else other than pushing forward closer to that goal of saving the world and getting the princess or whatever. Modern military shooters are often about the multiplayer. Ammo, points, players, map design, tactics, server stability, objectives, and loadouts all play into your mind. You can't really focus on just the ending or "winning" on its own terms alone, its about how you get there by your own powers and with the aid or agony of the community. Now I guess you could point out how easy and "cool looking" COD games are set up to be, easily making you feel good or like some action hero, but overall people aren't playing with that solely in mind. There's nothing heroic about it because you know the other guys are real people doing the same exact thing, its more down to competition (even if its mostly through reflex) and community. If you forced the same guys to see Spec ops through, I don't think that hero metaphor would apply to them at all. Chances are they played this game because their net was down, not "I want the super vulnerable virtual civilians to build a memorial of me for reaching the credits!".

Oh and this is just under the assumption of COD fans, this bit falls apart even worse if it falls into gamers like me or others. I've yet to run into anyone that plays shooters like that honestly, even narrative heavy campaign fans of shooters. The closest I could name might be Metroid Prime and fans of it. Meanwhile everyone else I've seen plays them for some good stories. The play it to see the characters. That's why nobody really cared which ending was made cannon for Metro's sequel, they just enjoyed getting back into the world even if they were treated with the "bad ending" pre-set. That's why Joel's ending from The Last of Us is remembered as something questionable and harsh he did, not the player's will. The fact that it wasn't the player as a person, nor was it lecturing the player on something outside of their will, all revolves around the fact that the game wanted you to be invested in the character and it worked because that's what people wanted. If everyone was looking to be the hero, that game would have been far worse off than it was and people would have been crying for a "good" ending. Heck even Gordon Freeman from Half-life, who is a total shell of a character, is understood as him saving the world because that's how players felt. They know better than to assume they were playing the game as a hero, instead they just play down the linear events and soak up the narrative as the entertainment it is. Gordon is still a hero even if you never played the game, because he was written and programmed that way in the end and his name is after a fictional character made to do things to entertain you rather than simply overpower you. How about another world saver, Duke nukem. It was clear he had his own attitude and style to the point where it was so obvious and clear it was Duke more than the player in the game. Even if you're the one playing these guys, it doesn't mean we see them with our faces, we see them as fictional and made up as the pixeled world we manipulate through buttons. None of it has ever been about inputting our true morals, and some new developments to shift that focus in recent times doesn't suddenly make use believe we're moral crusaders becoming game heroes ourselves for controlling these pixel characters. If a game really does make us believe we were heroes at the end, its usually an accomplishment of the narrative in the game rather than an expectation of the player (World at war's ending with the Russians comes to mind). In the end, we want in as a player and interactor, not as a realistic avatar.

who am I!?

Now whether or not Spec Ops truly was going for this approach is not concrete. Supposedly it might even just be up to interpretation. I guess I'll never know for sure because I was slightly spoiled ahead of play into knowing that this game had a moral message, and people made it sound like it would indeed lecture the player on morals. So I couldn't see it abstractly, instead I was sort of waiting for it. Still I would suggest like Campster says in his analysis that at one point the game uses dialogue set up to specifically chat to both player and fiction at once. It certainly didn't feel abstract, and I didn't actually have to do much looking for the message to the player. Its not as openly handed to you and released for you to sit with like Last of Us's edgy ending which lets the player think about it, instead it is set in such a way that it truly is intentionally lecturing you through your character's own psyche problems. That's why I'm calling it out like this. Its not letting you figure it out as abstractly as some hint at, but instead attempting to guilt trip you. It really thinks you wanted to be a hero, and that you've always wanted to be that along with your character. That's why it forces you to do bad things, then feels like it lectures you along with the character. That just doesn't work though if the game isn't in the right type of hands it presumes to be in. The only people it would really relate to in that way are the minority that really do somehow see war games as a power fantasy escape to feel better about their success, or those that are so paranoid everyone is like that that they believed this move was so refreshing and educational (in other words the people that spoiled this game for me, and expected this was a necessary lecture). To someone like me that loves game narratives as a way of world building, or to those that look for just good stories in addition to interactive 5-20 hour long experiences, this just comes off as a bit frustrating and pretentious. Its certainly not the worst at pushing anti-violence morals on the player of a violent game, but its still among them as going a little too far.

Finally another point it was probably trying to gnaw at was real military actions. Upside-down flags, a capital city upturned, CIA cover ups, and soldiers killing soldiers all lead you into a middle eastern plot about how messed up America's plans went under a modernized setting drawn into mocking apocalyptic grimdark fiction. Much like how it was probably targeting to scold players, it may have just as well been scolding the video games it mocks or the military those games supposedly glorify. I can't really dismiss this as bad writing like the misguided anti-hero lectures on the player, but I can say I still have to disagree with it to some extent. A lot of people lately have seen the modern military shooter industry as a "fuck yeah, america!" propaganda war cry... and this is where I bring up how this game can find a nice home among those I'd describe as paranoid and think of this game as educational. For starters, if its criticizing real life its doing a bad job as there isn't anything this so clearly relates to. Dubai is still in good standing, there are no terrorists to be found, the mission is evacuation rather than government changing, and finally the whole apocalyptic and stranded style is just all a bit too far fetched to even trace such a chaotic anarchy to anywhere specific. The only way this game truly demotes America is by just giving us a game where some bad guys where the same uniform, but as a satire or piece of criticism its terrible at conveying any clear message. I don't honestly believe the game was aiming directly for that, and people may instead be putting words into its mouth, because it does look like an anti-war on terror themed game on the surface while not having any of the depth to that. On top of that the games it supposedly opposes aren't quite as pro-america as people seem to act like. If it were trying to go for that route, its doing a poor job with crazy traitorous American generals abusing US politics and killing their allies with poor justifications. Maybe they'd have a point with Medal of Honor though....

Though that leads into the other question of: Does the game mock modern shooters? I think that's pretty obvious. While it may not directly mock them in a way like BulletStorm tried with its marketing, it tears down their typical structure and I'm certain it was the teams goal to make you see just how torn from reality these shooters are. There really isn't a lot more to say to it than that. While COD, Medal of Honor, Killzone, Battlefield, and nearly every other shooter taking place in a "war" is all stripped of a lot of the true darkness within war. Heck even Uncharted is pretty guilty of it, even if its not really a war. Some games capture civilian casualties like Homefront, other help give some context like Killzone, but for the most part these games basically boil things down to kill bad guys to win. Violence under tense and horrible situations is down to you mowing down evil, and its hard to do wrong in a way that really weighs in on your decision to do something wrong. That's not to suddenly jump ship and to say that games are training us to be desensitized hooligans with trigger happy habits. Its just that the FPS and third person shooters went from shooting demons and aliens to trying to tackle war, but what feels right as silly demon killing comes off as inaccurate when applied to a struggle that we should all know too well has a lot more political, horror, and ripple effect than what we've been playing in games. Spec Ops tries to turn all that on its head, and give us a darker world full of civilian trouble, confusing conflicts that don't make much sense, and events that you can't simply win by killing and getting to a credit scene. Well... if you ignore the stupidly contradicting, and horribly uninspired multiplayer piece. We're sticking to the campaign of course. Its still no war simulator, and may even be a little too dark for its own message at times (the game is full of shock horror to the point where certain victims look more like rob zombie art than a realistic portrayal of suffering), but it tries to go further than the common shooter will with this. Its mission was to remind people that when you're controlling bombs, bullets, and lethal orders, you risk hurting more than some meanie with a gun.

Most Shooters: Mental scars? Nah, have some points!

So my overall thoughts on the game are pretty good in the end, even if I'm a tad bit frustrated with it as well. I feel like in some ways it tried to go too far. Trying to preachy and putting words and assumptions into player's heads, possibly assuming things about our culture that may not be true, and overall trying to deliver it in a way that also uses a ton of shock value and lack of personality or depth behind it as well. This all sounds like I'm describing some college project from a few preachy kids trying to score on some environmentalist trend. However... and again similar to mediocre environmentalism propaganda, the result is actually still very satisfying in some weird way. I feel like if it was more focused towards Walker's tale on its own, it would have hit home. It could have also done just maybe a bit better in showing the darkness of war. Like I suggested, its pretty much all shock value and mental problems the character has from that shock value. At one point there is a part where a civilian rushes towards the player down a closed up hallway in the middle of combat, almost certain to trigger a fast maybe lethal response from the player (I nearly clubbed her but stopped myself in time). Parts like that were a genius thing to do, but that's about as far as it ever goes without being outright shock stuff. The loading screens, the fire bombs that make people look a little too much like zomies, people hanging on every single light post at one point, walking through several halls full of corpses, and of course the wave based killing you're told to feel "bad" about all stems from a way to just make something bad look disgusting. Its shock value, not something you can actually think about, just more like "ew!". Its not exactly an awful thing, but it wasn't as powerful as I bet they were hoping to achieve. Instead the ending which was a mental thing rather than a physical "LOOK AT IT AND GASP IN EXAGGERATED HORROR!" sort of thing made it one of the only true memorable pieces of the dark plot. Still in general the core plot was great, a bit different, and I enjoyed how they tried to give the conflict quite an interesting conflict to lead to such a troubled and interesting main character.