![]() Well, I say competent, but perhaps that is an unfair assessment of what is an extremely slick third-person shooter. ![]() In terms of the actual gameplay, well, as I said before, the term ‘competent’ springs to mind. With so many shooters eager to jump you from one location to the next, it’s refreshing to blast your way through what feels like a genuinely cohesive game world with a startling sense of place. It may not be the most technically impressive shooter on the market, but in terms of artistry, there are few that can match it. Even when the core mechanics begin to feel a little tiresome and the story in danger of becoming a tad muddled, the skilfully realised and artistically sublime surroundings will always pull you through. With beatuiful, if somewhat heavy handed juxtaposition throughout, Dubai all but steals the show with its sand covered opulence standing in stark contrast to the signs of brutality and violence that now scar the environment. What starts as standard military chatter and friendly banter slowly disintegrates into wilder, more animalistic behaviour as rules and morals begin to blur in the hot Dubai sun. Pushing through the sand covered, danger ridden locales of a now largely deserted Dubai, Walker and his squad’s actions and verbal responses become more and more erratic. With a story and tone that call to mind the increasingly disturbing search for Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, Walker and his squad slowly unravel as they make their way deeper into Dubai and subsequently further from their own humanity. ![]() Set in a bizarrely beautiful Dubai that has been overrun by sandstorms, it’s down to Walker and his squad of two to track down Colonel John Konrad (sent in to head up the initial evacuation of Dubai). By taking liberally from Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, while throwing in an array of less than subtle movie references, The Line rarely feels artistically unique, but in a genre (and dare I say, a medium) in which worlds are often painted in broad stokes of black and white, The Line stands out as a brave attempt to push this stagnating genre forward. It’s hardly Oscar material, but in terms of videogame storytelling, The Line certainly stands as a step in the right direction for the genre. While Spec Ops: The Line does remain little more than a competent shooter from a purely technical standpoint (albeit one with some rather cool set-pieces), it does, however, slowly reveal itself to be a compelling, subversive and, at times, harrowing tale of mental anguish within the confines of a fantastical but always inhumane battlefield. ![]() Then there is the familiar Gears style third-person cover shooting yeah, it’s all very slick, but again, initial impressions suggest yet another hollow shooter awaits. With Nolan North offering his heroically likeable voice work to typically handsome lead, Captain Martin Walker, you get the sinking feeling that The Line’s tone and storytelling isn’t going to be nearly as interesting as Yaher and 2K Games had led us to believe. Initially, The Line, despite its intriguing setting, appears to be going down that same route. Military shooters have a tendency of being technically competent but ultimately vacuous affairs.
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