136 - Spec Ops: The Line

Developer diaries about creating Neverending Nightmares.
Grabthehoopka
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Re: 136 - Spec Ops: The Line

Post by Grabthehoopka »

From a technical standpoint, I was probably the most blown away by the part where you have a firefight with Hush by Deep Purple playing on the intercom system, and they got it to unobtrusively play on a loop. Someone give that sound editor an award!

Anyways, apparently there are also hallucinatory mind-fuck things they do that are so incredibly subtle that I doubt if anyone noticed on their first playthrough. Throughout the game, there are billboards and banners that very clearly have Colonel Konrad's face on them, including one rather deliciously symbolic moment in a cutscene where all three characters are running across a scaffolding and they're silhouetted against the giant eyes of Konrad on a billboard behind them. The part where you get to the freeway and there's dead soldiers strung up and hanging from all the street lights, you can actually see the street lights from a good distance away from the freeway, and you can clearly see no bodies hanging from them, so they just magically appear when you reach the freeway. There's a tree at one point, that is covered with leaves and when you run past it, the leaves fall off and the tree rapidly withers and dies. You can only see this if you're looking behind you when you run away at that point. The mural that Konrad is painting in his penthouse depicts the mother and daughter you...encountered...earlier. And apparently if you look reeeeally closely at the walkie talkie you get that Konrad talks to you through, you can see a couple of wires sticking out of the back of it when he picks it up in the first cutscene. And that's not even mentioning watching all the cutscenes once you know the plot twist, and all the sudden your two squadmates giving each other worried looks and being reluctant to take orders from you takes on a whole new meaning.

And, something else they did that I appreciated was they changed the dialogue for giving squadmates orders, and the squadmates' response to your orders, as well as the melee kill animations as the game goes on. It starts out very professional, clean-cut, and military, and slowly gets more and more unhinged and barbaric as the story gets worse and worse.

Then there's this fuckin thing.
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matt
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Re: 136 - Spec Ops: The Line

Post by matt »

That's really cool! I didn't notice most of the things you pointed out. I think they really made an interesting game that is a great counterpoint to most games that glorify war and fighting. Even if you look at a game like Uncharted, the hero is indiscriminately killing other human beings, which seems a bit strange if you think about it that way.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
Grabthehoopka
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Re: 136 - Spec Ops: The Line

Post by Grabthehoopka »

It's been pointed out before, but I think if there's one thing to be taken away from the game, it's that they designed it so that you, the player, are the one who pulls the trigger in all of the most horrible parts of the game. I'll try not to spoil too much, but it's your decision whether or not to shoot the US soldier who kills the CIA guy, it's your decision to save the hostages or the CIA guy getting tortured, it's your decision to use the last bullet on that one guy, and there's no on-screen prompt or nudging from the developers during the mortar strike or when your squadmate is getting strung up; both times, the players understands exactly what they have to do. And, of course, there's the ending, which I think caps off all the horrible things that have happened by giving the player the choice they have to make, and I had to think really hard and seriously about it when the time came, despite knowing how little of a difference either choice would make.

Anyways. Oh, how I would like to talk about it more in-depth and spoil the bejeesus out of it, but no.
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matt
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Re: 136 - Spec Ops: The Line

Post by matt »

Well, I think there is a statute of limitations on spoiling, so we might be okay talking about it. Plus we have the spoiler tag now. :)

While I think they did a pretty good job making you pull the trigger, they didn't give you any options, so there wasn't really a "choice". This was kind of frustrating to me because I tried to do things a different way, and found that I hit limitations as to what I could do based on the fact that it was game, and that ruins immersion in my mind. I tried to walk down instead of using the phosphorous, but they didn't program in that option (probably on purpose).

They said you could save the guy or the hostages, and reloaded the checkpoint because I wanted to save the hostages, but I really couldn't figure out how. Either there is some trick I couldn't figure out, or they didn't give you an option. :(
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
Grabthehoopka
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Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 12:16 pm

Re: 136 - Spec Ops: The Line

Post by Grabthehoopka »

Yeah, they did kind of fudge it like that. But the important thing is that they knew even if they railroaded the player like that, it would still be more effective than if it were to happen in a cutscene or a QTE or something like that.

The only part I know of where you can say "F you" to the choices they present is the part where Konrad asks you to execute one of the prisoners. I didn't think to try this, but apparently you can shoot their ropes and set them both free and Konrad's men won't kill you.
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matt
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Re: 136 - Spec Ops: The Line

Post by matt »

That's when they were hanging from the bridge, and Conrad was talking about justice, right? I shot at the snipers instead of the hostages. I'm not sure if someone else killed the hostage, but at least I didn't have to pull the trigger on them. Maybe I avoided that atrocity, but considering I was just imagining them, it was more of an empty gesture. haha
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
Hansson
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Re: 136 - Spec Ops: The Line

Post by Hansson »

I also disliked the Gears of War shooting mechanics, even though I tried to spice it up by rarely reloading myself, because, I'd imagine, when shit hits the fan, real soldiers shoot their clips empty and don't try to get tactical advantage by reloading whenever they can. It's an unfortunate trend, but guess we just have to bite the bullet, so to say. However, I like how the story unfolded and the moral choices you had to face. My personal favorite was when the mob was behaving aggressively, and you could either shoot them or let them have their justice, even though the choice seemed too obvious to me, since any of the characters didn't get much sympathy from me at any point. Partly because they just seemed like GoW dudes without heavy body armor. It's funny how you concider mindless NPCs more approacheable than the characters you actually control. Wonder what would I think if it was the first game with GoW mechanics that I played...
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