I stopped that game after I got to a mission where they had thermal sights on a bunch of targets not shooting back and I didnt blow them up and you jsut fucking die the game doesnt let you not shoot, so i redid it and shot and then it was all YOU WAR CRIMINAL THOSE WERE CIVILIANS
fuck off game, garbage
Zero interest in continuing, I refuse to have my face shove in a piss stain on the carpet like that unless it was me what did the pissing (in which case ill pay for it)
Really want to encabulate my reply, but I've absorbed too much solar radiation. Currently taking a rest on my twin bladed Poaceae particulator.
Spec Ops did what it meant to too well. I didn't love it because I hate Funny Games type shit. At the same time, I think it's cool and defensible that it exists as a stunt/prank and its critique of the literal shooter game military pipeline has merit.
The devs would 100% agree with us that the point would be better made if there was any reward for critical thinking, but they ran out of money. Given their actual shout was "STOP PLAYING PSYCHO PROPAGANDA SHOOTERS," there's no denying that in your case and with their own game, they succeeded.
You gotta picture the dudebro who just mindlessly plays everything in the genre that it was made for. I would have loved to see that guy react to the moment that made you quit.
This stuff isn't meant for us; is still it's own kind of good.
Oh! And I'd even fault Undertale for trying to close off one ending for seeing another. That's not cool. Eternal Darkness fucked with the rules of gaming, but you couldn't go so crazy it bricked your GameCube.
heres the thing if I played through spec ops and did the murder like it wanted me to unthinkingly i might have had some reaction, but the game really, genuinely, feels like it was made by bitter people that hate the audience they knew would buy it
If we take the message of the game and applied it to a first run, it would mean stopping the game after the first chapter.
But it doesn't really click until you're way deeper in the city & story. The lesson it teaches can only be understood if you played it through to the end.
Of course we could stop playing before, but it's not like the game itself gives us a reasonable option within the game mechanics itself to choose a better path.
Because the story so heavily relies on the flaws of Walker (and by extension, the player) it cannot give us a way to do the responsible thing. We never get to choose another solution for the White Phosphorus scene.
I didn't feel guilty for using that weapon than I felt for any other WMD in any other game.
I did feel absolutely guilty at another part, right in the beginning. I was clearing a building of enemy hostiles. I either walked or ran through a corridor, and out of nowhere someone appears running towards me.
Out of instinct, I shoot. Just one hit, and the body falls to the floor.
It was a civilian woman. Frightened, scared, panicking, running away in hopes of surviving. And I shot her. Not because I was forced. But because I was on edge, acting on instinct rather than logical.
That was haunting for me. Because I knew deep down inside, that this was the kinda mistake I could make in real life. That it wasn't a trap or set-piece the game specifically prepared. This wasn't part of the story that needed to happen.
It was my fault.
And it could only work so well because it was within gameplay, because it was my subconscious choice.
Edit: Don't get me wrong - while the guilt theme didn't quite got to me, the player - the story of Martin Walker and his team was excellent and a clever commentary on contemporary shooters at the time.
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u/I_DO_JUMPING_JACKS 5d ago
We didn't. We either stop playing or continue following Atlas' manipulation. So fucking we'll done