It’s still perfect
As far as cover shooters go, it was not perfect, it was awful. You pop up, you shoot a guy while the rest of the enemies shoot you, you go back to cover to regenerate health. Repeat. And occasionally you move because of a grenade. Each combat area is very simple and only filled with half-covers. If you got killed, it was usually because of ones own impatience. They could have easily improved gameplay by adding some full-height cover. And some corner firing. That way you could actually avoid getting shot back at. Give the player some tactical choices. Maybe a few flanking routes.
And about the story… Its very predictable. Once you realise the game pretends to give you options then takes those options away, it is obvious you are being setup as the bad guy in a Apocalypse Now kinda style. And the only reason I kept playing was that Extra Credits strongly recommended it. I was kinda hoping there would be some twist at the end. But no such thing. The boss is “defeated” and you are presented with the games first and only story choice that actually matter.
Dubai covered in sand was beautiful.
But thats just my opinion. Im glad other people enjoyed the game.
I agree with almost everything except that I think the game’s most clever piece is that the choices don’t matter. At the time that The Line came out choices in games had taken the industry by storm, games like Heavy Rain and Mass Effect 2 were on people’s minds.
The game pretends to give you choices, but the reality is that engaging and going deeper down the path the game and story lay out for you are a recipe for evil, no matter what you think you should be able to control within the game.
The true choice is whether you play the game or not. Do you continue to go through with the whole thing, commit those crimes and destroy that world, and then blame the game for not letting you stop, when the pause menu and a quit to desktop was seconds away at all times?
It’s not a very mechanically unique game, there’s no mechanical enjoyment pretense to justify seeing it all through, you do it through your vicarious, detached interest. Essentially whether the horrible events that occur unfold or not entirely depend on whether you allow the game to fabricate the scenarios by your implicit enabling.
I think whether that was intentional or not just heightens the intrigue of the entire thing. All that being said, it’s a shit game, but its execution and moral message dovetail, intentionally or accidentally, in an extremely unique way that’ll never happen again. That fragile balance of unknown intent and message will be upset if ever they were to remaster it.
I agree. Also the message of the game was way too heavy handed and frankly wrong. There’s been decades of studies concluding that playing violent video games does not make the player violent or agressive.
I dont think that’s not the message of the game. You can criticize portrayal of war in video games and other media regardless of their real world effects
No the point of the game was pretty obviously that you, the player, are a bad person for wanting to enjoy media that portrays something as horrible as war. It’s made pretty clear toward the end with the loading screen “tips.”
The game was marketed as just another military shooter in a time when the market was saturated with those and then did a bait and switch trying to shame the player for wanting to play just that. The whole point falls flat if you consider that as stated there are no real world effects of playing or enjoying violent media. It’s pure moral posturing and self righteous wank.
