Yager's Spec Ops: The Line

[JonCole]

Well, in this case of this game I doesn't really seem like a programming nightmare at all - in terms of the actual gameplay, this was no more complex than any generic 3rd person Gears of War-type shooter. It seems like a more deftly written story would be much easier to produce, "resource" wise, than the choose your own adventure type of narrative. Of course, the former requires much more creativity and has a much greater risk, but the fact that Spec Ops created a more narratively interesting story than for instance Mass Effect 3 for me makes it seem like a worthwhile risk if "story" is what gamers are actually interested in.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Planescape: Torment, The Walking Dead, Fallout: New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, The Stanley Parable, etc. are all choose your own adventure games, but there are of course other ways of doing narrative, like in Thirty Flights of Loving, Gravity Bone, Dear Esther, etc.

[Tanukitsune]

I can't help to notice that the interesting and/or complex narrative-wise games you mentioned are also very VERY short, I could say this is a point towards my resource idea if they weren't indie and had few resources to begin with.

But it did make me thing something else, shorter games could be better for games that experiment in the narrative, because a longer narrative is harder to focus on? In a great long narrative experience you remember the high points, but in the shorter narratives you might remember everything.

Spec Ops is relatively short, so I can remember the narrative better, if the game was any longer I might have forgotten a lot more about the game, which would probably diminished my experience with it. Heck, I practically forgot my original mission since Walker had convinced me that his idea for the mission was the real one.

[JonCole]

I generally think short in games is good, but that may be due to the fact that I'm still not used to paying full price for games. $60 for a 4-6 hr campaign is a hard sell for most people, as far as I can tell, unless it's a familiar franchise or has a multiplayer aspect. The thing I alluded to in my earlier post is that I'm still not completely sold on the idea that gamers are interested in a story like this, considering Spec Ops didn't sell well and all those indie games that Tycho mentioned didn't really blow up either.

[darthbator]

Spec Ops didn't do well because it's a video game and it's game mechanics are largely junk. It's a really ho hum third person shooter with a sort of ambitious for the medium narrative strapped on. As a game it's chief concern is having exciting gameplay and engaging mechanics. It doesn't really have either of those things. It really only merits discussion because they tried to do something different with the story. As I said earlier I don't even think they succeeded, however with where we are in gaming currently even a failed attempt at something different is able to trump most everything else out there.

[TychoCelchuuu]

"Very short" is uh, relative. Thirty Flights of Loving is the only legitimately short one in there. Most games are longer than the shortest movies, including even the ones that narratively experiment in various ways. And of course Planescape: Torment, New Vegas, and Alpha Protocol are all MUCH longer than any movie. Alpha Protocol is short for a game because you are meant to replay it a few times, but even that lasts a few hours. Spec Ops took me like 5 hours or 8 hours or something. That's Sátántangó length!

[darthbator]

I think there's a pretty good interesting 1.5-2 hour game in spec ops. There is some really cool stuff in that campaign that is totally ram rodded by how tedious shooting a bajillion waves of dudes feels. I guess they can't really justify a full retail cost game for a tight 1.5-3 hour experience and that kinda kills that idea. I still would have liked to see a very lean short version of this game released for something like 29.99-39.99 I think that would really have been a winner.

I think length is a sort of contentious issues. Most games overstay their welcome, there's simply more content in there then there are engaging mechanics to exploit... I feel it's VERY rare that video games actually hit what I would consider an "ideal" length. For some reason in this industry historically we have worried more about "how many game hours can I extract from this" rather then "how can I make the highest quality experience possible". Really with games most people, I feel, want to pay for quantity over quality. In this way it's a very strange market

[osmosisch]

Even the games with the "best story" this year really don't do anything more than offer you decisions that amount to a choose-your-own-adventure book.

You use that as a pejorative (from context) but all you're saying is that there is a branching narrative. That's not necessarily a bad thing at all and entirely depends on the quality of the narrative itself and the position and quality of the choices.

Put differently: If you want the player to affect the 'story' in any way, the player is making decisions by definition, and thus the narrative will be branching. The form of those decisions is secondary (ie. they can be dialogue choices, Dishonored's chaos meter based on number of kills, implicit decisions whether or not to kill an NPC, or to go 7-pool in Starcraft).

Historically in games there's always been bad and good choices with clearly predictable consequences. Off the top of my head only SpecOps and the Witcher games really mess with this and I welcome it.

[JonCole]

Don't get me wrong - Mass Effect 3 was my game of the year, so I have plenty of respect for and fun with games with branching narrative. I'm just saying that for instance having a binary choice isn't necessarily more interesting than seeing your character make the right or wrong choices without much of your input. I think there's been a lot of stones thrown at games with a linear storyline in recent years (easily paired with takedowns of JRPGs, really), but Spec Ops essentially packs a linear storyline with a few ultimately minor choices along the way and is more interesting as a result. This whole conversation couldn't have happened if the

white phosporus moment or your squadmate being killed by the mob

didn't happen, and neither of those allowed for your intervention.

[osmosisch]

We definitely agree on the point that linear definitely does not equal bad.

As far as SpecOps' linearity goes, I keep coming back to the point that as far as the writer is concerned putting the game down and walking away (narratively potentially equivalent with Walker giving up and going home/calling in the cavalry) is a valid 'ending' to the game. That's not an ultimately minor choice, I think.

That tangentially leads me to ask the question whether there's a difference between putting down a book and quitting a game.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Putting down a choose your own adventure book is a valid choice, I would say. That ends the adventure at whatever point your character is, and if the game were a book, Walker would leave Dubai and radio in for backup. Putting down a normal book is sort of weird because there's no conceit that you have any influence on the narrative, so it's not clear why ceasing to read would be any more effective than anything else you do. It's not like there's a character in the novel that reacts to what you do and that stops what they're doing when you stop reading. You have no input into a novel the way you have input into a video game.

[Tanukitsune]

I don't get the "just put it down and quit" point, mostly because you are apparently adding a narrative to your "fading to blackout by quitting" ending by saying they did something by quitting the game. It feels weird to assume they can even make it home or call for help, it's almost like saying that by not finishing a sad story, you avoid the sad parts and it never happened. It's like the sketch in Friends where Joey puts books in the freezer?

[TychoCelchuuu]

Why is that weird? For most of the story they can basically just walk out of Dubai. That's what their orders are, even. It's not at all like that sketch in Friends for the reasons I mentioned in the post above yours.

[youmeyou]

That's like saying every time you turn the game off, your characters walk out of the Dubai. (and then walks back in when you start it again) That narrative doesn't happen in the game, so it's purely invention that it happens outside of the game.

Now if it was something like Fable 2 where you made money based on real life time whether or not you were playing the game, or Metal Gear Solid where interacting with the hardware had effects on the game (psycho mantis controller swapping); where the game's designers actually implemented some way for your turning off the game to be a recognizable mechanic, there could be an argument for turning off the game being an option in Spec Op's choose-your-own-adventure narrative.

[Tanukitsune]

Yeah, doesn't one of the Metal Gear game actually tell you to turn off your system? If you turned it off, you were tricked, but narratively it's logical, you could claim you game ended there, it wasn't the real ending, but a bad ending is more valid in the narrative than saying the game ends because you say so.

[TychoCelchuuu]

That's like saying every time you turn the game off, your characters walk out of the Dubai. (and then walks back in when you start it again) That narrative doesn't happen in the game, so it's purely invention that it happens outside of the game.

Now if it was something like Fable 2 where you made money based on real life time whether or not you were playing the game, or Metal Gear Solid where interacting with the hardware had effects on the game (psycho mantis controller swapping); where the game's designers actually implemented some way for your turning off the game to be a recognizable mechanic, there could be an argument for turning off the game being an option in Spec Op's choose-your-own-adventure narrative.

Putting the game down with the intention of coming back to it later and continuing the narrative is distinct from putting the game down with the intention of ending the narrative because you no longer wish to be the driving force behind Walker's actions. Arguing that putting the game down for any reason has the exact same meaning no matter what your intentions are strikes me as odd. That's like saying someone who leaves a movie theater to use the restroom is doing the same thing as someone who leaves a movie theater because they hate the film. They're obviously not doing the same thing! They have different reasons! They're reacting in very different ways to the narrative. When it comes to Spec Ops, your reaction is far more important because it's a game and you have agency in the narrative. Your choices influence it. Movies don't end when you stop watching for any reason, but certain games (like Spec Ops) can end when you stop playing for certain reasons.

If you think the game's narrative doesn't support "walking away" then that's fine, but I think it totally does, from the very first 5 minutes of the game when Walker says your mission is to recon the area and then leave. The Errant Signal guy made a similar point in the video on page 2 I think.

[youmeyou]

I think I see what you're getting at. Ultimately, however, I think it's a difference between personal interpretation of a narrative and the explicit narrative the writers put in there.

You can play Bioshock and quit the game before entering the bathosphere and invent a narrative that your character waited for rescue on the surface. I doubt that's what the writers wanted though, and I similarly doubt that's what the writer from Spec Ops wants either. If you quit the game before experiencing all of the story you're making an interesting statement and it's interesting for the sake of discussion but you're not actually experiencing the content of the game. While a movie in a theater goes on regardless of whether or not you are present a game still has written material that is experienced by playing. It doesn't stop existing simply because you don't engage with it. So in that way, it is very much like a book. A choose-your-own adventure is supposed to end when you reach the end of a story chain. Not when you put the book down. It can end but that's not the intention of the writer.

So it's a question of personal intent versus intent of the writer. Which is in an interesting discussion to have. But what you're saying is the game is designed to have quitting be an option. And I just don't see that being the case.

[TychoCelchuuu]

So it definitely doesn't matter what the writer wanted or didn't want, but if I can't convince you of that (and I won't try because holy SHIT is that a harder conversation than my theories of literary interpretation are up to supporting), here is a podcast where the writer of the game explicitly says that walking away from the game is something he intended as an option for many players.

[youmeyou]

Yeah I don't mean to say that you can't have an interpretation outside of the writer's intent. That's perfectly valid. Also, you're right: the writer totally supports walking away. Which is pretty interesting. I kind of wish they had gone further with that strain of conversation, as one of the podcast guys admitted he never played past the radio tower section, and I'm just curious as to what this ultimately means in regards to the message Williams is trying to convey.

Because if the game is a "slow boil" as he says in the next breath, but you quit halfway through that boil, because you find the actions of your character objectionable then you are technically in line with the game's message but you aren't experiencing the full thrust of said message. Just the very part first tap from that rope-a-dope. I guess that's valid, but it's weird to me that a piece of art can be successful by driving away its audience. But I'm sure there are countless examples in the art world and maybe it's just something I have to wrap my head around.

[osmosisch]

But in that case there is no need to experience the full thrust because you already have internalised that message.

[racingfreak92]

I have just finished this game, and have yet to read the writer interviews or other material on this game or this thread, but this is my GOTY 2012.

I think this game has a truly good story, and not just a good story for a video game. While the (small) choices you get to make enable this good storytelling, the real key is the lack of judgement directly imparted by the story. You do things, and its left up to you to decide if it is good or bad. I found the ending truly surprising, and while in a way it was mostly obscured (meaning, how could you ever guess that you were insane?) there were literal hints occasionally, especially after Chapter 8, and from what a friend told me there are other moments where pictures or other things transform while playing that defy reality. More interesting to me, is that I dont necessarily think the game should have been any more explicit in showing you signs of your characters mental state, given the nature of madness.

The end of Chapter 8 (with the phosphorous mortar) may make some people angry because you were unable to choose, but regardless it was extremely effective for me. The goal was make you think about what you had done, to feel. Now, I didnt start crying at my keyboard or anything like that, but for the first time ever in a video game, I wanted to stop killing people. The section immediately after where enemy reinforcements arrives was a trudge for me. Each guy I had to shoot was depressing, given what had just happened I wanted to put the gun down. Its interesting that the writer wanted people to walk away, because at that point I almost did, but I also wanted to see more of the story.

[miffy495]

I'm still kind of sore about that scene. I saw

that pen of people and thought to myself "those are POWs. I'm going to leave that part of the camp alone and just take out the soldiers.

Well guess what? The game didn't let me do that. I saw through it's gimmick, and if I'd gone with my gut I would have killed only those who deserved it. I still would have used the mortar, just like the game wants, but strategic missing (on my first attempt, without access to any spoilers or anything, just a gut check) would have had me get through with no issue. Too bad, not an option. That was stupid to me. I saw the twist telegraphed to me, tried to avoid it, and was still expected to act all surprised and horrified. Really, it was just a cheap trick that I saw coming. In that Gamespot interview with the designer, he talks about how you can try to shoot your way through, but it's impossible and sooner or later you're going to need to use the mortar. Well fine, I did. And right away too. I also held my fire when appropriate, but that just doesn't count. Dumb.

I still thought that it was kind of cool what the game was trying to do overall, but that scene with its supposed poignancy just bothers me. It's not moving, or shocking. It's just cheap.

[racingfreak92]

But the story didnt want to go that direction. Sure you spotted that they could have been civilians. Maybe the game could have masked that better. But the point is that the story was not written that way. Would you have the same objection with a fiction book's narrative? Asking why they didnt have it go another direction?

[twmac]

Glad people are still debating about this game's story, I like that this happening now long after the Mass Effect 3 discussion seems to have been retired. I wrote a piece a long time ago that I just revisited. The funny thing is that the point I was arguing, I think I am now almost completely rebuffed:

So, what I am trying to get at is that I don’t want to see a Citizen Kane of games. The atmosphere and environment of that film is not right for this kind of medium. What would be right for it, and is also something that every attempt at has failed, is a Die Hard game.

Witcher 2, Spec Ops, even Far Cry 3 (as shitty as it was) have taken steps in the right direction in terms of narrative for big budget titles. With stuff like Cart Life tackling some pretty heavy duty stuff I am kind of glad to be wrong.

Although, I still want the Die Hard of games.

[miffy495]

But the story didnt want to go that direction. Sure you spotted that they could have been civilians. Maybe the game could have masked that better. But the point is that the story was not written that way. Would you have the same objection with a fiction book's narrative? Asking why they didnt have it go another direction?

I think the story could still have gone that way if you were only killing soldiers. Doing that to any human being is still pretty traumatic, and that I did it without hesitation because video games is worth commenting on. Adding the civilian pen (I guess we're just rolling without spoiler tags now?) feels excessive. I could have given it a miss and at had the game acknowledge my restraint but still be feeling incredibly shit about the horrible way I killed all those soldiers. The lingering shot on the mom corpse holding the little girl corpse isn't hard-hitting, it's manipulative and lazy. I did a horrible thing either way, and I actually think that having Walker be so impacted by doing something like that even if the civilians got out may have been even more interesting a statement.