Devastating sandstorms and other natural calamities are set to hit Dubai on June 26th. Where will you be? Hopefully you will be on the ground as US Army Captain Walker in 2K Games upcoming shooter, Spec Ops: The Line.
“Taking a stroll around the streets of Dubai and all of a sudden... Sand happens.”
Set in modern day Dubai after a series of devastating natural calamities, Spec Ops: The Line takes advantage of Dubai’s unique architecture and provides players with spaces that can either turn the tide in your favor during a firefight or put you and your squad in ultimate peril. The sand dune that you are standing on can easily collapse to reveal a 30-storey building entombed underneath or it can provide the cover needed to keep you alive and ready for the next mission. It’s just one of those days when you should have just stayed in bed. Instead, you go out for a leisurely early morning stroll in the streets of Dubai and Boom! Sand happens. It’s bad enough that you have to be vigilant of human foes, you also need to keep an eye trained on that spec of sand that just might decide it doesn’t like you.
“Should we go in? I think this building wants to kill us. It keeps making faces at me.”
The game goes beyond your simple shooter. It invites you to think about what wartime scenarios are really like for you as the combat operator in this situation and for the people trapped within the confines of this scenario. It presents you with moral choices - do you save the soldier who stole water, which in such a harsh environment, is a capital offense or do you save the soldier who apprehended the thief but ended up killing the thief’s family in the process? Do you do something utterly hideous that provokes one of the characters to say “What happens in Dubai, stays in Dubai?” Yup, you should have just stayed in bed.
“Dear mom, having a great time in Dubai, hanging out, shooting the breeze and anything else that may be moving around in it... Please send reinforcements STAT. Love, Your son, Captain Walker”
For those of you that are okay with making moral decisions because you are not the dark soldier that we need but are the dark soldier that we deserve, this game has got something for you. When you’ve cleared an area, just like in any real combat situation, not all of the enemies will be dead. Some will lie where they were shot, writhing in pain as they either bleed out or go into shock.
You now have the option to let them be or perform one of several different executions to put these poor fellows out of their misery. See for yourselves in this newly released behind the line video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRWQ2X5giV0&feature=youtu.be
In case you were wondering, there is a method to all of this madness. Captain Walker isn’t just some bored badass that decides to casually just walk into Dubai and make a mess out of what is already a mess in itself. He is sent to extract a high ranking US Military asset. He just finds himself a little challenged along the way by the people trapped within the city of Dubai and by an environment that is as unforgiving as the imaginary online ex-girlfriend that you cheated on just to be able to see a few seconds of two girls, one cup.
"Who needs two girls, one cup when you can have a zip line?!?! Whoopeedooo!!!!"
This realistic shooter should have a little bit of something for everyone. Story, gameplay, multiplayer modes, Nolan North as the voice talent behind Captain Walker, and a variety of in-game moral choices seem like a great formula for an amazing game. We’ll find out if this formula works when the sandstorms hit North America on June 26 and the rest of the world on June 29.
