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My only problem with the WP scene is that the game really hammers that it was a bad thing. Hell, at the start of the scene you have the symbolic statue of three children playing with glints of fire still on it. Then there is the back and forth between Walker and the almost Madonna and Child which just goes on a little long. I know game is trying to make the image stick, but the fact that the camera switches focus so many times is just awkward. The whole walk to the ditch I expected a narrator to chime in to remind us that we are bad people (which is substituted by Walker's "you brought this on yourself"). Overall its a pretty good scene that goes along with themes throughout the game; it just goes on a little too long.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:38
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Shei-kun posted:So. They get led away while the interrogator tortures Gould a bit more (Gould breaks down and talks, only for the interrogator to kill him anyway because his information isn't specific enough). Walker and Adams go off on a little stealth sequence after the two remaining civilians (much easier than trying to save Gould if you're playing on FUBAR). You find the two 33rd executioners trying to figure out which one of them has to do the deed. You kill the two of them and the civilians look at you a minute before running away. Then you go back to the scene with kneeling over Gould's body except that Lugo's pissed off at you for not listening to him.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:59
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Chard posted:The shot after they walk away from Gould's body, when the camera kind of moves closer and looks down (just like a person holding a camera would) is perfect. I love the camera work in this game. It's an extremely cinematic game. This scene really hammers on the subject of choice, and begins a particular line of thinking: whose choice was it to use the white phosphorous mortars? Certainly not the player's (although quite a few players gleefully used it). Stepping further back, who put the civilians there? Not Walker, for sure. One thing that's interesting about this scene is that you as the player recognize that knowing the civilians were present would've absolutely changed Walker's decision to use the mortars. It was a lack of information (and Adams, drat you Adams) that led to this. But then, why would it be more OK to use it on just soldiers? Why is that an OK rationalization, where adding civilians makes it terrible? For me, it does make sense in a horrible, bloodrage sort of way to use the WP here, because having seen the 33rd using it on civilians gives the entire thing a vengeance feel. And then walking through the aftermath just makes you feel like a jackass. At least, it did me!
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Jun 24, 2015 02:03
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Can I just say how much I love Lugo's breakdown in that scene? The voice actor did a real good job. Lugo's the heart of the team, and the heart loving breaks. I also liked how it looks like hes almost pointing at the player while saying the "This is YOUR fault goddammit" line. It also feels like a bit of gently caress you to those sections in Call of Duty games where you control a drone or whatever and you rain fire down on the enemy, regardless of location, with zero civilian casualties. If I recall, the first CoD had this section occur in an occupied village.
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Jun 24, 2015 02:12
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Yeah, this game succeeds at being cinematic way better than its peers
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Jun 24, 2015 02:24
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It's fun comparing this squad leader with that of a certain other concurrent LP. On my first playthrough, I chose to save the civilians. Chose to, not successfully saved. I may have hosed up the sneaky bit a little too early with some control panic ("okay, I want to scoot to this cover and- OH NO THAT WAS VAULT"). IIRC it turned into the Save Gould result. And then, That Part. Personally I didn't have any problems identifying that was a group of civilians. Their location and behavior immediately looked wrong, clustered and milling around in a trench, not reacting like the soldiers. "Okay. THOSE are not soldiers. Alright, alright. Let's see. If I put the shot further over on the humvee..." FWOOSH "...oh! Iiiii think I found their fuel dump too." Interestingly, on a closer inspection of CJacobs' footage, the civilians appear to all be represented with unarmed soldier models from the mortar camera view. The backpacks and contour of their clothing all indicate soldiers. That's mean, but that's ALSO very interesting. I'll return to this point later. Went out of my way to shoot the dying guys on the walk through. Also note where the destination marker is when The Cutscene happens. If a player did not realize what the group actually was, that's a really fun surprise. The game has just made you stare into the consequences, and right when it looks like it's about to be over, it grabs you and shoves your face in, LOOK AGAIN! Watching The Cutscene, the geometry of it doesn't quite line up with the gameplay, but then again biosterous posted:Every chapter so far, Walker ends of physically lower than before. Symbolism, yo. Blind Sally posted:Yeah, the misunderstanding is a totally human response to a hosed up situation. I found it believable. M.Ciaster posted:In general, I'm not really getting the vibe of the game judging the player for playing it and having fun (with the gameplay, at least; it looks pretty solid) I was expecting after all I've heard about it - hell, it even lists the player in the opening credits as the "special guest". M.Ciaster posted:If anything, I feel like it's judging shooters themselves for pretty much only giving you violent ways of interacting with the world. I kept thinking "for gently caress's sake, guys, stop shooting back and start yelling it's a misunderstanding! Hell, surrender if you have to, you do believe it really is a misunderstanding after all; plus they'll probably bring you to Konrad if you do and Walker is estabilished to have History with the guy so it'll all be ok". But there's no "talk" button.
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Jun 24, 2015 03:31
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biosterous posted:Every chapter so far, Walker ends of physically lower than before. Symbolism, yo. This is something that I absolutely cannot get enough of. Note that we didn't ever actually come out of the ravine in the chapter after Walker fell down into it at the end of Episode 3. You kinda sorta go back up a couple flights of stairs once you reach the far end of the gorge, but the view you get at the start makes it pretty drat clear:  And if that wasn't enough, the chapter select screen solidifies it:  The gorge has a beginning and an end and is disconnected from the rest of the city completely, but somehow we managed to start at the top of it, fall down into it, and then continue above ground even though we never went upward a single time. After the team reaches the far end of the gorge they enter the museum, where they find the trap set for Gould. Then they get buried in rubble by the ensuing helicopter chase, and when they emerge from the wreckage they are no longer in the gorge (Walker even jumps down a flight of stairs in the cutscene where they're navigating the rubble!). You can even see on the chapter select screen that the gate (on the far left) and the top of the gorge are geographically on the same level. It's amazing. And intentional! CJacobs fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 04:07
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What's really great is that the characters all have somewhat reasonable reactions to what they did that falls on the whole stages of grief chart that ALSO depends on their personality (and man they have some good character writing). Adams, the "just doing my job" soldier is stuck firmly on Anger. Captain Walker is on Denial and never really gets past that because in the end he's the one responsible for all of it (they could have just done their job and returned to base once they found survivors). Lugo is the most important and well-rounded member of the squad because he's an empathic person, all things considered. Sarcastic and quippy? Sure, but he realizes when he has to shut it off and play the serious role. He also changes his role and behavior in the team depending on how the others are doing because he can read them like a book, by antagonizing Adams a little to get Adams' attention on him and off what's troubling him. It's hard to tell where Lugo is, but if I had to guess he's either at Depression or Acceptance. He knows the whole thing is hosed and that they've made terrible mistakes, and if anyone would apologize personally to the survivors, it'd be Lugo. He could be at either point. And that's amazing to me, because he's basically the archetypical Michael Bay dudebro guy but he's capable of such depth and empathy that Walkers and Adams really do need Lugo around to mediate and keep the two of them functional.
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Jun 24, 2015 08:18
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biosterous posted:Every chapter so far, Walker ends of physically lower than before. Symbolism, yo. pkfan2004 posted:Team members and their reactions anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 08:58
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Blind Sally posted:Yeah, the misunderstanding is a totally human response to a hosed up situation. I found it believable. Also, if you'll watch the scene again, the placement of the chair means that Jensen doesn't see the Delta crew until after he's shot the interrogator. So, for all he knows, they were there the whole time. If you manage to kill your jailer, escape, and immediately find three men there pointing guns at you, why in the hell wouldn't you assume they're working with him? Walker didn't actually do anything to help Jensen, other than saying "No!" when the agent pulls a gun on his unarmed prisoner, Jensen has absolutely zero reason to believe him.
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Jun 24, 2015 11:51
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You can also see some hypocrisy in Lugo's anger. He hates Walker because he "turned us into killers", but isn't that all they've been doing? The trio are responsible for easily over a hundred deaths by the time they reach the mortar. Obviously dumping white phosphorus on civilians is different from shooting the guys who have been shooting you, but Lugo has been a killer for a long time and has so many lives on his conscience that he's probably lost count. But I think he doesn't view what he's done before as really "killing", maybe to try and justify the world's longest self-defense situation. It wasn't "really" killing, you see? He just defended himself, and bad people happened to die. Right?
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Jun 24, 2015 17:13
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chitoryu12 posted:You can also see some hypocrisy in Lugo's anger. He hates Walker because he "turned us into killers", but isn't that all they've been doing? The trio are responsible for easily over a hundred deaths by the time they reach the mortar. Obviously dumping white phosphorus on civilians is different from shooting the guys who have been shooting you, but Lugo has been a killer for a long time and has so many lives on his conscience that he's probably lost count. But I think he doesn't view what he's done before as really "killing", maybe to try and justify the world's longest self-defense situation. It wasn't "really" killing, you see? He just defended himself, and bad people happened to die. Right?
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Jun 24, 2015 18:52
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Fish Noise posted:Are you saying a line has been crossed?
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Jun 24, 2015 18:59
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I seem to remember the loading screen messages breaking the fourth wall as well with things like "these are war crimes, but it's just a game, right?" and "you could stop playing at anytime, but you dont want to do you?".
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Jun 24, 2015 19:09
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This feels... Relevant.
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Jun 24, 2015 19:38
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Beach posted:I seem to remember the loading screen messages breaking the fourth wall as well with things like "these are war crimes, but it's just a game, right?" and "you could stop playing at anytime, but you dont want to do you?". I've got a list of all the loading screens ripped right from the game files and the latter is nowhere on it. The former is close to one though! Coincidentally it shows up if you die in the very next combat segment in the next episode: quote:The US military does not condone the killing of unarmed combatants. But this isn't real, so why should you care? In the case of this one though, I don't think it's saying "It's a video game so you shouldn't care about what happens in it", but more "Spec Ops: The Line is not real but this does happen in real life, so you SHOULD care, about when it happens in real life". CJacobs fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 19:57
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CJacobs posted:I've got a list of all the loading screens ripped right from the game files and the latter is nowhere on it. The former is close to one though! My bad! It has been a few years since I played, but I am really enjoying the LP. I actually first became aware of Spec Ops: the Line from a PAX east panel about story telling in gaming where they started the session by hammering home how unique this game is and how much it is worth checking out.
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Jun 24, 2015 20:05
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Now that the game has revealed itself, check out one of the songs used in the original trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0FAosDi4XA This game can only get more cheerful!!! I still can't believe they used this song of all things, but then it was 18 years old at the time the trailer was released so in fairness most of the audience probably wasn't familiar enough with it to see the giant glaring warning signs about how the game would go. (There's a YT playlist of all of the songs in the game's soundtrack, but we haven't seen all of them just yet). For those who've played other military shooters: I am not familiar with those tropes, and was in fact surprised when I learned that this game serves as a deconstruction, because I thought these sorts of themes would be present in all military shooters by virtue of being war shooters. As the game progresses, would you guys care to point out things that are different, or seem to be referencing/directly calling out other shooters? I know there's articles etc. going through that but I think it'd be interesting to hear from people who see them while it progresses.
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Jun 25, 2015 00:19
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Imagine being the art director giving the assignment to do that cutscene. Imagine being the artist who got that job.
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Jun 25, 2015 06:13
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J.theYellow posted:Imagine being the art director giving the assignment to do that cutscene. "gently caress yeah this is metal as hell!"
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Jun 25, 2015 08:39
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Alternatively: *knock at the texture artist's door* "Hey, Johnson, we're getting prepped to put in the textures for the white phosphorus scene. Have you been looking at the reference pics?" (no response) *knocks again* "Uh... hello? Johnson? Bob?" "Oh, there you are, Bob." *shouts down the hall* "Yeah, I found him, he's under the desk in the fetal position again!"
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Jun 25, 2015 08:45
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I think when I got to this point I thought I had hosed something up especially because, as others have pointed out, the civvies appear as soldiers when you're using the mortar. I remember thinking "ok, so I gotta get that Humvee since it doesn't look like those guys are rushing out, no biggi-oh gently caress they all blew up, what did I do wrong  " and so I walk out and see the destruction and thought to myself "I kinda feel like the radio operator in We Were Soldiers now, having just dropped napalm on my own people/non-combatants" on one hand. On the other hand I also felt "ok game, I see where this is going, and I've read Heart of Darkness AND seen Apocalypse Now, let's see how much further down the rabbit hole you're gonna take me".Incidentally I have to wonder which is worse, napalm or white phosphorous
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Jun 25, 2015 09:40
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Willie pete is way worse. Napalm is just jellied fuel, so it sticks to you when it burns. WP actively burns its way inside of you. Both are gruesome, WP is worse.
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Jun 25, 2015 11:15
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Yager is totally OK with not doing a sequel or even revisiting this topic because of the research they had to do for it. I can't say I blame them.
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Jun 25, 2015 11:24
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Aces High posted:Incidentally I have to wonder which is worse, napalm or white phosphorous White phosphorous. Obviously, both have direct and proximity effects, but where napalm is a coating, sticking gel, white phosphorous is a penetrating solid that continues to burn internally and has additional chemical effects on survivors. Napalm is also much more obviously fire. One look, "that's an incendiary weapon", questions start being asked. But phosphorous, phosphorous doesn't have that characteristic look of roaring fire, so we can continue to use it on all sorts of scales and accompany it with lovely sanitizing words. People have been catching on over the course of the last decade, thus Willy Pete's appearance in SOTL, but we haven't reached an adequate level of disgust yet, and I sense we won't anytime soon. Fish Noise fucked around with this message at 11:44 on Jun 25, 2015 |
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Jun 25, 2015 11:41
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If I remember right, the main 
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Jun 25, 2015 16:37
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White phosphorus remains in use despite being an awful incendiary/chemical weapon combo because the burning hot smoke provides an excellent screen for infrared sights (like common tank gunner sights). The heat makes it completely opaque to such sights, which is especially useful at night. As long as it gets excused as having non-killing reasons for usage, it's staying until enough people force a change.
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Jun 25, 2015 17:44
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"It's fine it tortures to death anyone caught in the affected zone because we aren't actually using it to kill people. Any damage is collateral, honest."
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Jun 25, 2015 17:49
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Fun fact, there's actually a loading screen tip that says what White Phosphorus is that they have some fun with. I didn't die enough times in Episode 4/5 to put these both in but if you die during the first white phosphorus attack (the one with the heavy) you get this:quote:White phosphorus is a common allotrope used in many types of munitions. It can set fire to cloth, fuel, ammunition, and flesh. If you die again in the fight that happens just after the end of the current video, it changes to this: quote:White phosphorus is a common allotrope used in your slaughter at The Gate. It can set fire to soldiers and the innocent civilians they are trying to help.
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Jun 25, 2015 17:57
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Count me as one of the people the scene just worked for. It never crossed my mind that anyone I was shelling was anything other than a combatant, and the twist caught me completely by surprise. Up until that point I was quite enjoying the game, but after that I really started paying attention. Absolute genius as far as I'm concerned.
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Jun 26, 2015 05:01
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CJacobs posted:If you die again in the fight that happens just after the end of the current video, it changes to this: Wow. The game is really fully of hidden things like that. I have a lot of respect for Yager. I forget what they're actually doing these days but if it has half the artistry that went into Spec Ops: The Line... EDIT: They're doing Dead Island 2. That could be...interesting. Speedball fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Jun 26, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 05:40
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I thought the WP scene worked in some ways, and fell short in others. As was previously pointed out, you'd already killed a whole lot of people to get to that point, so the game trying to make you feel bad about burning a soldier to death was a little incongruous with the trail of people you either face-stomped to death, executing them hors de combat, or left to bleed out in a sandstorm. I felt the game was at its best when it let the carnage speak for itself, like the woman who runs toward you in the Nest's Suq. If you accidentally gun her down, the game never comments on it, but you know you did something wrong. I understand that the game really wanted to have a big twist moment that hammered home how far things had gone, and I appreciate that they made it the result of a horrific miscalculation rather than a deliberate act, but it felt like a break from the slow ramping up of violence and rationalization and normalization of deviation that had lead to that point. That said the execution of forcing you to walk through the area you just shelled was fantastic.TomViolence posted:It contrasts really well with stuff like the AC-130 mission or controlling a predator drone in the modern warfare games, though, as it presents such weapons as the indiscriminate, unanswerable and brutal terror weapons they truly are. Wa11y posted:I'd only ever seen the previous LP, and this one, never played it myself. But us fighting the Damned 33rd really seems a lot like the forced drama in romantic movies where someone misunderstands something, and the other party never even tries to explain why they did what they did, and then they separate (only to get back together in the final act). It's like, 3 Delta Operators show up, find one of the Damned 33rd, rescue him, and he's all "gently caress you guys, we're gonna kill you!" There's no asking why, there's no communication, just everyone assuming everyone else is out to kill them, and trying to kill everyone else, including the player characters just saying, "gently caress it, let's kill 'em then!" It just really seems forced. TomViolence posted:If I remember right, the main Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Jun 26, 2015 |
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Jun 26, 2015 10:10
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Dead Reckoning posted:I understand that the game really wanted to have a big twist moment that hammered home how far things had gone, and I appreciate that they made it the result of a horrific miscalculation rather than a deliberate act, but it felt like a break from the slow ramping up of violence and rationalization and normalization of deviation that had lead to that point. That said the execution of forcing you to walk through the area you just shelled was fantastic. To be fair; for reasons that I obviously cannot go into the story doesn't work without this moment or something like it.
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Jun 26, 2015 14:50
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Dead Reckoning posted:Using incendiary munitions against civilians is prohibited, but so is using any other kind of munition. Using incendiaries dropped from aircraft against military objectives is illegal when they are located in concentrations of civilians, and other incendiaries are restricted when the fire is likely to spread to civilian areas, but otherwise enemy combatants are fair game. (Source: Protocol III to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects) So is this referred to as the Dresden Protocol or anything?
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Jun 26, 2015 16:21
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Aces High posted:So is this referred to as the Dresden Protocol or anything? No, that's actually a surgical protocol for treatment of corneal thinning. (If anything, it would have been the Tokyo protocol.)
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Jun 26, 2015 17:53
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Speedball posted:Wow. The game is really fully of hidden things like that. Yager seems to be filled to the brim with employees who are passionate about their work and love life. Listening to intervews with them about any of their projects is always great, and their FB page is absolutely adorable with how cheerful it is.
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Jun 26, 2015 18:34
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So it's an atrocity but it's fine to use it as long as it doesn't hit too many unintended targets?
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Jun 26, 2015 18:38
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Neruz posted:To be fair; for reasons that I obviously cannot go into the story doesn't work without this moment or something like it. 
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Jun 26, 2015 19:05
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anilEhilated posted:So it's an atrocity but it's fine to use it as long as it doesn't hit too many unintended targets? Well, yeah, that's how the proportionality test works for every other weapon as well. It's not as though typical high explosive bombs are filled with an odorless gas that gently puts the enemy to sleep (which would be a violation of the Chemical Warfare Convention.)
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Jun 26, 2015 19:27
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anilEhilated posted:So it's an atrocity but it's fine to use it as long as it doesn't hit too many unintended targets?  once you notice the difference between the very generalized way people often thinks it works ("isn't this banned?"/"isn't this a chemical weapon?") and the carefully-worded-fine-print reality ("oh no everybody uses this stuff all the time"/"oh the only reason we don't use this anymore is because we have something better"/"oh no the kill mechanism isn't chemical, you're not supposed to live long enough to experience the poisoning effects"). I believe thermobarics are very fashionable now. He has conveyed drooling in anticipation through text.
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Jun 26, 2015 19:52
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