A story inspired by the mythical novel The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which in turn was inspired by the film director Francis Ford Coppola for his titanic war film Apocalypse Now. Those who have read the book or seen the film will already know where the shots, which in itself can be considered a spoiler, but Walt Williams, screenwriter, explained that this is only a starting point, and that the game takes its own course and will bring a few surprises. The narrative as in all 2K games have a very important, we will see how Walker's relationship with his two companions are gradually deteriorating, endangering the mission, experiencing the madness in a world shattered because of the failures of great men. Walking the fine line between your mission of duty, having to make tough moral decisions. Under this interesting premise, the first thing that attracts attention is its powerful and successful setting. The recreation of the luxurious city of Dubai devastated, depressed and taken over by the sand is sensational, overly warm colors to dazzling, you move quickly to the unpleasant environment in which the protagonists are struggling with the sand almost as much as with the enemies. Then there are other many times indoor, once luxury hotels and eccentric billionaire-turned-real ruins of cement, steel and glass. Also noteworthy is the violence that inhabits it all, both explicit and psychological, the latter almost worse, with an insane environment that will be spreading the protagonists slowly.
The adventure begins with a spectacular shooting from the air between skyscrapers, which we have to bring down with machine guns to helicopters that haunt us, even shooting through the windows of the huge buildings. We just outside the city, in the middle of the desert, and here begins the adventure. On the gameplay is not much to say, anyone who has played an action title in the third person in recent years master the controls instantly. The cover system, aiming, control character, everything works great, and we have fun getting that from the start. The way in which we end up with the enemy soldiers is important, either shot in the head, pulling some of the furniture on them or running them when they are injured on the ground, some actions by some pretty beast. There are like bars of progress or success depending on the type of death, and in the case of executions give us extra ammunition. There is some interaction with the stage, with elements that are destructible, and you start the game show an example. Above a group of enemies is a bus filled with sand dump, and if we break one of the moons all this falls on the sand burying enemies. Something that is repeated later, so we must be attentive to the stage and see if there is any way to use it in our favor.
There are some coverages that can be destroyed, so we will not always safe behind a wall of stone, and sand has its role in the gameplay. When we launched a grenade into a room full of sand, this goes flying through the air and blind the enemies you have around, leaving them defenseless for a few seconds that we can use to kill them. Thus the sand appears in various facets of the gameplay, either to bury enemies to blind them, or in difficult times when visibility, as a phase that we play in the middle of a sandstorm that just did not see two meters, and both could surprise the enemy, as they could give us a scare. The secrecy also makes an appearance, but in no case require us to use it, and sequences that can usually cope in different ways, either with direct action and without complications or even more cautious stealth, eliminating enemies one to one thanks the muffler we can attach to certain weapons. At all times, at least in the missions we played, we always go along with two companions. At first it seems that would be more action-oriented tactics with strategic touches, but ultimately these elements have been heavily discounted and we can barely tell the companions to fire at any enemy in particular, which is quite useful for true.
The AI of the companions, or rather their routines, they work quite well, even above the average for the genre, and do not seem as stupid as in other games. If we scored a goal they will shoot, but more than anything useful for cleaning the scene of enemies, to give us covering fire. Imagine that a machine gun position that allows us to move forward or a sniper we have strings of beads, the two allies to be always placed in positions other than our own, we can state that firing at the enemy that is bothering us, and we can take to move to another position or even the annoying rival flank and pinch in the back. So although a direct action game has its little touch strategic, helping to develop the scenarios where the battles are quite spacious and well designed, allowing different ways of approaching the same situation. Another thing we liked is the difficulty, which in its default level is a challenge well measured, even defiant, something we expect to remain in the final version, given the alarming decline in the difficulty they are experiencing in recent games years. If we try to do the "rambo" and we ran like crazy and shooting head on, we will see how to shoot two or three we die. In addition the control points are not too many, say that a large section there is only one action to begin, and that we will be especially cautious and appreciate life. Neither the ammunition is too abundant, and we have to be constantly picking up the weapons of the enemy killed, making it very fun and will force us to try the varied arsenal at our disposal.
We live in a situation where we had to decide how to react, and hopefully now be repeated, as we found it very exciting. We stumbled upon a soldier who struck up a lively dialogue, pointing at each other and without losing sight. The first time we played endure without pulling the trigger and finally let go, even if this meant that alerted some friends that we were expecting a little later. In a next game, we came to this same situation and decided in the middle of the conversation pull the trigger and shoot into the air, so we get attacked us and we had to strike him down, and that in the next room had no enemies and no had been alerted. Very interesting, a series of moral decisions sometimes not decisively influence the argument, but in the way we live the game and how to face difficult situations. The most controversial and criticized you see, and they will cost a lot to explain to those responsible for understanding the players, is the absence of co-op. A game played by three soldiers, which constantly go together, does not offer co-op for three players, which are unlikely to understand the fans of the genre, and especially those who like to throw a few games online with friends, as Gears of War 3. The official explanation is that they have decided to focus on the protagonist, Walker, in history, and that the cooperative diverted attention from this, although obviously this will sound to many like an excuse. Yes it will offer competitive multiplayer, but still keep the details.
Removing this small negative point, but not so small depending on the player-it is a lot of fun, surprisingly without contributing anything new to the genre and taking elements thousand and one times viewed works as a "shot", resulting even cool at times. It may be due to its good control, great level design, intense and immersive that it becomes when in labor, but we have no doubt that it will be one of the best action games in the third person to receive this year. Its visual appearance is not spectacular or dazzling, but it compensates with a great atmosphere, with lots of personality, in a devastated city of Dubai, choked with sand, in which madness has possessed its inhabitants. The story is very interesting, different, away from the many war games, and we believe that Spec Ops: The Line can find your niche in highly competitive genre. Scheduled for end of year, coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, and action lovers should keep track of because they may be pleasantly surprised.
No comments:
Post a Comment