Miracle: A Finished Game Review - Spec Ops: The Line

War.  War never changes.

So, I don't finish games.  Even short ones.
But I was feelings sick and my natural...chosen pick me up in the past has always been play video games.  So I fired up Spec Ops:  The Line again, deciding to see what was what.  Yeah I was pretty close to the end of the game.
At the end it tells you how much time you spent playing the game.  4 hrs 32.  Yeah that's about four hours less than I actually played it, because I die alot.  I almost switched to playing an easier difficulty (and the game asked me to many, many, many times) but I held strong and ended the way I started it.
I went back and played two missions because I had left some of the intel laying around.  I played them on FUBAR mode and didn't die once.  Crazy that I'm only bad when I'm trying to get through the game.
Anyhoo.  Man, this game rocks my socks off.  There are four endings to this game and I went through everyone of them, because they make it easy to do.  All four point to the utter horror that is war and this game shows just how ugly it is.  I talked a bit about that in my unfinished review.  I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't beat it, but this game is very psychological.  As Captain Walker you get Post-Traumatic Stress and it doesn't go away, even by the happy ending.

So beautiful...Let's blow it up!

Which leads me to the main thing I want to talk about.  This game is more of a role-playing-game than any I have ever played.  It truly puts you in the role of Captain Walker and it doesn't let you go.  You HAVE to go through what he's going through.  Unless you just skip the cutscenes.  Then it's just a fun third person shooter.  But I was fully engaged even with all the start/stop I did along the way, and it's because Walker was so well written, and the story was laid out so well, that I couldn't help but remember all that had happened previously.  Much like Amnesia:  The Dark Descent (which I also haven't finished, although that's more due to me being too scared to finish it) this non-role-playing-game is one of the best role-playing-games ever.  While I loved Mass Effect (only the first one) I still felt like Shepard was just a puppet whose strings I was pulling, much like any of the Bioware/Obsidian/Black Isle games.  In Spec Ops:  The Line I truly felt I WAS Walker.  And that's hard to do, especially when I'm generally taken out of the immersive storytelling when I'm constantly being killed.

So bottom line, if this game is good enough for me to finish it, then it's good enough for you to go out and get it.

Actually that's not saying anything.  I hated Mass Effects 2 & 3 but I still beat them.

Regardless, play and beat this game.  Yager deserves your money.