My Five Hour Journey through Spec Ops: The Line (because of the Order: 1886)

With all of this talk about how the Order: 1886 is a mere five hours long, its time to look at another five hour game that people enjoy. That game is Spec Ops: The Line. People don’t enjoy it for its third person cover based shooting, even if you have a squad of three men that can flank enemies, but instead people love it for its story. Because the story is only five hours long, it doesn’t get lost with filler content and padding. It goes by smooth and I’d say its a more enjoyable experience because its so brief.

To this day people on the Steam forum are still miffed that the game is only six hours according to websites, when really its only five. I’ve played through it twice all the way through on Play Station 3 and Steam. Steam clocks me in at six hours on medium difficulty when the game says its around five hours. Of course deaths always set you back.

In order to pad out the dollar value of Spec Ops: The Line, there is a dead online multi player that would expand the game into more than just five or six hours. Since the multi player is and has been dead for years now, you’re stuck with the single player campaign.

That’s my completed game at 5 hours and 2 minutes.

When the game first came out no one was up in arms over the play time. Maybe that’s because no one posted a five hour play through before the reviews came out. At the time, everyone was talking about the story and how generic of a shooter that it was. Generic or not, I still enjoyed most of the game’s shooting. There were a few times where I wouldn’t stick to the correct cover and it would get me killed. Then there was the parking garage where I’d unstick from one cover to run, only to get stuck to a different cover.

As for the story, I won’t give away any spoilers other than Darth Vader is Chubacca’s father, because Lord Vader invades all planets if you know what I mean. No…. You play as a soldier that slowly descends into madness. This allows for the game to truly go off the rails and become something different than a standard military shooter. You get to see a twist of horror at burnt bodies that are really put right there front and center in your face. Not just that, but a lot of the time it was your character that decimated people.

Several times in the game, you’re given a choice. I suppose this makes the game more replayable, even if your choices end up with the same results. Your squad has two other members, a kindhearted soldier and an evil jerk of a soldier. They are your devil and angel when it comes to making decisions. I assume that’s why this is Spec Ops: The Line, because you walk that line between good and evil with your choices. They also have their tactical abilities. One can throw a grenade and the other is a sniper. Although on the Steam version of the game, the Sniper doesn’t seem to work at all. Not that he argues about a moral choice of sniping someone, but he just won’t. It seems like a glitch.

Other times, any choice that you are given has no consequence other than getting an achievement at the end of the mission. I think its the combination of the choice and the horror that players enjoy. Some of the more gruesome things, you have no choice over, its just part of the game. Walking around horrific bodies that have been skinned. Hearing the flies, seeing them bake in the sun.

For me, I enjoyed the combat, because its just so similar and familiar to other enjoyable games. Games like Uncharted that is also not only known for its sticky cover, third person shooting, but its story too. In fact, I’d say Spec Ops: The Line is the closest to Uncharted that you can get on a computer, even if its not an epic adventure for treasure that spans across different environments. Its about the story and the third person shooting.

Fans want for a sequel when we all know that it will never truly live up to the legendary Spec Ops: The Line. Its better to leave them with their hands clapping at five hours than having them sleep through the next hour after that.