Recent reviews by Vague Luminary

Only the dead know peace from this evil.

One of the greatest games of all time. DOOM will continue to stand the test of time long after many ambitious games fade into obscurity, with their "compelling narratives" and "branching story paths"; DOOM has no need for such trife.
DOOM simply says:
"Here's a gun. Get to work."

Once you get bored of the vanilla experience, dip your toes into the vast sea of source ports, map packs, and mods, changing anything from adding a boombox that Rickrolls the spawn of Hell to full-blown conversion mods that fundamentally change virtually every element of play, Brutal Doom being a popular example (so much so that some of the ideas were lifted for use in DOOM 2016).

Go forth, and rip and tear!

Extremely interesting, artistic experience. I think what intrigued me the most was thinking about if the story was fiction or nonfiction, and if the already-meta commentary within the game was actually even more meta, above the conceptual tier of video games and perhaps on the higher tier of the consumption/enjoyment of video games.

It's short and I would think the replayability is very low, but it's very interesting to think about. Get it on sale: 1.5 hours for $10 could be considered steep.

Very satisfying gunplay and perfect atmosphere thanks to a little bit of clunk. :)

It's free, there's nothing at all to spend money on. Pass the whiskey.

You can get virtual PTSD in just SIX HOURS with this cool, simple game!


PREMISE

Spec Ops: The Line starts off as any run-of-the-mill modern military shooter. Coming out in the middle of 2012, these things were a dime a dozen; go to the middle east and shoot non-white people because they have a nuke or they are terrorists or something, right? We've all heard it before.
The Line in particular is about a squad of soldiers sent into the city of Dubai to help evacuate the civilians of the city after the world's biggest sandstorm has swept through. There are also reports of a rogue infantry battalion in the city, being led by one Colonel John Konrad, an old friend of our main character.
You play as Captain Martin Walker, the leader of the squad, voice acted by the legendary Nolan North.

I wish I could go into details about how the story unfolds, but to spoil any bit of it would do a complete disservice to anyone who hasn't played it. Go into this game as blind as possible.


PRESENTATION

Gameplay-wise, The Line is rather generic. Third person shooting, nice selection of weapons, the cover system works. Occasionally you'll get a turret section, nothing out of the ordinary. The combat itself can feel very intense at times. I played through on "Combat Op" difficulty, which since it was the second-to-lowest of the four options, you could consider it the medium option. But damn, it didn't feel like it.
You have to aggressively use cover and be very careful you don't get flanked. The AI isn't smart enough to do it themselves, but sometimes they'll spawn on your sides, and if you can't deal with them quickly, you're screwed. You will almost consistently run out of ammo with weapons, so you have to keep switching it up and scrounging around for ammo/weapons dropped by enemies.
During these intense shooting sections you'll hear some pretty generic hard rock playing in the background, but it fits perfectly. You keep up this vibe of being a badass even if the game is trying to strip you of it.


CLOSING THOUGHTS

If you've read this far into a review of an M-rated game, it's safe for me to say this game will make you "♥♥♥♥♥♥ up beyond all recognition". It took me about 6 hours to play through this game, and from what I've heard, that's about the average.
Spec Ops: The Line is a generic third-person shooter that slowly but surely descends into a much darker state as the game goes along. Pick it up on sale for a good playthrough, it's worth your time.