Spec Ops: The Line

I didn’t like Spec Ops: The Line until it ended.

That’s a feeling I’ve had about many video games; the almost palpable relief when the closing credits begin to roll and I know that another bad experience is over. Sometimes, in moments like that, I light up a cigarette and just watch the names scroll by through the haze of the smoke, silently curious about why these people thought to create the game they did, and secure in the knowledge that I’ll never have to touch it again.

It wasn’t quite like that with The Line. This time, as the assorted names of the Yager Development team rolled upwards and disappeared off the top of my television, I sat in a stunned, almost comatose silence and thought about everything that had led me to that point. I thought about life and death, about war and peace, about right and wrong. I thought about a lot of things, sat there in that chair. Then, when the names had all but disappeared and the final chords of Jimi Hendrix’s “A Merman I Should Be” rang out with an almost beautiful finality, I realized it wasn’t quite over yet.