Killing is Harmless: A Critical Reading of Spec Ops: The Line by Brendan Keogh

Author:Brendan Keogh [Keogh, Brendan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Criticism, conflict, videogame, Violence, war, vl-nfcompvg, Brendan Keogh, Daniel Purvis, journalism, Dubai, Writing, critic, Spec Ops The Line, Critical Distance, narrative, critique, Stolen Projects, video game, critical, new journalism, Spec Ops
Publisher: Stolen Projects
Published: 2012-12-09T05:00:00+00:00

Walker is desperate to find something significant here, but Adams and Lugo note that it is just another base, that the crimes they committed outside were for naught. Indeed, while looking for just why this base is special, I find several monitors in a corner, on which blurry surveillance camera footage plays of the container full of civilian husks. The only things here are my crimes, lingering on.

*

Upstairs, we find Konrad’s most trusted men, his command team, dead and decayed, burnt to a crisp with white phosphorous. It is here that Walker first starts hearing Konrad’s voice. He finds a walkie-talkie on a pedestal beside the bodies, from which he thinks Konrad’s voice is coming from, and asks Konrad what is happening here.

Konrad responds, “Survival. Plain and simple. Everything here is teetering on the edge of everything.”

Of course, Walker isn’t actually talking to Konrad. Konrad is dead, as we discover at the end of the game. Noticeably, it isn’t until the incident at the gate that Walker both decides Konrad is to blame for Walker’s crime and that he is definitely alive. Walker simply cannot live with what he did and immediately constructs Konrad to take the blame instead.

“Welcome to Dubai, gentlemen,” says Konrad, alluding to one of the first things Walker says to his own men at the start of the game. It’s one of many overlaps between the two men.

A window opens up on the side of the skyscraper, showing the ruins of Dubai stretching off beyond a highway. Walker and his men are meant to abseil down to continue their adventure, or so Konrad says.

It’s like déjà vu. The game started with the line “Welcome to Dubai” and a road to walk down, and now we are doing that again. Except this time, at least for me as the player, with a bit more humility and honesty. I have been slapped awake, shown guilty of my virtual crimes. The first eight chapters worked to lure me into admitting through Walker’s actions that this is what I do in military shooters and now that I have admitted it, we are going to do it again with a bit more clarity, a bit more transparency. You enjoy this. Admit it.

One mission objective appears on the screen as the next chapter starts: obey.

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