Spec Ops: The Line Thread

[Year]

tried the demo, not excited anymore about this game and won't buy it, nothing like the original.

i'll just keep playing SpecOps (1998) which is a classic.

[JonasBeckman]

Judging by the videos and previews and comparing to media from the older titles I don't think they planned to make them alike but instead went for a more direct action game as it's easier to well I don't know, get into for the average user or maybe just to increase sales among all the other action titles.
(This is a new studio as well isn't it? not the old one for the previous games.)

Good use of UE3 though, couldn't find much of anything to tweak to increase things higher than they already were, could probably do with better textures and DX10+ effects but that usually doesn't happen.

[Year]

Originally Posted by JonasBeckman

Judging by the videos and previews and comparing to media from the older titles I don't think they planned to make them alike but instead went for a more direct action game as it's easier to well I don't know, get into for the average user or maybe just to increase sales among all the other action titles.
(This is a new studio as well isn't it? not the old one for the previous games.)

Good use of UE3 though, couldn't find much of anything to tweak to increase things higher than they already were, could probably do with better textures and DX10+ effects but that usually doesn't happen.

yee

i think the game has a few merits, my main problem is that they tried to make it too similar to Gears Of Wars, GoW is one of my favorite games of all times, problem is..

SpecOps feels like a consolized game developed with gamepads in mind and the gameplay is predictable (press a key to shoot guy on top) followed by a big explosion, the Gow gameplay mechanics simply don't work well for war games trying to bring arcade'ish realism on our screens.

that's my main gripe, other than this i think the effects are cool, the graphics could be better but are very acceptable etc.

i might get it when the price drops, as a general time waster and played in short bursts could be fun.

[MarkyG]

I was quite looking forward to this. Wasn't impressed with the demo. Feels bland, usual duck/cover third person shooter. Shame because it showed so much promise. Unless the full game has some amazing redeeming features...

[Stone Gargoyle]

Well I finally played the surprisingly lengthy demo last night and I'm a bit gutted the game isn't what it was touted as being and it wasn't exactly helped by the fact the demo opens with a bland on rails heli shooting section which bored me to death instantly.

Firstly I was always under the impression that the reason the game was set in Dubai was that the included sand shifting mechanic would play a large role in the gameplay, sadly it doesn't. In fact I can think of only one or two moments throughout the 30 minute long demo that such mechanics came into play and both times they were 100% set up as obvious trigger points by the devs and were not of my making as and when I wanted them to be. Spotting a bus full of sand directly above some dim witted enemy AI which I can shoot and cover them with in a completely prescripted fashion doesn't exactly make me feel awesome devs. Fact - why implement such a cool feature in the first place if you aren't willing to go all out with it? Had they done so the game would have felt far less generic.

Secondly the shooting is pretty damn shoddy. I decided to shoot the skull off some poor dead bastard inside a bus at point blank range and only my second set of shots actually hit my target, just why? I'd also like to complain about the sniper rifle which when put into scope mode drags around the screen meaning whatever it was you just wished to target is nowhere in bloody sight once you scope up. You are then left normally taking heavy fire while you slow ass drag the scope around the screen in a vain attempt to establish your original target once more. Fact - sniper rifles are **** in this game.

Graphically the game is a bit here and there and is about as linear as can be but I will say I did like the level layout and overall general verticality but it's such a damn shame that you aren't given a bit more freedom. The game also very much reminded me of the R6 Vegas games graphics wise especially when it came to enemies and such. Fact - the game is capped at 30fps no matter if you use vsync or not and I'd get some very odd hitching for no reason at very odd moments.

Basically I doubt I will be buying this which is a shame as I actually thought it would turn out as something much more.

[JonasBeckman]

Main menu framerate is around 87 just finished adjusting some last things in the config file so I've just started it up, I guess I'll know very soon if there is a framerate cap. (And how the game itself is, been a bit busy with other stuff, heh.)

EDIT: Ingame framerate is between 70 and 90 it seems.

EDIT: Cutscenes are locked to 30 FPS but they're BIK movies so that's not surprising, second scene after that runs at 50 - 65 FPS.

[RedSeptember]

Finally a game set in my city! For those, Dubai is an emirate within the country United Arab Emirates.

The only other thing was the Road signs in BF3, those are UAE road signs

[Stone Gargoyle]

Originally Posted by JonasBeckman

EDIT: Cutscenes are locked to 30 FPS but they're BIK movies so that's not surprising, second scene after that runs at 50 - 65 FPS.

Well I have vsync disabled in game and in CCC Jonas bud but I get the following results




Still only hits 36-38fps and no higher.

[JonasBeckman]

Some limitation somewhere perhaps?

This particular UE3 build uses the absolutely highest possible settings that this game can do via the "C:\Users\*USERNAME*\Documents\My Games\SpecOps-TheLine Demo\SRGame\Config" SREngine.ini file and it's bUseMaxQualityMode=True override, have only seen that in UDK so far although some recent games have that switch too but usually bug out when it's enabled.

Shadow resolution is furthermore set to 2048 instead of the normal 1024 and it seems 4x AA and 8x AF is attempted as well but I don't think the AA command works under DX9 from what I know at least.
(As most recent UE3 titles this also has the D3D10 command line but normally it causes a crash as the exe / game build itself isn't supporting that mode.)

Poolsize which handles streaming or caching of streaming assets was pretty low though, 162 or some such so I put it back to 1024 (300 - 500 used to be common but now it's 150 to 240 or such I believe.) anyway in short the game is pretty demanding even if it might not appear as such initially and the options you do have access to without ini editing are pretty limited though shadow detail and ambient occlusion can probably be minimized for a nice gain.

Perhaps try to disable ambient occlusion first and see what the performance gain is, then if that doesn't work try to lower shadow detail one notch, if neither helps it might be a memory issue and you'd have to lower texture detail.

Or that's how I see it, resolution can be lowered of course but it's best to try and keep it to native monitor resolution if possible.
(Scaling and such.)

EDIT: 7770 is the upper mid-range 7000 series isn't it? Should work fine.
(7800 would then be high-end and 7900 something like enthusiast.)

CPU is a quad core and has a good clock speed as well, maybe it's not as efficient as newer models but clock speed and the extra cores should still keep up with nearly all current games.
(I could be wrong but most CPU tests tend to show various limitations but then in normal game tests it's nearly always a GPU limitation first.)

RAM is more than enough as well as it's a 32-bit exe (Has there been any UE3 64-bit supporting titles? I think UE3 can do it but I don't think it's been used much if at all in normal games.) and thus limited to 2 - 2.5 GB by default up to 4 GB if patched as large address aware which still leaves 4 GB free for other stuff like the OS and such.

[teleguy]

Did anyone manage to enable AA? I tried forcing various Unreal engine profiles with Radeonpro and Radit but to no avail.

[JonasBeckman]

I used the SMAA plugin, unsure about MSAA compatibility and the like however.

[teleguy]

Better than nothing but I'd prefer real AA.

[Redemption80]

Eventually got round to trying the demo and can't say i was that keen on it, i like action games to flow more than this, too much stop/start, press a key to do this etc....

Felt quite rigid, and i don't see the point of making a game third person if you don't benefit from the extra agility that view should bring.

Graphics are ok, textures look reasonably high res at times and it has a nice look overall, though not sure about the red glow the characters have, and the scenery could be better.

[Damien_Azreal]

Originally Posted by Redemption80

Eventually got round to trying the demo and can't say i was that keen on it, i like action games to flow more than this, too much stop/start, press a key to do this etc....

Well, it should also be kept in mind that the demo starts in the first chapter, then jumps to chapter 5.
Meaning there's a strong chance the final game won't be as "start, stop" in it's pacing and flow.

[(.)(.)]

Can you enable the console for single player?
And how to get rid of bloom?, I have tried the ini files but to no avail. eg: bAllowConsole command, doesn't seem to exist.

Edit ini files -
http://mod.gib.me/specopstheline/inicrypt.zip - Drag an drop ini files (decrypt/encrypt).

Antialiasing dont work from what i have played with so I just use SMAAInjector - http://mrhaandi.blogspot.co.nz/p/injectsmaa.html

Quick way to skip load up vids (U3 logo etc) - Remove these .bik files: 2kdemo_warn, 2klogo, legal, legal_logo_screen, legalscreen, unrealLogo, Yagerlogo from C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\specops_theline\SRGam e\Movies.

This may work for skipping movies also: -nomoviestartup


Picked up from intkeys for NZ$23 (US$18) - Steam key.

Game itself is actually not bad. Game-play is nothing special as in it's gears of war so been there done that though the story is engaging enough, for myself at least. GFX - U3 engine so there lots of annoying bloom and lots of brown (less than gears though).
Still not finished but i have come up against an annoying part where its about luck more than anything (lots of bullets - run to cover and hope you survive till the next check point. Why devs insist on this sort of gameplay i will never understand). But other than that if I had payed NZ$40 I would sill be a happy gamer, anymore and it would be very disappointing value for money.

[Uncle Dude]

Spec Ops: The Line is $7.50 on Gamefly right now. It uses Steamworks, so no problem if you like Steam and keeping all your games in one place. It wasn't on my radar, but for the price I'm willing to give it a go.

[Damien_Azreal]

It's a great game.
The gameplay itself is rather average, but the story, presentation and characters are amazingly written.

[PCElite]

And you have 4 different endings. Sort of

[Solfaur]

Just finished this game. Wow, the story is fantastic. Gameplay is pretty generic, visuals are decent unreal engine (with quite atmospheric views at times) but with a LOT more gore than usual.

Can't say anything about mp since it's dead but the sp is just epic. Hugely underrated game imo.

[G*addict]

Finished the sp twice on normal and hard difficulty. Got half way through Fubar difficulty before giving up. It's the only achievement I'm missing but way too hard for me.

Great game, if you can overlook it's flaws and rather generic mechanics. Definitely one of the most memorable and underrated this year.