Remember when the Spec Ops series was just a poor man’s Delta Force/Rainbow Six? Ever since its 1998 debut, it was little more than a series of fairly solid, if forgettable, budget-priced Playstation, PC, and Dreamcast tactical military shooter games. That all changed with 2012’s Spec Ops: The Line, which was the first game in the series since 2002’s Spec Ops: Airborne Commando. You would be forgiven for dismissing it as another Call of Duty-esque military blastfest, however, if you do, you’d be missing out on one of the smartest games of this past console generation. While on the surface it’s no different from other cover-based military shooters on the market, Spec Ops is a deconstruction of the military shooter genre, a commentary of violence in video games, a look at the effects of PTSD on soldiers, and even a take on American interventionist policy.
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