From the Vault — originally published June 16, 2010. Some links, videos or prices may be out of date.
I got a chance to see a demo run of Spec Ops. It’s a game by 2k games that is a third person shooter. The over the shoulder perspective is reminiscent of Gears of War and Resident Evil 5. The game takes place in Dubai after a huge sandstorm has wiped out most of the city. Most of the action takes place in and out of huge opulent buildings. The game initially at least revolves around a mission to find a Colonel. You play as Captain Walker who is voiced by none other than Nolan North from Uncharted fame. The action is mostly of the close combat variety and bears many similarities to Gears of War. Spec Ops runs on a “heavily modified” version of the Unreal Engine. Its apparent as the running, blind fire and cover mechanics do look like they were pulled from Gears of War. Just like Gears you are accompanied by a squad of AI team members though in the demo I sat through did seem to actually help in combat.
In addition to the gun combat there is a slight level of stealth play available namely to get the drop on enemies by sneaking around them and surprise attacking them from the side or from behind. You can also use the environment as a tool by causing sand avalanches on enemies to take them out. Weapons showed included the assault rifile, the shot gun, sniper rifle and sticky and standard grenades.
Spec Ops is primarily a single player game with a focus on narrative depth. There are decisions and morality choices you can make that apparently effect how the game plays out an moves forward. In the demo we saw there was someone about to be tortured and we could either wait until after or take the sniper shot enciting a battle where the torture hostage could be killed.
In addition to the narrative campaign mode I was told there will be Online Co-op missions and a multiplayer mode although these were not detailed in our preview viewing of the game. Spec Ops looked good graphically and is currently slated for a 2011 release.
