http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/01/em...ideo-game/
This.... this could work. Coppola knows how to make a good movie or two, but how well will that translate to making a compelling game? Considering how much the original movie went on to inspire the likes of Metal Gear and Spec Ops: The Line (an unfortunately generically named game that's way better than it should be, and is a better Silent Hill 5 than Silent Hill 5), it'll be interesting to see if this can do a better job than both. If this goes well, can we expect a The Godfather game, or "EA's Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula"? I'd be more interested if he went a different direction and made some wholly original stories in the medium. Again though, it remains to be seen how well he can do with the medium in the first place.
I've never seen Apocalypse Now, but it's supposed to be a classic. This would be a good excuse to rent it. I don't feel terribly optimistic about this game, only because video games aren't movies, and I wouldn't expect a director to be able to cross over well. On the other hand, "psychedelic survival horror" sounds pretty boss as a genre, so fingers crossed.
Quote:Spec Ops: The Line ... is a better Silent Hill 5 than Silent Hill 5)
O rly? I'll have to check that out. I looked at a video, but at a glympse, it looks like a generic shooter. Are there psychological horror elements to it?
In closing, who names their son Liberty? This dude's parents were Tea Party Patriots before it was cool.
Spec Ops: The Line is basically Heart of Darkness: Modern Military Shooter Edition. Yes, really, they re-used the series name from a generic PS1-era modern-military shooter series, and made something far more interesting out of it, at least from a story perspective... the gameplay's fine but standard cover-based third-person shooter stuff, but the story is definitely different.
As for Apocalypse Now... it's probably not too surprising that I haven't seen it either. I know it's supposed to be good, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing I'd choose to watch...
Spec Ops: The Line should have just been called "The Line" (as in, crossing the line). Let me put it this way SJ: the first level plays out like your standard modern military shooter... right up until the part where you are forced to walk by all the bodies of the people you just killed and realize some of them are Americans. It's at that point you realize this is going to be something a lot different.
From what I've read about the development, it originally WAS going to be just another military shooter. However, a bunch of crazy management decisions later, they realized the ONLY way they could make anything coherent out of the game's story would have to involve a surreal psychological nightmare. ABF is right, it's Heart of Darkness. So is Apocalypse Now to be honest. It's surprising just how well they managed it. I made the Silent Hill 5 comparison because both games attempt to use psychological horror to analyze a soldier, but SH5 ends up failing at this where The Line succeeds. Metal Gear also tries to play up the horrors of war, but it ends up more tongue in cheek a lot of the time just due to how ridiculous the series can get (intentionally). The serious parts work, but it's hard to really absorb the message as well when you're hearing it from a bisexual vampire powered by nanomachines (the vampirism is powered by it I mean, not the bisexuality).
Your reaction is pretty standard. When I tell my friends "you should play this" they always say "eh, I hate dumb military shooters" and then I say "it's a psychological war horror story analyzing what today's operations can do to a soldier's mind" and their reaction is a hilarious "wait, you're not kidding?" sort of thing. I'm not about to claim that The Line is as well written as Apocalypse Now or Beast of No Nation or something like that, but it's a refreshing and effectively told story amid a sea of monotony. Also, maybe the name isn't so bad, because there's countless people online who LOVE modern military shooters who were in for one hell of a shock when The Line challenged them, and many are clamoring for more.
Thanks guys, I'll see if I can find it cheap and check it out. :)