While Spec Ops: The Line might not have been one of the year's best games , it was definitely one of the most interesting - a shooter with a very different perspective on war, and a development team ballsy enough to see it right through to the end. It also inspired Brendan Keogh to try his hand at a sadly-rare bit of long-form game criticism - Killing is Harmless: A Critical Reading of Spec Ops: The Line.
Due out on the 16th, this 50,000 word epic promises to leave no stone unturned, going through every square inch of Spec Ops and picking it apart - from the opening optimism of soon-to-be-fallen hero Walker to the [CENSORED], the horror of the [REDACTED] and unforgettable [THAT BIT].
In short, all the spoilers! Consider yourself well and truly warned.
"While with most other games I could perhaps sum up their themes and how they conveyed them in a thousand words or so, I found this to be impossible with The Line," he explains on his site. "To analyse The Line, I needed to analyse all of The Line, from the opening menu screen to the end of the final epilogue. I needed to look at every single little bit of the game from start to finish to see how it all goes together in such a way to make me ask the questions I asked. So that is what I have done."
Killing Is Harmless will be $2.99 for the first month, going up to $4.99 after that. It'll be in PDF form, with versions catering for Apple and Amazon devices planned for afterwards. Check Brendan's site, Critical Damage , for updates and links to the book when it goes live for download next Wednesday.
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