10 Thought-Provoking Video Games That Haunted You For Days

7. Spec Ops: The Line

With a new Call of Duty released every year, you've probably had enough of military shooters. You probably think they can't surprise you anymore; after all, we've seen the "super-soldier saves everyone without even getting a scar" story in hundreds of movies and games by now. Step away from the major, well-known series though and you might find something really interesting - Spec Ops: The Line is a great example of this; a fairly straight-forward game with one hell of a psychological storyline. It begins like many other war-based properties, with a small team being sent into a sandstorm swept Dubai to carry out reconnaissance and confirm the status of missing American soldiers. Eventually, you learn that this team of soldiers committed horrific atrocities on the surviving population of Dubai in order to establish control over them. Your team is then forced to fight against hostile American soldiers; something which deeply unsettles them. There's a major turning point in Spec Ops: The Line and it comes just after. The team uses a white phosphorous mortar to attack the renegade soldiers but in doing so, kill a group of civilians who were being protected by the enemy soldiers. The mind of the player character Martin Walker deteriorates here and, as revealed in the ending, he created characters and events in order to rationalise his own actions. The final scenes alone are really what set this game apart from its peers, resulting in a satisfying end to a beautifully thought-provoking game. It's utterly compelling and shows that there is still room within the military shooter genre for original, refreshing story.