An American flag hangs tattered and torn in the sand dunes of Dubai. The city is now a shadow of its former self, beaten into the ground by relentless sandstorms. A booming voice asks, "Do you still intend to rescue me captain, now that you have seen what I have done?" As the sun rises in the sky, the voice calmly declares, "You must think I'm a monster, that I've gone insane. Come find us captain; we're waiting." This is the auspicious opening to Spec Ops: The Line, and it sets a dark tone for the game. "We intend to make The Line the most provocative shooter you've ever played," proclaimed lead designer Cory Davis on our recent visit to developer Yager's studios in Berlin. Can Spec Ops deliver on such a bold statement? Our first look suggests that Yager is well on its way to creating something just a bit different.

Spec Ops: The Line is a third-person shooter that tells the story of Captain Walker, the leader of an elite military outfit known as Delta Force. Walker is sent to the heart of the once-wealthy Dubai, which has been ravaged by vicious sandstorms, leaving the city in ruins. Your mission is to rescue the well-respected Army Colonel John Konrad, whose squad is declared MIA after staying in Dubai to aid civilians that could not escape the sandstorms. The twist to the tale comes from Konrad himself, who is a take on Colonel Kurtz from the film Apocalypse Now. Far from needing to be rescued, Walker discovers Konrad has gone insane from his time in the ruined city, which he now declares his home.

During its E3 press conference, Ubisoft showed off the first gameplay of the latest game in the Ghost Recon series, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Like the teaser trailer for the game, the demo showed that stealth plays an important role, as it appears that all members of your team have access to an active camo system. Indeed, the demo even started with one of the ghosts walking up to an enemy soldier and performing a point-blank stealth kill with his firearm. From there, we got a better glimpse of the environment--a northern European coastline that appears to have fallen victim to some catastrophic attack. Buildings are falling apart, and the ocean looked drained, leaving boats, buoys, and other objects sitting on the beach.

As it turns out, the ghosts can use these objects as cover. And they do so to move in on their targets, which they can identify using the new cross comm system. Once they see their target's position, they move forward on the beach, toward the dock, and closer to the intended target (whom they have to capture alive). The ghosts stay in their camo and move just underneath the dock where they take out an enemy sitting on the dock and another enemy sitting in a machine-gun nest. It's worth pointing out that the second enemy has thermal vision, so theoretically he could have seen the ghosts if they were in his line of sight. As the demo continues, the ghosts move quietly past several enemies and make their way to the area above the docks where the target is.