“Gentlemen, Welcome to the Heart of Darkness”: A Comparison Between Heart of Darkness’ and Spec Ops: The Line’s Subversion of their Genre Conventions.

Abstract

This research aims to investigate how Spec Ops: The Line’s (2012) subversion of its own genre conventions is similar to the way Heart of Darkness (1899) subverted its own genre conventions. Spec Ops uses characters, music and gameplay to criticise military shooter games and its players in a similar manner as Heart of Darkness used its characters, descriptions and comparisons to the West to criticize imperialism.