Infogrames/Atari has finally made its inevitable entry into the first-person-shooter, military-action game genre. The game is Shadow Ops: Red Mercury and the results are – how shall I say it generously – mediocre. Everything in the game has been done before and done better by other games. The game is so hopelessly generic, even with what little is does get right, it just can’t rise above what it is... another "me-too" game.
With the popularity of game franchises like Rainbow 6 and Medal of Honor it was a sure bet that every game publisher on the planet would want its piece of the military-shooter pie. Whether the enemy comes from World War II, Vietnam or the ever-popular terrorist threat, all these games share the common theme of taking on large numbers of enemies while often working with either directly or A.I.-controlled team mates to accomplish a series of missions that save the world – or at least win the battle. All these games have had various levels of success. I think Infogrames/Atari is about the last of the major publishers to release a game in this genre. Considering they had a little extra development time, the game should have been better.
In Shadow Ops: Red Mercury the enemy is terrorists and the threat is a weapon known as Red Mercury (sounds like something you put in a thermometer) capable of killing millions in the wrong hands. The gamer plays as Captain Frank Hayden, an elite Delta Force operative sent out by the CIA to recover Red Mercury from those wrong hands.
The approximately two dozen missions take place in locals from the burning desert to the frozen tundra. In the single-player campaign mode these are very linear with only one way to really progress in the game and accomplish your mission. One of the biggest problems with the missions is that if you’re ever killed (and you will be killed) you have to start back at the beginning of what are often lengthy levels and loooong load times. I felt I was playing a PS2 game; the wait was so extended. Another problem with the levels is I got an extreme case of déjŕ vu while playing. I could have sworn I played these levels in another game just recently. Finally, the bad guys tend to spawn in batches, which means that the game turns into a series of gun battles followed by a leisurely stroll around the battlefield to pick up the ammo and health packs your fallen foes have dropped. Then it is off to the next enemy that pops up so the cycle can start all over again. A couple of times the enemies popped up so suddenly I think they must have hopped out of my rucksack.
It sure is a good thing I made that off-world investment in Artificial Dumbness back when I was playing a lot of M.U.L.E. Considering how the enemies behave in Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, I’m going to make a fortune. Without a doubt the biggest weakness in the game is the absolute boners the “skilled” enemy soldiers make. These guys have only the vaguest clue of how to use cover. I saw them break good cover to rush headlong into the combined firepower of an entire fire team. They also liked to hide behind extremely explosive barrels. When they actually did find a nice bit of cover, I’d often see them shoot into the object giving them cover while trying to shoot my character. Add to that their extremely slow reaction times when I’d make a big mistake and pop up right in front of them, and it sum is some serious A.I. issues. The A.I. problem crops up in the levels where you play with other members in your squad too. While these allies now and then pull their weight, they usually couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle. This leaves the player to do all the work. Thank the gods they at least didn’t get in the way too much.
Graphics are a mixed bag. The environments look good enough, but the character models just do not stack up to the better games on the Xbox. There are also some noticeable glitches. More than once I saw bodies half in and half out of walls. I also saw an enemy soldier stuck between two trees doing the weirdest boogie I have ever seen in a game. I was so fascinated I watched him for about a minute while his, apparently unconcerned, comrades whizzed bullets around my head. I moved closer to him to see if he would extricate himself, but that was no good. I finally just shot the poor fellow to put him out of my misery.
Control of the game is quite good. While it is nothing fresh, is gets the job done very well. The use of the left trigger button as the means to bring up the sights for more accurate shooting is really nice … but even that has a small problem. While playing one of the early levels in the jungle, I found that by using the aim mode I could look around the jungle and when the reticule moved over an enemy and turned red, whether I could see him through the intervening brush or not, all I had to do was squeeze off a shot or two and the bad guy was down. That seems to be a bit of a cheat.
The player’s arsenal of three weapons carried at a time plus a melee attack are satisfying if a bit pedestrian. The assault rifle or any of the sub-machine gun type weapons ends up being the weapon of choice, as combat is usually too close to employ a sniper rifle and just a little too far to make max use of the occasional shotgun. You don’t get to exchange weapons on the fly either. If you want that AK-47 that the guy you just killed dropped, forget it. You get what the game decides to give you. Ammo collection can be a bit of a pain too. I spent about a minute going around and around a table trying to pick up two units of ammo that were sitting in plain sight on the table before I, in a fit of insanity, jumped on top of the table and collected the ammunition.
Shadow Ops: Red Mercury has the obligatory multiplayer functions, but they feel rushed. Four gamers can play in split screen mode, eight using system link. Modes include deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag and V.I.P. escort. Shadow Ops also offers some co-op missions via split-screen on a single console. On the plus side, the game does support online play via Xbox Live for up to eight players. On the minus side, the online play is poor. The graphics are really jumpy.
If there is a high point to the game it is the audio. Here the game really does shine. There is lots of chatter from enemies, good weapons effects, nice ambient noises and decent voice acting for the potboiler of a story. The music soundtrack isn’t half bad either.
