Hands On: Shadow Ops: Red Mercury
We get hands on with Atari’s upcoming military action game
Tags: Shadow Ops: Red Mercury Categories: PC Previews, Previews, Xbox Previews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Apr 12th, 2004
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Last week I was able to visit Zombie Studios and get a good amount of time with the upcoming Atari game Shadow Ops: Red Mercury. The game is being released worldwide on the Xbox and PC in June. The military-based first person shooter has become increasingly popular over the last few years, but a level of realism, intensity combined with a compelling storyline hasn’t quite found that perfect balance – but Shadow Ops: Red Mercury so far seems to be the first game to hit the mark.
The game has been in production for 2 years at Seattle-based Zombie Studios. The developer has done a lot of first person shooters (including multiple titles in the Spec Ops series), as well as other types of games, including Zork: Nemesis. Mark Long, CEO of Zombie was directly inspired by the film Black Hawk Down to deliver a videogame that was as compelling as a motion picture yet maintain the intensity of a military shooter.
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Shadow Ops: Red Mercury uses the Unreal engine, though heavily modified. As an official licensee of the engine, Zombie received code updates approximately every three months to ensure that the technology is state of the art. This of course doesn’t mean that the developers are content to sit on their laurels and let other do their coding. There is a great deal of modification, possibly most notable being the artificial intelligence.
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The game’s AI is almost completely rewritten to include multiple paths for enemies to follow, as well as certain way-points that will provide for several possible actions. While traveling across a bridge (heavily fortified, naturally) the player will encounter enemies ducking, weaving, and taking advantage of the various bits of cover. Which piece of cover isn’t necessarily pre-determined, nor is their action. They could sit patiently waiting for the player to throw a grenade in order to pick it up and toss it back. They could blindly fire their rifle over the cover, or cautiously peer around and try to go for a sniper style shot.
There is also what is being referred to “donut of death” which determines how enemies will react within a certain radius of the player. Approach too closely indoors, and the player my find themselves at the wrong end of a melee attack.
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Taking place in 5 different locations, players will hop around the globe trying to recover a small tactical nuke, nicknamed Red Mercury. The game starts out with a hot LZ and a helicopter going down into hostile territory. Players will immediately be thrown into the action as the surrounding area needs to be secured and fellow soldiers recovered. This, however is only window dressing for the story that’s already in progress.
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Shadow Ops: Red Mercury is one of the most intense games to come along in a long time – the action never seems to let up. There are peaks and valleys throughout the game, but after sampling a good portion of the levels (24 in all) it would appear that there isn’t much breathing room. The learning curve isn’t so much of a curve as it is a straight horizontal line, or a bar. Where players are likely to feel frustration is that the bar has been set rather high with this game. As each level loads, there are helpful tips or informational snippets that appear on-screen. Perhaps the most useful is “Fight aggressively – overwhelm the enemy with speed and violence” since that seems to be what Shadow Ops: Red Mercury does so well.
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The locations in the game include Chechnya, The Congo, Syria, Kazakhstan, and culminating in a major metropolitan area. What good is a briefcase sized tactical nuke if you can’t devastate a major world government by terrorizing the population? This is where the player comes in.
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The game was written in the same manner as most Hollywood style films, with a script and storyboards, as well as being able to work in the traditional “three acts” that seems to crop up in most stories. Don’t be surprised if the options get picked up (if they already haven’t).
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The graphics are decent at this point, with a massive amount of environmental effects. This is another of the ways that the developer has tweaked the Unreal engine, to generate items that appear to move (such as papers blowing in the wind, birds, flowing curtains) before the level loads, that way the hardware of the Xbox, and the software driving the game thinks of these items as stationary. This allows for more memory to be allocated in the game. More memory, more information. More information, more detail. More detail, better game.
Also aiding in making the game better (helping it be all that it can be) is the ex-Special Forces consultant that took the artists to a firing range. This allowed them to get a feel for not only how each weapons feels, is held, and fires, but also to develop a deeper understanding of the subtle differences between each weapon. When a gun kicks back, gets reloaded or even just being held, you can be sure that it’s about as realistic as it’s going to get in a videogame.
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The rest of the graphics are decent – though the character models aren’t as smooth as one would have liked. They are, however, not blocky and actually look human. The in-game engine is used for the cinematics in the game, helping to keep the player immersed. It always sucks to have the player pulled out of the story by different video qualities, and with a consistently good graphic level, there’s no need to go with pre-rendered scenes as it would serve as a distraction.
The usual Xbox tricks are employed for sound (Dolby 5.1, accurate recording of the in-game weapons, etc.) but taking them outside of the visuals does a massive disservice to the game. The jungle sounds just won’t do anything for you outside of The Congo. The tank actually sound old and worn out, but you just don’t get that unless you see the tank lumbering up the street.
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Adding in the auditory immersion is Inon Zur, the composer behind SOCOM II, Champions of Norrath, as well as numerous bits of music from the various Power Rangers series. Playing around in Syria, one feels as if the attacks could come at any moment, due largely to the intense score provided.
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The gameplay is what Shadow Ops: Red Mercury will be remembered for, however. It does take some getting used to, but the combination of ducking behind cover, peeking around, aiming and firing (each a separate command) is necessary to stay alive and accomplish each mission. There isn’t the need to issue commands to your fellow team mates, as this isn’t a squad based action game. There will be times when the player is in charge of a group of soldiers, but they will be controlled by the game’s AI.
There are also times when the player will be acting alone. One such time is while on a train and there are bombs that need to be diffused. Of course, there’s not going to be unattended bombs – players will have to not only find them but gain access to them. This level is also a great example of how the shotgun is great for close quarters combat, and grenades can be a hazard while in-between rail cars.
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The game’s globetrotting single player game is an intense story, but that’s not the end of it. There is also a co-op mode that has separate levels, outside of the main story. These are rather forboding, with names such as Position Unassailable, Confusion and Chaos, Noise of Thunder and Amid the Turmoil. Altogether there are 10 maps, and if your team mate dies, the level will have to be restarted.
There are also other multiplayer modes as well, both via LAN and Xbox LIVE (the co-op doesn’t appear to be available online, only split-screen). There are a number of locations, with each type of gameplay having access to different maps. The VIP Escort multiplayer maps are Syria Nights, Streets, and Subway. The Capture The Flag maps are Towers, Hotel, Compound, and South America. Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch have South America, Compound, Institution, Labs, Bridge, Factory, Hotel, Streets, and finally Subway.
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The Compound map is a snow covered area where the buildings are large with multiple entrances (and exits). The Subway has plenty of big rooms that are situated like a maze with multiple entrances and dead ends (along with plenty of nooks and crannies). A mixture of open and closed environments await players of the Hotel – an abandoned two story building with courtyards and corridors.
After going through both single and multiplayer for a while, my time with Shadow Ops: Red Mercury came to an end. The June release is just around the corner, so gamers won’t have long to wait to fully experience what I was able to get a taste of.
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There are extras planned for the game disc. Right now the “Making of” video presentation is being included, but the limitation (and final determination) will be disc space. Zombie and Atari are hoping to be able to include some of the story boards and concept art used in the making of Shadow Ops: Red Merucury.
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Tags: Shadow Ops: Red Mercury
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Apr 12th, 2004 and is filed under PC Previews, Previews, Xbox Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
