Shadow Ops: Red Mercury

Yes boys and girls, it's true. Yet another military themed FPS for the Xbox is attempting to carve a niche for itself. Is it another Rainbow Six 3, or a Soldier Of Fortune lackey?

Well, I must be honest; it's not even on that scaleЕ.

Basically, Shadow Ops has you running through typical environments (the Middle East, Europe, etc.) killing typical enemies, with typical guns. It's a lot like McDonalds: it can be satisfying for the moment, but you couldn't call it gourmet food by any stretch of the imagination.

Frank Hayden leads his team of Special Forces soldiers through numerous campaign missions, searching for the weapon code named Red Mercury. Generally, this is simply an excuse for plowing through waves of enemy grunts who pop up like targets in a shooting gallery. Occasionally you'll see a few flashes of decent enemy AI, but for the most part, it's arcade action shooting over any kind of finesse or strategy, and that definitely hurts the fun factor in Red Mercury.

You'll find the controls follow the standard console FPS configuration: right stick to look, left to move. The right trigger fires your currently equipped weapon, while the left puts you into a lean so you can peek out from behind cover. You'll be able to crouch, perform a melee attack, and toss grenades. You can also use breaching charges, but these are rigid and scripted, so there's really no player based decision in using them. All of this is pretty basic, and while the character control is decent, it's definitely nothing to write home about.

As the team leader, you'll have squadmates fighting alongside you. However, this is not always a blessing, as the AI routines are pretty dumb, and you'll frequently find your idiot soldiers blocking a doorway, or some other objective you need to get to. The voice acting sounds bland as well, as if the soldiers aren't very excited about the task at hand (either that, or they're screaming their damn fool heads off). The sounds of explosions, mortars, and small arms fire are well represented though, so at least they got that right.

The missions are boring, repetitive, shooting gallery type lameness, where blithering terrorists either camp from the high point, or rush your position like maniacs. There's absolutely no strategy, except to duck and cover, then return fire and hope you kill the enemy before they nail you. And nail you they will. The AI is brutal on even the normal difficulty, and can dish out a huge amount of damage. You can pick up ammo packs and health from downed foes, and you'll need them, since cheap shots will constantly nail you, long before you can see where the fire's coming from. Add to this the fact that you must start failed missions from the beginning, and endure horrendous load times, and the game becomes an exercise in frustration. Seriously, who wants to play crap like this when far superior titles like Rainbow Six 3 or Black Arrow are available?

Technically, the game is not very sound either. Dated graphics, with poor character models and more clipping issues than the local barber, seriously hamper any kind of immersion, and the music is just more of the same: clichщd and boring. I also encountered a bug in my review copy which had the sound dropping out for a second or two every few minutes. Inexcusable.

The multiplayer is just as basic and lacking as the rest of the game. In a word: it blows. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, CTF, and a piss poor excuse for a game mode called VIP Escort. These are just as weak in execution as the rest of this dismal snooze-fest, and offers nothing special in the way of the new Live 3.0 features. Wait for Black Arrow and Halo 2.