First-person shooters before the arrival of the masterpiece that is Halo, all followed a basic formula that mostly all games in the genre hardly strayed from.  Yet with time things tend to evolve and the genre evolved as well . . . and man have they evolved nicely.  Still, there are first-person shooters still sticking with tradition and Shadow Ops: Red Mercury is one of them.  Is there anything wrong with being traditional? Not at all, but can traditional still survive in a Halo-loving universe?  Let’s find out, shall we?

Shadow Ops plays like a surprisingly entertaining TNT cable channel action flick with its loud gunfire, explosions and high body count sans the blood.  You step into the role of Delta Force operative Frank Hayden who is handpicked by the CIA to track down an extremely dangerous weapon of mass destruction known as Red Mercury.  The trouble is that the weapon has fallen into the hands of a terrorist faction and since the United States is still very much in a war against terrorism, its up to Hayden and his squad to bring them down.  Yet this isn’t going to be easy since the Russians are also bent on reclaiming Red Mercury in the name of peace.  Can the Russians be trusted?  Is this a ploy that can only lead to a mean international conflict?

The game’s beginning is a pure adrenalin rush that brings to mind the Ridley Scott movie Black Hawk Down and this is where you get a feel of what this game has to offer.  It also manages to showcase the game’s noticeable glitches and its main imperfection, but we’ll get to that a little later.  For the most part, though, the game’s controls are easy to get into and you’ll find that Hayden can easily strafe, jump and toss grenades or roll them.  Armed with the military’s current firearms, you’ll be packing a limited arsenal.  You start out with three weapons through the majority of the missions, most of them your standard issue handgun, a combat knife, machine gun, sniper rifle and grenades.  This, of course, changes depending on the mission.

The missions themselves take you to different exotic locales, many of them nice and varied.  You’ll do a lot of the one-man-army thing, but there are missions that have you escorting, providing cover for your squad and demolition work (there’s a pesky tank that needs to be taken care of later).  Yet, for the most part, the game is pretty straightforward in its design and this is what holds it back considerably.  There are a number of scripted events that play out throughout the game to advance the story and while this is something first-person shooter fans are use to by now we are not use to it interfering horribly.  At one point I missed a window of opportunity to pass through an opening that was to be sealed shut.  The result of this act leaves you with no choice but to kill yourself.

My second biggest complaint comes from the enemy AI that is both keen marksmen but also the world’s dumbest terrorists.  Taking cover behind a wall, I took damage from two bad guys with handguns that have bullets that somehow can punch through a solid wall without making a single hole and hitting me anyway.  Then again, they also happen to love taking cover behind explosive barrels and charging into the fray leaves them baffled enough to loose track of you even if you just happened to run right past them.  They’re also not smart enough to run for cover when you toss a grenade at them so you’ll get to see plenty of bad guys getting blown across a room.

Okay, I can go on about how sometimes the game oddly flickers when there’s too many things happening at once or how sometimes your surroundings suddenly disappear to reveal wire frame instead of buildings.  These flaws are a nuisance and they do get in the way of the action, but this game doesn’t fail to be exciting and it doesn’t slow the shooting down a single bit even with the fact that there is no realistic violence.  Sure the game pushes you to follow the game’s basic formula but there are plenty of enemies to take on and playing sniper is real fun.

There are also a few multiplayer modes here and they’re presented in three different ways: using a single Xbox console, System link and online thanks to Xbox Live support.  Using a single Xbox allows you to play with up to four friends while System Link play offers up to eight (for this game, the more players you have the better).  Online, the game runs a bit unsteadily but it isn’t enough to keep you from having fun.  The problem is that the modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and V.I.P. Escort aren’t incredibly too entertaining.  They lack the multiplayer excitement found in games like Ghost Recon or Return to Castle Wolfenstein.  Still, I’m certainly glad they’re here for the offering.

Visually, Shadow Ops is not the most attractive first-person shooter and this is really too bad since there are great locales, plenty special effects and many characters on screen at once.  This is certainly very unfortunate since this game boasts the Only on Xbox logo and we all know the Xbox is capable of showing off a lot of graphical detail.  Still, the surroundings are still good and they don’t fail in making you feel like you’re in the most dangerous hot spots.  The character design is also not the best there is but at least its cool watching enemies get toss around after a grenade blow or watching them drape over a surface after getting killed is great.

If you have a good sound system hooked up then you’ll want to crank that baby up because this game features THX Dolby Surround Sound . . . and I’m not kidding you when I say that it will blow you away.  Let’s take the first mission as an example.  Once you’re feet touch ground, you’ll be assaulted by sound that seems to be coming from all around you and it’s enough to really disorient you just like a real combat situation.  You’ll hear machine gun fire and bullets pass you by as your comrades shout out to you through the explosions and angry terrorists yelling out in their own language.  The score, which is just wonderful throughout the entire game, just adds to the tension magnificently.  The voice acting, while not always great, works well enough in this game.  Overall, this is an amazing audible experience that deserves to be played loudly.

Shadow Ops: Red Mercury is a game with tons of action and all the right first-person shooter elements but sadly these things are all weakened by its flaws.  While the story is pretty interesting and the action is always intense enough to keep you playing till the very end, you’ll just end up thinking how really awesome this game could have been had the enemy AI and graphics been better.  There are also multiplayer modes with Xbox Live support so this might just be a really good weekend rental. 

Gameplay: 7.0
The controls make for a real smooth first-person shooter but this doesn’t save the game from its many glitches that have enemies pumping bullets into you through thick walls or the fact that your comrades hardly ever lend a helping hand when you need it most.  There also plenty of scripted events that are just too painfully obvious and thus taking away from the element of surprise that make first-person shooters like Rainbow Six 3 or Halo so much fun.

Graphics: 7.5
This might not be the prettiest game but it’s nicely detailed and it does the job right.  The many different environments fit the situation beautifully be it in the center of a terrorist-ridden city to the steamy jungles of the Congo.  There are also really impressive explosion effects and the gunfire looks pretty neat.  Where the game does fail to impress is the character models that just lack the detailed expressions or even decent mouth movement when they speak to you.  This is, though; a Teen rated game so the violence is of the bloodless kind.

Sound: 8.5
While the visuals fail to impress, its the game’s sound that make this a real treat to play--especially if you have a great sound system hooked up to your console.  We’re talking a wall of sound that seems to come from all around you.  The sound effects just seem more jarring and frightening and the explosions rattle the speakers.  Add a great score and you have a game that sounds like a major Hollywood action film.  Great job, indeed.

Difficulty: Medium
You’ll die a lot in this game.  In fact, you’ll die dozens of times in each mission and it often has nothing to do with the enemies.  Death will come if you miss certain scripted events that are used to advance the game and death will come if you so happen to depend on your comrades for support.  Kicking terrorist tail isn’t hard since many of them decide to take cover behind conveniently placed explosive barrels and there are often times when going for a full-on assault seems to confuse them to the point that they won’t be able to fully turn around to aim at you.  It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Concept: 7.0
The game feels like you’re playing an action movie and it really does a great job of attempting to immerse you into its story.  But the scripted events are things we’ve seen before in other games so there’s nothing really unique here.  The weapons are nice and varied, though, and being able to play the campaign missions with a friend in co-op mode is much appreciated.

Multiplayer: 8.0
Multiplayer modes, how I love thee.  There are a sufficient amount of them to chose from be it a four player match using a single Xbox console or an up to eight player game using System Link.  The best part is that it supports Xbox Live so you can play this one online.  The only problem is that the multiplayer modes are of the usual garden variety (with V.I.P. Escort being the only slightly unique one) but we’re still very grateful to have these options available to us.  I mean, who wouldn’t like a frag fest online or play through the campaign missions with a friend?

Overall: 7.5
Shadow Ops hardly ever strays from its basic first-person shooter blueprint and that’s what makes this a lackluster shooter, but the action is always of the pulse-pounding kind and that certainly counts for something.  Unfortunately there are a few glitches that stick out like a sore thumb and the multiplayer game is not as deep or as cool as it should have been.  Still, there is plenty of action and plenty of explosions to satisfy.  Make this one a weekend rental.