That’s just the small stuff; my biggest gripe with Shadow Ops is that it bills itself as a realism-based first person along the lines of
Ghost Recon but actually plays more like a run-and-gun shooter like
Serious Sam. Players can take an excessive number of hits before they begin to keel over. Actually that seems to be the name of the game here; enemies consistently get the drop on you and ring off a few shots before you even know that they’re there. Luckily you take minimal damage from even the biggest of ambushes. In one sequence I took about 5 shots and the splash damage from an RPG. My health? A sparkling 76, not exactly what I would call realistic. The game even lacks the most basic fundamental core of realistic first person shooters; a fluctuating targeting reticule. It’s reasonable to assume that your character is an excellent marksman due to his high level of training, but the imagination can only go so far. To assume that he has perfect aim while jumping off the side of a building or sprinting in the middle of a gunfight is just absurd. In short the game seems dated, almost as if the designers were locked in a time chamber since the late 90s. Then there’s the fact that there’s no in-game save, a feature that seems to be a carryover from the console game, Not only can you not save in the midst of a mission, but there are no checkpoints as well. If you fall pretty to an ambush or haphazardly wander off a cliff, you can kiss that progress goodbye because you’ll have to start all over again. Frustrating doesn’t begin to describe how annoying this becomes.
It’s pretty easy to sum up Shadow Ops’ visuals in one statement: The weapon models are amazing, the rest of the game, not so amazing. In this PC port you’re receiving a rather straightforward port of the Xbox game with little adjustment or fanfare. The resolution can be bumped up but that further highlights the game’s visuals deficiencies. From the start you’ll be less than-impressed by the blocky architecture, poor special effects and weak texture work. This is horrific considering that first person shooters are on the forefront of graphics technology. While games like
DOOM 3 and
Half Life 2 are making headway by introducing new technology and showcase style visuals, Shadow Ops is bringing up the rear with a game that looks like it was made in 2002.
If there’s one area where Shadow Ops truly excels it’s in the audio. The price tag might say $19.99 but the sounds coming out of your speakers say otherwise. All of the sounds are superb and the audio separation comes through very clearly. To complement the gunfire and chaos is a heart thumping soundtrack that helps convey the situation. It goes for a sort of middle eastern chant that was prevalent all throughout movies like
Black Hawk Down and
Gladiator and it works really well here.
There’s a multiplayer facet, but judging by the amount of people who actually use it, you have to question its inclusion. As of review time we had trouble finding people online to play with, and when we lucky enough to find some stragglers, the experience was more frustrating than it should have been. That’s because it’s a cavalcade of errors; riddled with bugs, poor network code and flawed gameplay design.
If you’re looking for a decent shooter you’ve come to the right place. Atari and Zombie could have done much better given the promise seen in the first few levels, but the poor level design and weak AI kill the game before it can truly get off the ground. The price is definitely right but you can still do better for twenty bucks.
D
It starts out fast but fizzles even faster. Zombie had some pretty decent ideas but the archaic gameplay mechanisms and horrid multiplayer drag them down before they can get off the ground.
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