Really fun old school military FPS! Recommended if you played and enjoyed any of the following games:

-Red Faction
-Red Faction II
-Half-Life ('98)
-Killzone ('04)
-Halo CE
-GoldenEye (N64)
-Early Clancy Games (Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon)
-Gen. 6 Bond Games (Agent Under Fire, Nightfire, etc)
-Gen. 6 Medal of Honor Games (Frontline, Rising Sun, Allied Assault, European Assault, etc)
-Early Call of Duty Games (Finest Hour, Big Red One, United Offensive, etc)
-Old DOS Shooters

Will probably appeal to my generation (I'm 30) more than today's gamer, because this game embodies the type of shooters that we grew up with and includes none of today's modern conveniences/handicaps: There's no automatic health regeneration, no automatic ammo refill, and , as far as I can tell, no quicksaving. Instead, you'll have to pick up health packs, scavange dropped ammo from enemies, and complete missions to save your game and progress. Some of the missions can be somewhat challenging, and you never know if there'll be a mob of enemies, a tank, or an RPG around the next corner. The story is okay (so far), and it's complete with decent voice acting and fully animated cutscenes in between each misison.

Kids, if you want to know the kind of game we frittered away hours with before Modern Warfare, then buy this game! Fellas, if you want a trip down memory lane, then you owe it to yourself to buy this game!

LOVED this game when it came out. Good gunplay, the ability to lean while aimed down the sights, good difficulty, cool story about nukes... it all plays like a really intense episode of 24.

And the sound design: spectacular. Seriously, if you have a decent setup it will blow you away. Guns and explosions are deafening.

The million dollar question though, does it hold up after ten years? I sure as ♥♥♥♥ think so! I played a little bit of it and was worried that I might be looking through rose-tinted glasses, but I was proven wrong. This game is solid all the way around.

Downsides:
-Graphics, but c'mon, cut some slack.
-The FMV cutscenes are potato quality, like a Youtube video on a Comcast connection. Still does the job story-wise though.
-No real widescreen support out of the box. Check out this page for a fix: http://www.wsgf.org/dr/shadow-ops-red-mercury

In the end, for such a low price, you can't go wrong. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Overall a solid FPS game from 2004. Feels like an early COD modern warfare. It has some grand set pieces and stylistic cut scenes with not bad graphics for the time, feels like an action movie. The story is similar to battlefrield 3, you basically have to stop a rogue agent with a nuke (red Mercury). gameplay wise the guns feel heavy and combat is fast paced and fun. this game uses med packs instead of regenerating health. Also there are no checkpoints! each mission is broken down into a few levels, some are short, some aren't and if you die you restart the level. for the dirt cheap price it's worth a playthrough if you're a FPS fan.

To be honest i cant see why so many people recommend the game, though is supect heavy nostalgia goggles.
tl;dr : A decent although in many regards outdated shooter with very poor leveldesign

The good things:
Ammo is relatively limited, you get along but together with the limit of 3 bullet salves it discourages wild sustained spray fire.
The Gunplay is fine, even though its outdated. i liked the way leaning was combined with Aiming, even though it felt rather clunky. overall the firefights are Decent

The Problems:

The Teammates are basically useless, i've caugt my teammate waiting in front of a door while an enemy was shooting him without cover while standing mere 3 meters away. The teammate didnt even react.

The obvious, the game is old, and the enemy bahaviour patterns are outdated, enemies just run to their waypoints and fire on you, i've played on "Ranger" and enemies tend to have lightning reflexes and Pixel perfect aim combined with X-Ray vision.
in open firefights this is less of a problem but becomes very appearent in the "house combat" sections. This combined with unfair enemy placement causes a lot of unpreventable damage.
an example: you walk up stairs, a window 2 meters in front of you pops open and a guy starts firing at you, there is no cover or way to move to the side, so you have to take hits before you can kill him. Even though you start forseeing those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ enemy placements you still take hits due to aforementioned lightning reflexes and aim of the enemies.
This poor leveldesign and enemy placement ultimately made me quit this game, since it seems to be designed in a way to be as frustrating as possible

Conclusion:
if you can get over the leveldesign and AI that seems to be dedicated to be as annoying and frustrating as posssible, you will probably find some enjoyment in this game

A bit crunchy and a little rough around the edges but not a bad short story shooter game. Great stage design, fun challenges, a decent story, and some classic shooter action. The price seems on point for this little gem, give it a chance some time!

Set in (at the time of release) the modern day, Shadow Ops: Red Mercury is a pseudo-realistic shooter focusing on counter-terrorism and urban combat.

The story is nothing worth writing home about (terrorist gets hands on WMD and wants to use it), but the gameplay is what sets this one apart. Progress is saved after every mission: if you die on a level, you start again from the beginning (can be frustrating but encourages slower play and thinking ahead), and what is surely the best-implemented lean mechanic in any game: use it prodigiously and your life will become much better. Additionally, aim for the head if you want to succeed - you can get by with body shots, but it is markedly easier to drop your opponents with headshots.

There are some issues though: the game will not function correctly above 1920x1080 (it launches but rendering is broken), and the spawning system during campaign is quite possibly the worst I've ever seen - I frequently had enemies spawn right behind me; while in normal cases this isn't such an issue, it is a problem in a game where there are no checkpoints during missions, and it only takes a few shots to kill you.

While the graphics have not aged well, the gameplay mechanics (mostly) remain solid. Recommended for FPS fans looking for a more tactical experience.

Played on Windows 10 Pro x64 without any issues.

A tough, old-school shooter. The graphics are basic, but the firefights are intense. Runs really smooth, none of the horrible graphics lag you get with many modern games where eye candy has taken over from speedy gameplay.

you know hwt they say "old but gold" buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut it didnt age well :3

-graphicly you will be laughing at it , low texture resolution ; pixelated cinematics (300x300 or something like that lol ), rigid and limited animation, (even on ultra kinda look like the early games on ps 2 and xbox 1 ) but you cant blame it i mean the game is 11 year old
- the plot is really well done here , just like early COD games ,cinematic style
- great voice acting , perfect sound effects and enjoyable game music
- basic fps gameplay , but really hard to master, unlike COD there is no auto health regeneration and the enemies are quick deadly and sharphoter on medium and hard difficulty , if you die you will restart the level ( no checkpoints but good hing that the lvls are short) + there is some cheat codes to help
-Dead multi, empty servers all the time ( can't blame people for that, why play this game online when you can play cs go and cod ?!!)
-no bugs or glitches
- no cards and achievements
i recommend this game for people that want nostalgia and remember the good old days and i find the price reasonable but you can always get it on sales
7/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOBH8tJxq2g

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Shadow_Ops:_Red_Mercury - check here for fixing the FOV and to run the game on widscreen monitor

When the gaming world was still on a WW2 wave, one developer saw opportunity to take the action in modern days and Shadow Ops: Red Mercury was born. Well, this is what I think happen.

First I want to move out the obvious – graphics. They are bad. There isn't enough video options, but those that are present can't make the game look good. It doesn't matter if you set them on the highest available setting, it's still not a great looker. And the pop in is so obvious at some levels, it's so annoying. This maybe because it's a console port.

In the audio section you can find 4 different sliders. Music, effects, dialogs and voices. For some reason music is off by default, so crank that music to the max, because it's awesome. Also you can rebind keys and customize the HUD, which is a nice surprise.

You are Frank Hayden, an elite Delta Force operative, who is tasked sometimes with his team, sometimes alone, to recover a briefcase nuclear bomb from Vladimir Styanovich a.k.a. Vlady the Vicious, a terrorist mercenery. You will travel around the globe trying to stop him. The story is cheesy, cliché and you can see the twist from a long distance. But the action, music and great variety of places you visit are what can keep you interested.

Shadow Ops: Red Mercury is military FPS. It was made in 2003, before COD: MW. The game is not realistic, it have arcade feel, but make no mistake, this is not Quake. If you try to run and gun, death will come quickly. This game is tough, but fair to a certain degree. This is because of the AI. It is highly accurate. Sometimes enemies are cheaply placed and this annoyed me a lot. There is not enough time to react. You can take quite a few shots (even a rocket), but they may come so quickly and before you know it, you're dead. Because of the AI, there are a lot of tense firefights in and outdoor. You, as one man army will have to kill waves of enemies and it feels so good, when you beat a level, you overcome the odds. The game grabs you for the neck right from the first level. You are pin down by enemies and you have to get out of there fast. There is two more things that will keep the tension. The health is not regenerating, you have to find med packs and ammo is running fast. Enemies can sometimes drop both of them and they also can be found around the levels, but still you have to be careful and accurate in your shots. Some maybe frustraded by that and I was at some point. I had low health, ammo and only a pistol, but I manage to get through this and it was great feeling. Some of the frustration comes from the lack of checkpoints. The levels are not long, but combine with the all things I mentioned above, thing can get annoying. In the end who will pull the trigger first is what matters.

What was suprising to me is the AI of your fellow soldiers. When you are on a mission with them, they can actually kill enemies. But don't expect them to make more kills than you.

Weapons are pretty standard – pisols, sniper rifles, uzi, shotgun, machine gun, granade launcher and so on. They all have recoil and feel good. They kick, so shooting in short burst is recommended . Headshots, of course, are most effective.

Level design is nice. You will visit the jungles in Congo full with shacks and wooden watchtowers, hightech facility in Kazakhstan, streets in ruins in Syria, harbor in Chechnya, ride a train and so on. They are really diverce, but there is nothing suprising. This is not a open world, it's a corridor shooter, but still be on a lookout for hidden ammo or health packs. Sometimes it will the difference between restarting the level and beating it.

What keeps everything together is the soundtrack. It is phenomenal!!! It contribute for the atmosphere a lot. All levels have different theme and fits incredibly well with the pacing and the action on screen. In a snowy level, where is advise to use stealth, the music is calm, but if enemy see you, right at that moment the music picks up seamlessly and so on.

As a whole the sound design is nicely done. Effects are okay. Every gun sound what it supose to, explosion are bombastic, but granades are weak. The voice acting on the other hand is hit and miss. Hayden have gruff voice. It overdone, but it's still pleasant for the ears. But Vladimir Styanovich, if you can hear him, it's just bad. Other voice actor are just okay. They are doing their best with the cheesy writting

I have two more small problems with the game. The cutscene are rendered with the engine, but why they look worse than the in-game graphics is a mystery to me. The other is you can't use aim and move and this makes you easy target. It took me awhile to get use to it.

The game feels like it was inspired from of 90's summer blockbuster movies – tons of action, one man army, tense moments, the main character do imposible things and gets the girl in the end, even the cinematography of the cutscene (they are great) scream 90's. And don't think of the plot too much. If you do, you will find a tons of plot holes. The game is janky, rough around the edges, but the great firefights, amazing sountdrack, nice variety of levels and tension are worth overlooking the pop in, dated graphics, cheaply placed enemies, no checkpoints and the cliché story, although the plot in my opinion is working in favor of the game. And I think the price I right. The campaign will take you b 6-7 hours to beat it. The multyplayer is dead, so keep that in mind. The game have one small, but unique feature – except throwing granades, you can roll them. Despite the flaws, I recommend it.

Very fun! If you like far cry 1 or the old rainbow 6 games or socom or Golden Eye you will enjoy this game!
Pros
-The sound is extremely good. When i saw the thx logo at the beginning of the game i kinda laughed but it's very very good
- fun game play. Challenging at the higher difficulties.
- at 1080 or 1440p the game still looks pretty good considering it's age.
- level design is pretty cool.
Cons- none