First Impressions – Mercenary Ops

Shooters these days are the bread and butter of the gaming industry.  From Call of Duty to Battlefield, Halo to Uncharted, and everything in between, the gaming industry is dominated by the first or third person shooter.  However, it’s becoming increasingly rare to find a shooter that is: A) exclusive to the PC; and B) a new property.  So when I hear about a new property coming out exclusively for the PC, my interest is instantly piqued.

Bay Area game publisher Kalends Publishing and Chinese developer Yingpei Games (formerly Epic Games China) is doing just that with Mercenary Ops, a third person shooter that they promise will combine “the best of the tactical gameplay elements from conventional third-person shooters with the fast-paced competitive and cooperative team matches found in online multiplayer titles – and adds to the mix a deeper layer of character development and customization”.

Interesting.

Kalends Publishing recently sent out some screenshots and a teaser trailer for Mercenary Ops, and I have to admit that from the minute and seven seconds of footage that they give us, I am definitely intrigued.  The graphics, for one, appear to be quite spectacular (as they should be having been built on the Unreal 3 Engine), and it shows everything I like to see in a third person shooter.  There is a cover system which has become highly prominent in 3PS’s these days, however, the environment in the game is also promised to be destructible.  The game also sports an active reload system, an encumbrance system (stuff weighs you down), and active reload.

The story from what the trailer teases is about a mercenary making their way in a world where (yeah, I couldn’t avoid that one) corporations have become more powerful than governments, and killing for profit has become a full-blown industry.  It sounds like it takes a page out of Metal Gear Solid 4, but depending on where they run with it, it could be quite entertaining.

And for the online player, there looks to be plenty of carnage to go around with both competitive and co-op missions available.  Competitive multiplayer promises to yield 16 players in five different game modes, while co-op sports up to eight in a horde mode style of gameplay.

Overall, Mercenary Ops looks enticing to say the least; however, I’d like to see more gameplay before I really make up my mind.  It’s good to see new faces in the sea of repeat intellectual properties showing off their wares, with so many new releases that they’re starting to look like fifty miles of bad road that decided to buy a new dress.  Kalends and Yingpei have a promising opportunity, and we’ll be watching them very closely.