Video Gaming News - June 2004

Los Angeles, CA (June 16, 2004) - Atari today announced that it has shipped Shadow Ops: Red Mercury for the Xbox

From Atari:

Shadow Ops: Red Mercury offers players a gripping movie-style experience through its unprecedented Hollywood production values, intense action and ground-breaking sound and visual effects.

“Gamers will feel like they are saving the world in the latest big-budget blockbuster action film from the first moment their combat boots hit the ground in Shadow Ops: Red Mercury,” said Wim Stocks, Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Atari. “With industry-leading sound effects that include THX™ Game Certification for the best audio and visuals, intense action from start to finish and an amazing storyline, the experience of playing this game is more like sitting in a top-end theater than sitting at home. Shadow Ops: Red Mercury completely immerses gamers in the cinematic feel and gripping Hollywood-style action of the game.”

In the game, the player fills the battle-ready combat boots of Frank Hayden, a special forces operative hand-picked to track down and destroy the stolen 'Red Mercury,' a secret substance of unspeakable power that threatens the world with nuclear annihilation. The player will face off against blood-thirsty terrorists, renegade military forces and highly trained enemy special forces in a last ditch desperation mission to prevent the ultimate terror from reaching the world's greatest cities.

Developer Zombie, Inc. partnered with AAA Hollywood talent for sound effects, script writing and music to make Shadow Ops: Red Mercury the most cinematic action game ever created, essentially blurring the line between Hollywood summer blockbuster films and interactive entertainment.

The game's groundbreaking features include:
-- More than 25 hard-hitting single-player missions that span the globe across heat-scorched villages in the Middle East, bombed out cities in Chechnya, lush jungle guerrilla encampments in Congo and frozen vistas and secret underground military installations in Kazakhstan
-- Hyper-intense split-screen cooperative mode through 10 unique missions designed specifically for tag-team play
-- Xbox Live! and System Link competitive multiplayer modes that include Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Escort the V.I.P. for up to eight players
-- Immersive directional sound for ultra-realistic combat situations created by Soundelux, the Academy Award-winning sound studio best known for its work on films such as 'Kill Bill,' 'Gladiator' and 'Black Hawk Down'
-- An all-original score created by Inon Zur, a renowned composer of award-winning music for film, video games and television, that includes more than an hour of sweeping interactive music that reacts to the player's actions and changes for each location.
-- All music for the game was recorded by the Northwest Symphonia, providing for a powerful performance and a more compelling audio experience.
-- The game has earned the coveted THX® Game Certification, indicative of the immersive and compelling audio experience usually heard only in blockbuster Hollywood films.
-- Writers Tag Mendillo and Ric Roman Waugh, renowned for work in films and video games, wrote the entire script for the game, including all in game cut-scenes and cinematics
-- Developer Zombie, Inc. traveled the world researching locations for the game's levels, taking thousands of digital photos to create ultra-realistic textures for game locations like the Congo, Kazakhstan, Syria, Chechnya and more
-- Zombie, Inc. met with military consultants, including former special forces members, to create realistic character motion and military movements in the game; special forces members also provided motion capture animation for the game's cinematics.
-- More than 30 minutes of movie-like cinematics were created by Attitude Studios; cinematics were storyboarded and shot like a Hollywood film, using dramatic angles and sweeping shots to further immerse the player in the interactive blockbuster experience.
-- Shadow Ops: Red Mercury uses Epic Games' industry-leading Unreal® Engine to accurately recreate the realistic and gritty look of the game's many locations; the engine's power provides for eye-popping visuals, highly realistic textures, dramatic special effects and blistering multiplayer action.
Shadow Ops: Red Mercury is available this week worldwide with an estimated retail cost of $49.95 and an ESRB rating of ‘T’ for Teen. For more information on Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, please visit the game’s official Web site at www.shadowopsgame.com.

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