Shadow Harvest: Phantom Ops

Just completed the game. I usually like playing through rough gems; but while this had one or two bright spots, there is so much wrong with it that those spots simply aren't worth picking through the trash. Don't brush the bad reviews aside because of their hyperbole, this one truly is a stinker. Standout Problems: An interesting story with a terrible ending Ugly visuals (I have to assume that they were going for the bleak look that Spec Ops actually achieved) Frustrating gameplay (pinpoint accurate enemies who fire on sight, few healthpacks, and long stealth sections with unclear objectives) Sound equalization issues (voices are too low, gunfire is too loud)

Good game. Should be rated at least 60 easily. Definitely not 34. Not an AAA grade title, so don't expect CoD and you'll enjoy it. Single player only. No achievements. Good story and ending. Voice acting is good but lip synch not so much. Graphics are good once you switch OFF Bloom and Ambient Occlusion. Controls are fine. So why all the rabid nonsensical reviews? Well, the game makes a very revealing and unfriendly observation on the real world US involvement in global terrorism as its ending, which I guess explains most of the smear campaign leveled against it by the establishment controlled mainstream reviewers and army of social media manipulation commenting staff. It is telling that all the major review sites harshly pan this game while almost all the minor lesser known sites are fair to favourable. The real score for this game should be 6/10, and in my personal opinion 7/10. To sum up, I would say worth 20$, and definitely a must have on sale for 5$ or less.

In spite of the mostly negative reviews, and low metacritic scores, I bought this based on a handful of positive comments. I went in with low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised. While this is not a AAA title, it is nevertheless a good game. The low budget does show sometimes (copy paste environments, and typos in the subtitles), but it also does many things right. There are some interesting gameplay mechanics and it does a very good job of changing the pace up. Sound design (especially explosions) is solid, and the gunplay is also quite good. I also had some graphical problems at the beginning, with my framerate jumping between 30 and 60 (and this on a 4790K and GTX 970), but after some tweaking in nVidia's Control Panel, it sat at 60 all the way through. This was on Windows 10 Pro x64. Definitely worth a buy on sale.

I have to start by saying that one can't expect Shadow Harvest: Phantom Ops to be on par with AAA developer games. SHPO is an ambitious game developed by a very small studio. It's not a horrible game as other reviews might make it seem, but it could probably have been so much better if the developers had more resources. The game has a lot of potential, and could have been a hit if not for its failings. It's challenging and entertaining at times, and has a decent albeit somewhat unrealistic storyline. I would recommend this game only if you're willing to understand that there are flaws. Some of these flaws are just personal nitpicking, but I'd say the other flaws are fundamental issues. A perfect example of the latter would be the enemy AI's uncanny ability to detect and shoot you from seemingly out of nowhere. Another example is that even though I enjoyed the stealth missions, I could not successfully complete the later missions without cheating. Perhaps a more skilled gamer may have done better than me, but I was too frustrated by that point. Here's a breakdown of some of the points that stood out: Not Bad - story - stealth missions - co-op play - character models - weapons/technology - menu interface - sound/music Not Good - virtually all enemies (Somalis, Cubans) look/sound like American soldiers - inaccurate details in the aesthetics of certain levels - audio & video glitches - random slow load times - cannot adjust gamma levels - cannot adjust sound vs music levels - not enough ammo/health/etc in certain levels - certain levels designed with unnecessary and useless rooms/dead-ends - cannot skip cinematics The bottom line is that I would generously rate this game about 65%. It enaged me enough to want to complete it, and I was content when it was all over. I bought the retail version of the game as part of the Action Strategy 4 Pack (Stalker Call of Pripyat, Storm Frontline Nation, Grand Ages Rome, Shadow Harvest) for $5, so if you can make a stand-alone purchase of Shadow Harvest for a low price then I'd say take a chance and try it.

Shadow Harvest: Phantom Ops is your typical first-person modern shooter game. The gist of the game is you work for the United States Army and you have your enemies that are fringe organisations. You, the player, play as both Cpt. Myra Lee and Cpt. Aron Alvarez and switch between them in the later stages of the game, but mainly switch between both in solo missions. Well let's get straight to it. The game isn't very good. This game isn't an AAA game, but not being AAA does not mean you can't have good games. It does have its positives in a above-average storyline that covers a wide variety of settings. I will admit that due to how bad the game is performence and gameplay-wise, I did not finish the campaign. However, I finished about four hours of the campaign, with How Long To Beat.com noting the length of the campaign is seven hours. Again, the campaign isn't that bad. I will note that I had not played this game in many months and coming back to this game, I remembered why I never finished this. The main issue is the UI and graphics, performance and the gameplay. To begin, I don't find the gameplay to be appealing. The default control layout is odd to a normal typical first person shooter, but regardless I don't like how the mechanics work. The mechanics include running into cover to go into the cover system, which is annoying, the AI is odd, and the choice of weapons in the game is poor. Also, the graphics are bad for a 2011 game. The performence is very poor. With my specs listed on my profile, I can't get a stable 60FPS with max settings on this game, which is appalling. So mainly, the graphics, performance and gameplay was a major turn-off for I. The game has its fair share of glitches too. Overall, I'll be blunt, I do not recommend this game. The gameplay is poor, the graphics are bad, the game is unoptimised, but the story is above-average. If you do wish to get the game, get it at a very steep discount, otherwise do not bother as their are other great games worth your time. 2/10 ---- Thanks for reading my review! If you like my reviews and care to read more, feel free to join Antwog's Analysis (Reviews). http://steamcommunity.com/groups/AntwogReviews If you have questions comment below or post in Antwog's Analysis (Reviews) general discussion page. If you liked it, give it a rating.

For one thing the bloom is out of control, for another there is no real AA and tons of pop-in. Past that the models, textures and general design is bland and simplistic. It's absolutely laughable the game looks like it does. Moving past graphics we have the gameplay itself. In Shadow Harvest you play a typical army macho man for third-person cover-based shooting sections and a Catwoman-style stealth chick for sneaky missions (either or, at your discretion). The shooting segments are very rough and unpolished, not only because the abysmal framerate makes aiming hard but also because the cover-system is all about walking up to walls and having it put you into cover automatically. As any first year programming student could probably tell you, this leads to the aggravating effect of you accidentally sticking to every wall or piece of environment you walk near. The shooting is also hampered by the fact that when in cover you need to hold a direction key to peek out, then also hold RMB to aim, making cover a three-step process instead of two, which is just bad design. The action is simple (shoot dudes! flank dudes! shoot barrels!) and there are glitches abound like floating weapons and checkpoints which don't update. On the stealth side the game is a little better but still not good at all. Stealth is mostly helped by not having to aim as much and the slower pace, but the game still has the same problems. Dark areas are too dark, making moving around sometimes a hassle. The levels are mostly designed to work for stealth or shooting, making it lack a real polished design for one kind of gameplay. The crossbow is not satisfying to use and you have no other ranged weapons. On top of graphics and gameplay issues the game is just very poorly presented. The cutscenes are boring, nothing happens in them. Voice acting is some of the worst I have ever heard in a game, much worse than German or Russian games I have played that got quick conversions to English like STALKER or Risen. There is a guy that is supposed to be African in the very first level who literally sounds like a drunken frat boy making fun of Africans more than an authentic African. The game also suffers from a lot of console influences, despite being a PC exclusive. Checkpoint saves, cumbersome menus, the massive bloom I mentioned earlier, limited weapon capacity and more. It just screams amateur hour all through the game.

Relativ kompliziertes Spiel, das nicht gerade die beste Grafik vorweist, aber dennoch sehr interessant, wenn man sich von der Herausforderung kitzeln lässt. Zugegeben, ich habe mir deutlich mehr von dem Spiel versprochen und bin bisher in gewisser Weise enttäuscht worden. Von den Schiesseinlagen ist das Spiel anfangs garnicht verkehrt, aber in einigen Bereichen wird dem Spieler nicht sofort klar, wie er zu handeln hat um das erste grössere Problem zu lösen. Mit der zweiten, spielbaren Person wird es leider nicht besser, da Tipps und Vorschläge gegeben werden, die so nicht durchführbar sind. Man soll sich also mit der Frau (die zweite spielbare Person) sinnvollerweise nur vorwärts, aber nicht seitlich bewegen, damit man vom Gegner nicht gesehen wird. Soweit logisch, aber wenn ich gleich zu Anfang hinter einer Kiste stehe/sitze, kann ich mich nur seitlich rechts bewegen und werde zwangsläufig gesehen. Das ist zwar nicht schlimm, wenn man anschliessend ein paar Sekunden still und ruhig hinter der nächsten Kiste verweilt, verliert der "Wachmann" das Interesse und "vergisst" einen, bis man sich weiter bewegen muss. Insofern ist die zweite, spielbare Passage nicht weiter schwierig, nur kompliziert dargestellt, zumal irgendwo auch die schlüssige Kombination eines lautlosen Nahkampfangriffs fehlt, wenn man ja schon im stillen agieren soll.... Wenn das Spiel im Angebot ist, macht man sicher keinen Fehler, dieses Spiel zu kaufen, aber einen Vollpreis von 19,99 € halte ich leider für zu teuer. Dafür ist die Grafik zu schlecht und das Spielpprinzip zu aufwändig, wobei es mir in der Seele wehtut, diese Rezession zu verfassen. Ich finde es toll, wenn kleine Entwickerstudios solche Schritte wagen und ein Spiel programmieren, was genau meine Genre betrifft, aber um so mehr tut es mir dann leid, wenn sie, die Entwickler, es leider völlig versemmeln. Für alle also, die wirklich eine Herausforderung suchen, den sei das Spiel, wenn es im Angebot ist, wärmstens empfohlen

I don't understand why so many negative reviews. I didn't have any problem with the game and I liked it. It isn't one of the best games but It's good. Sometimes, there are some small bugs but It is playable. 6/10 Good

I generally don't like making bad reviews. I like to go into a game and try and take something from it to convince myself it was worth someone's time to make the game, and for people to play it and judge it fairly. But I can honestly say there is nothing worth harvesting from this 'game'. Firstly, this game struggles to decide on its identity on what it tries to be. It's like the director looked at a handful of some of the popular titles at the time (Modern Warfare, Splinter Cell, Army of Two) and tried to combine all of them into one game whilst stripping the 'inspirations' of their magic that made them fun. From visuals and sound to gameplay and story, it will let you down at every turn and you can easily sense that in the first five minutes of playing. The graphics are nothing to write home about, but the biggest offender is its lighting and bloom. Luckily the game is short otherwise prepare for some intense cataracts. There are 3 different locations in the game: Somalia, Cuba and Dubai; You wouldn't know this if the game didn't say since they basically just 'copy and paste' the enemies and buildings in each map, you go through the street and it feels like you are in Scooby Doo running through a hall passing the same stuff over and over (If you could run in this game). The game is not just a strain on the eyes, oh no, your ears also get the equal amount of joy. The sound department is on a very low budget, (atleast I hope that was the reason) music, voice acting and sounds are all bland and uninspired and on different volumes from one another. You notice this in the first 2 minutes of playing; Your driver is giving you a mission briefing then suddenly your ears are violated with the deafening sounds of helicopters flying past, all the while your driver is still using his indoor voice. Not that the briefing is worth hearing, the voice acting and writing are quite bad which makes you completely detatched towards these empty husks of characters. You don't root for them or want to help them in their cause, storywise it's quite uninteresting with no originality and just seems tacked on at the last minute. I mean, the male protagonist is called Aaron, did they just pick the very first name that came up in the book of babyboy names? For the female protagonist, she seems mainly to be there for the devs to play Barbie, dressing her up or getting her in her undies to do a stripper dance to put a tracking device on some warlord (For real, there is a quicktime event to do a sexy dance for him, and if you fail he shoots you. which seems the most reasonable response if you ask me) They also try and give the game an 'open ending' in hope for a sequel. Fat chance. The sound effects also give no chance for players to feel immersed, even all the guns sound like they are made with plastic, each time I have to reload it sounds like I am fondling Buzz Lightyear. The A.I. are also super clunky, especially for the stealth sections, The Elder Scrolls A.I. with "It must of been the wind..." has got nothing compared to these guys. The gameplay has as much fun as using Piranha's to give yourself a Brazilian wax. It has a myriad of problems too numerous and painful to justify buying, from performance issues, save/load checkpoints, health and ammo and a useless bullet-time mode which was not introduced or knew about until 3 hours into the game when missclicking during a fight and so...so much more...*sniff*...so much... Overall, unless you are some Youtuber/streamer who likes torturing yourself with terribly bad games, then you could probably milk a few vids out of this game. The game does not even deserve a review of this length, only as a warning to others to not waste money on this product. At the time of writing this review the game is 90% off at £0.69 and I still do not believe it is worth getting...unless you want to buy a few copies to gift to people you don't like.

13 something years later, I still remember wasting $40 on this game.