Shadow Force: Razor Unit

"Some interesting concepts and solid gunplay"

Shadow Force: Razor Unit is low on production values, but has a lot of well thought out design elements that result in some of the most satisfying tactical shooting a $10 budget can buy.

Story:
The story is neither coherent, or important, in Shadow Force. In some never-named-explicitly Middle Eastern country, some sort of government-supported terrorist force has been causing trouble. As part of an American special ops group called the Sioux Team, you must bring peace to this Middle Eastern area of conflict with the help of rebel forces in the area. The story is laughable at best, and comes from poorly written pre-mission briefings and terribly delivered dialogue on the behalf of your controlled character.
Score: 4/10

Graphics:
Shadow Force looks decent for a game of its time. It does have some nice explosions and decent lighting effects. The game does look kind of bland, though, because it's all set in a desert. There's a lot of wide, open and sandy areas, and a lot of boring, strung together rooms that serve as levels - there is no one level that particularly stands out; they just all feel like a cobbled together assortment of generic FPS areas. Character models are decently animated, if rendered in simplistic detail. There seems to be rudimentary ragdoll physics in place, so that's a nice addition.
Score: 6/10

Audio:
The audio in Shadow Force is more bad than good. The majority of the sound effects are well accomplished, but the music and voice acting are simply terrible. Every character that speaks has some sort of strange accent - I can't place it, but it's not an American one. The music is a forgettably generic rock track with some tones reminiscent of soundtracks from sword-and-sandal movies. One very noticeable effect is how gunshots will fade depending on the distance the bullets are fired over. This is a cool effect but it seems to have little consistency - fired at target next to me, my rifle is booming, but a few feet away it's nearly inaudible.
Score: 6/10

Gameplay:
Shadow Force is, first and foremost, a tactical shooter. You have your genre standards, such as crouching, leaning, being limited to a small inventory, realistic weapons recoil, leaning, etc. Shadow Force also advertises the ability for you to call in airstrikes in real time, although this is only used twice in the game, which kind of sucks since it's a really cool feature that I wish more games used. Each level basically devolves into shooting the hell out of anything that shoots you - even the levels that seem to be centered on stealth. One level tasks you with infiltrating a marketplace to meet your local contact. You're to be disguised in civilian clothing, and the mission briefing pretty much tells you that it is a clandestine operation, and no more than 30 seconds into the level are you busting out your AK-47 and gunning down terrorists. The action is great - each weapon has realistically modeled recoil, and there are a large variety of real world firearms to choose from, such as the M4, G36 and MP5-SD. Each weapon is fun to use, although you'll be using a small select few of them for most of the game. The artificial intelligence is nothing to write home about, although they do seem to be able to spot you when they shouldn't, and they won't notice anything is wrong as long as you're using a silenced weapon. The missions are mostly well designed, although spotting your objectives is more difficult than it should be since the game doesn't give you any hints at all beyond a small description in your objectives list. Additionally, the game is made artificially difficult by a stupidly useless map and the lack of a saving ability. The in-game map provided to you has important areas marked, but you cannot see your current position on the map, and with many of the levels being fairly large and non-linear, you'll probably spend a while wandering around. Not being able to save is also quite annoying. The bulk of this game is its singleplayer, which isn't without its flaws, but still quite fun. There's a multiplayer component, but nobody's playing it anyway.
Score: 7/10

Shadow Force: Razor Unit is not a bad game, and there are certainly much worse budget games out there. If you want a moderately satisfying shooter experience, then this is definitely a viable option.

Summary:
Pros:
+ Good shooting and tactical FPS mechanics
+ Decent graphics/sound effects
+ Has a multiplayer mode
Cons:
- Terrible story
- Voice acting/music not any better
- Braindead AI and lifeless level design
- No ability to save mid-level
- Multiplayer is empty

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/10/08

Game Release: Shadow Force: Razor Unit (US, 02/24/02)