Mercenary OPS the new shooter from fledgling studio Epic Shanghai is a PC based FPS with some 3^rd person elements thrown in. Now to be honest I had not played a PC based shooter in going on 5-6 years and was not sure how well I was going to do let alone how long I was going to survive so I was as you can imagine apprehensive to say the least. After the brief tutorial level which teaches you all the basics I found myself moving along and pulling off some impressive moves much like back in the days of the original shooter on PC the controls functioned like I always remembered and what’s more is it felt like coming home after a long absence.

Within five minutes I was pulling off flips and side rolls like I had never left PC gaming at all and within 7 minutes I was pulling off some gnarly headshots and moving from cover to cover like a mercenary pro. Now a lot of people have already posted some preview elements of this game saying things like it’s a generic GOW clone and the like. Well the studio is a subsidiary of Epic Games so it makes sense that they would borrow elements from what is unarguably their most successful franchise in making a shooter. Plus if the sales are any indication GOW is much loved by gamers and if you are going to make a shooter wouldn’t you borrow from the best, besides why complain about getting more of what you love?

The fact is the game is fast, moves quick, and has a lot of elements of customization that gamers are going to love and while the version of the game I played was running on a high end PC I was assured by the people behind the game that the game is designed to run on low end PC’s as well. The reason behind this is the game was developed with China in mind and most gamers in china do not have high end PC’s and in fact have some very low end ones which in turn challenged the game development  team to make a graphically stunning game that can run on nearly any system. From a simple 300-400 dollar range laptop to the next best and biggest gaming rig you can possibly build, making this one of the most accessible shooters on the market.

The elements of customization include 7 customization slots for your weapon of choice, armor and player customization of look. Now my favorite part of the game that I played was the “Super Bullet” which is a special perk you get when you reload perfectly. The “Super Bullet” gives you a more powerful and devastating bullet and with a more powerful gun equipped means with certain weapons it becomes a one hit kill, which for someone like me who likes to play as a sniper leads to some devastating results on the field of battle.

When this game drops later this year I hope many of you give this game a look and even more than that give it a play for I expect big things from it, and with the hands on time I already had with it, I have no doubt my expectations will be met.