By Craig Pearson on March 7th, 2012 at 12:42 pm.
It’s not like Gears of War developer Epic Games to do anything quietly: they’ve announced games by chainsawing their way onto stage. But there’s a lack of fireworks and farming equipment in the unveiling of Mercenary Ops, a new third-person shooter coming out in Summer exclusively on the PC. There’s not even a balloon. It’s a Gears of War-ish cover-based shooter made by Epic Games China, with the teams apparently fighting for control Lowallistan on the Duckandshoot Peninsula, in the world of Crouchtopia. Thirty seconds of trailer is below.
Yeah, I made those names up, but there’s nothing else to go on so far. Like I said: quiet. It kind of reeks of free-to-play to me, but that’s just me turning the handle on the speculation klaxon, filling the silence with the unpleasant screech of assumption.
07/03/2012 at 12:47 RiptoR says:
Must be hot in Crouchtopia, by the looks of that outfit the girl-merc is wearing…
07/03/2012 at 12:48 Matt says:
That’s standard-issue for all China-based PMCs, actually.
07/03/2012 at 12:49 c-Row says:
*obligatory Crotchtopia joke*
07/03/2012 at 12:53 Hoaxfish says:
Crouching Behindwall Hidden Shooter
07/03/2012 at 13:42 vodka and cookies says:
Crikey that is one of the worst cases of boob armour yet, it’s not even armour! what where they thinking, have anyone from Epic USA even looked at the game.
07/03/2012 at 13:58 Resonance says:
‘have anyone from Epic USA even looked at the game.’
What would be the point in creating a team on the other side of the world to develop games for a specific culture if you’re just going to look at it from your own perspective and demand changes?
07/03/2012 at 14:03 Apples says:
I’m not sure why you think a USA team would demand actual armour for the female characters instead of a bra. It’s not as if American game companies are known for being progressive feminists or anything. Probably they would just want the boobs to be bigger if anything.
07/03/2012 at 14:19 westyfield says:
She’s pretty much identically dressed to that girl from MGS. You know, the one with the revealing armour.
07/03/2012 at 14:53 Maltose says:
Wait, which one?
07/03/2012 at 19:57 Ezhar says:
Kevlar implants. By Jean-Claude Mas.
07/03/2012 at 12:47 Matt says:
Presumably you will engage in some sort of operations with some non-governmental types.
07/03/2012 at 12:48 ThTa says:
It seems the woman near the end is motivated by her search for a properly functioning zipper. I look forward to this engaging drama.
07/03/2012 at 12:49 Khemm says:
Well said Craig, “sort of returns”, couldn’t have said it better myself.
Honestly, would Cliffy B really feel angry if we got Gears of War 2 and 3 instead of this generic looking, Gears of Warish Gears substitute thing?
Why does that remind me of Basil’s “veal substitute” talk from Fawlty Towers?…
07/03/2012 at 12:54 ThTa says:
Do we even want Gears of War 2 and 3?
I don’t remember being all that entertained by 1, and what short bits I played of the others on ecksbawks weren’t really all that great, either. (Though they may have been hampered by being restricted to such a clunky and sluggish input device when it’s already got clunky and sluggish gameplay)
07/03/2012 at 13:07 Khemm says:
@ThTa
I wouldn’t say “no” and I’d much rather Epic ported those than give us this “gearish” thing.
Gears 1 I really enjoyed in short doses, it was a bit repetitive, but that issue was fixed in the sequels, which were more varied and thus arguably more fun.
Also, it was a terrible move to release the first entry in the series and later show everyone who bought it the middle finger.
With digital distribution providing higher profit margins, it would be profitable venture for Epic. Same for Shadow Complex, Super Meat Boy outsold its xbox counterpart, I have no reason to believe SC wouldn’t perform equally well.
07/03/2012 at 13:56 Resonance says:
Given the Gears franchise is [likely] owned by Microsoft and is one of their dwindling exclusive titles I doubt they’d let Epic port it to PC if they wanted.
07/03/2012 at 14:53 Khemm says:
@Resonance
Just like Remedy owns the rights to Alan Wake, so does Epic own the rights to Gears of War.
08/03/2012 at 12:38 paterah says:
Again Khemm, the situation with Remedy and Epic is completely different. Microsoft have a deal with Epic to release the Gears franchise only on Xbox.
07/03/2012 at 12:50 Juan Carlo says:
Wrong thread.
(edit)
07/03/2012 at 12:58 PC-GAMER-4LIFE says:
Looks like utter garbage. Blacklight Retribution in DX11 no less looks way better why do Epic bother with PC anymore most of their stuff is junk. Bulletstorm & Gears Of War1 were both ported to PC by People Can Fly so Epic have not done anything on PC since the last Unreal years ago!!
07/03/2012 at 13:51 Resonance says:
Well they do offer UDK to indie devs…
They don’t see the PC as a viable platform I guess, fair enough to them – it’s their loss. This is ultimately a free game, and has to run on a wide variety of machines. I don’t really see the graphics comparison though, given the only trailers I’ve seen for Blacklight involve a tremendous amount of…well Black. At least this trailer offered some environmental variety.
07/03/2012 at 12:59 Serge says:
INB4 no one buys this hentai manshooter and EPIC blames piracy.
07/03/2012 at 13:02 Hoaxfish says:
pretty sure hentai is from Japan
07/03/2012 at 13:30 Post-Internet Syndrome says:
ORISIT
07/03/2012 at 13:00 subedii says:
Since it’s a Chinese development studio, I’m going to go ahead and guess that this will probably be a free-to-play microtransaction based shooter.
Plus side: Well, they can’t blame piracy anymore if it flops right?
07/03/2012 at 13:06 Nallen says:
My favourite type of perfume is ‘Stunning’ by Katie Price.
07/03/2012 at 13:06 Milky1985 says:
So they have gone from the homoerotica and bro love of gears of war to this game, a game with girls wearing very unbattle suitable stuff!
07/03/2012 at 13:08 Diogo Ribeiro says:
I’m still waiting for a Supermarket Ops, where you’re part of a top tier consumer unit. Have you seen people trying to reach the day’s bargain in chicken and salads? They’re not human. At times like that I always imagine I’m in a shooter, taking cover from aggressive cashiers, ambushing people with explosive produce, and my favorite, the drive-by trolley sequence.
07/03/2012 at 13:11 subedii says:
Sounds like a concept Doublefine could work with.
07/03/2012 at 13:26 PoulWrist says:
Looks too asian.
08/03/2012 at 03:19 Dances to Podcasts says:
The internet needs a sarcasm font.
07/03/2012 at 13:37 pupsikaso says:
The very concept of this game sounds terrible. Maybe on a console it would do well, but PC gamers aren’t gonna like it. The game will fail, and Epic will triumphantly declare that PC game is dead or overfilled with pirates or whatever and finally brush off their hands of it.
I want to be really pissed at them for this, but you know what? I think good riddance. Epic has done no good games since 2004. Let them keep making crappy games for consoles, why should I care?
Now if they decide to stop making game engines for PC? Well… they surely wouldn’t be THAT stupid.
07/03/2012 at 13:48 Apples says:
This is like a joke about generic video games. Who could possibly have pitched this or worked on this with any genuine excitement? People in armour (or a bra if they’re a woman, of course) shooting things in a grey-ish setting full of low walls? With the most generic title possible? Why is this being made arghhhh
07/03/2012 at 14:10 IshtarGate says:
Going by the dev’s site, this looks like an all-Chinese game, Epic owning the studio notwithstanding. The studio doesn’t even brand itself Epic Games China anymore, it’s Yingpei Games.
07/03/2012 at 14:12 hosndosn says:
F2P for sure. I’m starting to find a pattern in F2P games. Hard to describe without spending several paragraphs, but basically, there’s always “a catch.” A catch that makes them worse than games purchased in full.
07/03/2012 at 14:16 felisc says:
Yes.
07/03/2012 at 15:13 Cryptoshrimp says:
Goddamit, give women some proper armour or just sod off. How old do they think I am? Thirteen?
07/03/2012 at 16:10 Beelzebud says:
That looks Epic!
And of course by “epic”, I mean it looks bland, derivative, and totally uninspired.
07/03/2012 at 17:34 liquidsoap89 says:
In the future, there can be only SANDBAGS!
07/03/2012 at 17:41 linzhann says:
http://15.cc/3zal8
07/03/2012 at 18:03 jiuti says:
http://url7.me/c6i4
07/03/2012 at 20:08 Lars Westergren says:
>It’s a Gears of War-ish cover-based shooter made by Epic Games China, with the teams apparently fighting for control Lowallistan on the Duckandshoot Peninsula, in the world of Crouchtopia.
I have never been less sold on a game.
07/03/2012 at 20:36 Gandaug says:
They’re going to make a shit game as a PC exclusive and then use that as an excuse to not put their better titles on PC.
07/03/2012 at 22:56 alundra says:
Leaving the quality of the actual game aside, anybody knows if this based off the upcoming unreal engine 4??
If so, this could be an actual advancement for the PC platform…and the last one until the next generation of consoles expires ;-)
08/03/2012 at 00:51 Desmolas says:
Hrm…I find Craig’s news writing style so tedious. Maybe im just stupid, but i need to read the stretched metaphors twice before i can understand the summary. It’s like, “Get to the point already!” I’ll just skip the fluff writing and watch the vids I think.
Your reviews are always good Craig. Why cant you just do that but…you know…for news. News reviews.