ATARI SHIPS SHADOW OPS: RED
MERCURY FOR PC Hollywood Blockbuster-Style First-Person Action Game Now
Available At Retail Stores Worldwide
LOS ANGELES – Sept. 23, 2004 – Atari
has shipped Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, a cinematic military first-person shooter,
to retail stores this week for personal computer on DVD. Shadow Ops: Red Mercury
offers players a gripping movie-style gaming experience through its
unprecedented Hollywood production values, intense action and ground-breaking
sound and visual effects. The game was developed with industry-leading gaming
technology, including advanced AMD64 processors that enable simultaneous 32- and
64-bit computing as well as THX™-certified sound to create the ultimate
Hollywood-style visuals and audio immersion.
“Shadow Ops: Red Mercury uses the
latest in PC gaming technology and story-telling techniques to present an
amazing video and audio experience, on par with the most explosive Hollywood
summer blockbusters,” said Wim Stocks, Executive Vice President, Sales and
Marketing for Atari. “That technology, coupled with Shadow Ops: Red Mercury’s
intriguing storyline written by Hollywood writers, frenetic end-to-end military
action and AAA production values, creates one of the most intense and beautiful
first-person shooters ever made.”
In Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, the
player fills the battle-scarred 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 faces 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. Shadow Ops: Red Mercury also challenges players to take their
battle-tested combat skills online to face off against one another in fierce
multiplayer military skirmishes.
Developer Zombie Studios 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 new PC version features improved textures, gameplay and an
expanded multiplayer functionality with more maps than ever before.
Some of 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 competitive online
multiplayer modes that include Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag
and Escort the V.I.P.; the PC version offers several new maps for online play -
Ultra-realistic immersive
directional sound 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’ -
The game has earned the coveted
THX™ Game Certification, indicative of the immersive and compelling audio
experience usually heard only in blockbuster Hollywood films -
Jaw-dropping performance powered
by AMD64 processor-based systems that deliver simultaneous 32 and 64-bit
computing for improved textures, better image quality, faster game performance
and an enhanced gameplay experience; the 64-bit version of the game is
included in the box with the 32-bit version -
A top Hollywood writing team,
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 Studios traveled
the world, taking thousands of digital photos to create ultra-realistic
textures for game locations like the Congo, Kazakhstan, Syria, Chechnya and
more -
Military consultants, including
former special forces members, worked with Zombie Studios to ensure realistic
military movements in the game and provided motion capture acting -
An original score by a renowned
composer of award-winning music for film, video games and television, that
includes more than an hour of interactive music unique for each in-game
location -
All music for the game was
recorded by the Northwest Symphonia, providing for a powerful performance and
a more compelling audio experience -
More than 30 minutes of movie-like
cinematics created by Attitude Studios that use Hollywood-style shots to
further immerse the player in the interactive blockbuster experience
Shadow Ops: Red Mercury is now
available for personal computer on DVD-only in North America, and is already
available worldwide on the Xbox™ video game system from Microsoft with an
estimated retail price in North America of $19.95 and an ESRB rating of ‘T’ for
Teen. The demo is currently available for download at video game sites and at
the game’s official Web site. For more information on Shadow Ops: Red Mercury,
or to download the demo, please visit
www.shadowopsgame.com.
About Atari New York-based Atari,
Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR) develops interactive games for all platforms and is one of
the largest third-party publishers of interactive entertainment software in the
U.S. The Company’s 1,000+ titles include hard-core, genre-defining games such as
DRIV3R™, Enter the Matrix™, Neverwinter Nights™, Stuntman™, Test Drive®, Unreal®
Tournament 2004, and Unreal® Championship; and mass-market and children’s games
such as Backyard Sports™, Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues™ and Dora the Explorer™,
Civilization®, Dragon Ball Z® and RollerCoaster Tycoon®. Atari, Inc. is a
majority-owned subsidiary of France-based Infogrames Entertainment SA (Euronext
– ISIN: FR-0000052573), the largest interactive games publisher in Europe. For
more information, visit www.atari.com.
