The year is 2025 and the world is shaken by numerous conflicts over the control of dwindling natural resources. The hunger of rival warlords and dictators of mainly underdeveloped countries for advanced and highly effective weapon systems appears insatiable and the profits of the arms industry have reached new heights. As highly advanced weapon systems, made in the USA, are sighted on various battlegrounds in Third World countries, the US government decides to send in an ISA agent, Cpt. Myra Lee, to find out how political enemies are acquiring arms that are under strict embargo. Myra is sent to Mogadishu, where American made weapons have allegedly been employed in combat by Somali military forces against rebel units. In Somalia, Myra meets Cpt. Aron Alvarez, a hard-boiled close combat specialist of US Army's 1st SFOD-Delta, whose squadron is assigned to assassinate Somalia’s dictator. Myra and Aron begin working together only to discover that that the seriousness of the whole affair reaches much deeper than just the illegal trade of US weapon systems. A special unit under the codename SHADOW HARVEST is formed within the ISA to reveal the truth. Cpt. Myra Lee and Cpt. Aron Alvarez are made partners in the operational core of this special unit and their investigations lead them to various places all over the world. Based on the operations of the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA), with missions ranging from gathering critical intelligence data to covert direct action operations. The existence of the ISA has never been officially confirmed by the US government. Two completely different characters; each with very specific and fully fleshed out sets of skills, preferences and abilities. Cooperatively complete covert operations. Players may switch between each character at any time, using either Aron's combat abilities or Myra's stealth skills to solve the situation. Players choose from a vast array of weapons and technologies that enhance both characters strengths. Employ mechanized weapons to boldly attack enemies from head-on or an invisibility shield to creep through enemy territory undetected. Take advantage of refined game mechanics that take the traditional shoot-to-kill approach to a new level.
Reviews View More
The game has so many problems that the characters and story are the least of them. The levels are very linear filled with oddly placed items that block your path, blurry visuals with terribly low-resolution textures. The game is also very choppy and has poor performance even on high-end systems. The game uses a lot of cheap visual tricks to try to look good, but it fails in doing so. When you aim down your sights the whole screen turns blurry instead of using true DOF (Depth of Field), plus the weapons don’t even feel punchy, but more like useless pop guns.
When you’re actually shooting enemies feedback is very important and these guys don’t even respond to shots! They just stand there with no visual indication of you hitting them or not. The HUD layout is kind of like GRAW with diamonds over the enemies to help spot them. Sure you can switch characters, but Lee’s sections are just slower and more annoying and the stealth is completely broken in this game. I do prefer Lee’s sections over Alvarez because you get to do some neat melee attacks and the gadgets are cooler, but the brain-dead enemies are still just as stupid.
There are some more problems like weapons having small ammo capacity. You get only 90 rounds for most guns and you will blow through these very quickly. The game uses the archaic health pack system, but 4-6 hits and you’re dead. Health packs are hard to come by, and a lot of the time you will run out of ammo for all your guns and have to stick with your pistol. You could use the cover mechanic to stay alive longer, but it’s completely broken due to the fact that the character constantly stands up, or the camera zooms in too close. These problems run through the whole game including long load times, loading after every time you die, and infrequent checkpoints. Missions aren’t explained very well, and the entire game is just a big disaster.
The game could have been at least a decent or mediocre shooter, but it chose the easy way out by becoming something abysmal with tons of issues that make you want to just burn the game. Shadow Harvest should not be played by anyone and even forgiving gamers will look the other way after one mission.