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The Conflict series dumps the four-player squad in favor a buddy system. The previous Conflict games were notable for their distinctive, based around a squad gameplay. If you played alone, you could switch between any of your characters instantly. Well, in Denied Ops, it’s just you and a buddy, although you’re allowed to switch between them at will, too.
The two guys are Graves, who has a sniper rifle, and Lang, who has a rocket launcher and machine gun. The game does try to play up their different personalities but for all intents, they’re the same guy with different weapons. If you want to switch from machine gun to sniper, you switch characters since the characters themselves only have access to their one gun. The game has simple instructions to give the guy you aren’t controlling like “follow me,” “move there,” “protect someone,” and “suppress fire” and the AI works okay enough. There’s a story in there somewhere about nuclear weapons being stolen but all you need to know is that you’re going to be taking out enemies for a number of levels.
There’s also quite a lot to blow up. The levels are full of propane tanks and barrels, which you guessed it, explode quite easily. Most people will probably play the game with Lang, thanks to his rocket launcher (which you can’t really aim so you end up blowing everything up) and machine gun combo, but also because you’ll get access to a grenade launcher later in the game.
In order to spice the game up, Conflict: Denied Ops throws in some vehicle segments. The ones where you’re controlling a tank are fairly cool because you’re basically causing damage with a huge tank. But there are others with a hovercraft that are okay if you’re driving the hovercraft, but for some reason, the AI won’t drive it for you so while you are technically allowed to move into the gunner’s seat, you can’t since the hovercraft can’t drive itself.
Thankfully, the game has a two-player cooperative mode, which you can even play online. This is easily the game’s saving grace and where I spent most of my time. The flaws with the AI are largely gone with another human, and it’s possible to have quite a bit of fun just blowing stuff up with a fellow human. There is also a relatively uninteresting competitive multiplayer mode, with support for up to 16 players, that includes deathmatch, team deathmatch and conquest. Everyone is one of the two characters (i.e. everyone is Lang) so there isn’t much to see there.
Visually, the game looks like an early next-generation game. It runs in HD (up to 1080p, actually), the character models look okay but are a bit too shiny, and the foliage is actually quite nice. The actual architecture and levels don’t look all that great, which when coupled with bad textures, mean that the game isn’t a visual stunner. But it doesn’t look bad, either. The sound, though, is decidedly average. The soundtrack is okay and fits the game fine, the sound effects are decent but lack oomph, and the voice acting could be spruced up a bit.
Conflict: Denied Ops isn’t going to set the world on fire. The game isn’t worthwhile by yourself (mostly because the little friendly AI issues add up and the enemy AI’s annoyance factor is multiplied when you’re dealing with it alone), but if you’re going to play it with a friend, it provides a guilty pleasure. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Feb 21, 2008
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