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Review: Conflict: Denied Ops - PC, PS3, Xbox 360 - 6.9

06 kwietnia, 2008

Unfortunately, the newest Conflict also ends up denying you any fun...

Conflict is another one of those series that has grown a bit long in the tooth. With the sudden, spiked interest in co-op games in the industry, Eidos recently pushed out 2 titles that flaunted their focus on co-op play. The first one, Kane and Lynch, wasn\'t exactly a success and the new one, Conflict: Denied Ops, is arguably even worse...

The story in the campaign has you taking charge of a pair of special forces operatives working behind the scenes in 10 missions set around the world. Unlike other Conflict games, you play in first person rather than third person. Fortunately, the switching mechanic is one aspect of the game that Eidos got right...

First, the good: your buddy can be ordered around and healed easily and is pretty smart at taking orders. Unfortunately, controlling him errs on the side of micro-management as he won\'t leave positions until after you\'ve ordered him, creating a bit of a congestion problem. He also has a tendency to run you over whenever he\'s in a vehicle, so duck out of the way!

Level design is par-of-course, but you are allowed to choose the order of some assignments. The game is pretty fast-paced, and this makes it slightly more bearable considering the generic enemies and encounters. The levels are also oddly strewn with fuel barrels and other explosive materials and objects.

Multiplayer allows you to play through the campaign with a friend, which is a nice bonus and really the core of what the game offers. The rest of the options... let\'s just say that they\'re not really worth playing.

The levels are "varied," but the technical prowess of the graphics engine leaves much to be desired. Textures are extremely low-res, explosions are blocky, and character models look like they\'re out of a 2003 game. Sound quality is also all over the place, with oddly enhanced echo effects accompanying every sound. The two characters, Grave and Lang, unabashedly embody several B-movie stereotypes and the music is obnoxiously loud on default settings

Conflict: Denied Ops is an ugly stepchild, without any special features that allow it to set itself above the competition or even to compete with its closest cousin, Kane and Lynch.

Presentation: 7 - Over-the-top voice acting, obnoxiously loud music and crazy glitches really throw the game off-balance.
Graphics: 6 - Uhh, what year is this again?
Sound: 7.5 - Awesome weapons sounds. Shame that the music and voice acting aren\'t up-to-par.
Gameplay: 7 - No gameplay innovations whatsoever besides an incredibly smooth character-switching system.
Value: 7 - If you\'re willing to stomach it, Conflict should give you and your buddy a few hours of fun...

Final Score: 6.9 - Conflict is stuck several years in the past both in terms of gameplay mechanics and technical features.

Marcin Skok
Editor-in-Chief
"The Gaming Corner"