Customer Reviews

Conflict: Denied Ops

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Let me say it first, this game has a split screen co-op option for all of the missions!!! For me, that is already enough to give it a 3 star minimum. Most of the rest of it is average or less. Cons: arcade feel (exploding barrels everywhere, a simple stim shot brings you back 100% etc), characters one liners get old, you don't get to choose weapons (one character is a sniper and the other carries an M60 or something to that effect and that's it, you then transfer between the two on single player), and sometimes it seems it takes a lot of bullets to bring down an ememy. Pros: destructable environments (blow the crap out of the machine gun nest, or blow a hole in a wall at times to make another passage), 2 players on a split screen do have a good team (one is a heavy gunner with rockets and a grenade launcher and the other is a sniper with shotgun and demo), you can resupply with a little bit of searching just about anywhere, there are checkpoints so you don't have to do an entire level over and over, but no game save (at least that I can tell on 2 player, so play the entire level) and AI is alright...bad guys take cover snipers shoot and move, they try to flank, etc. This game isn't even close to Gears of War, Halo 3, or Call of Duty 4, in most respects but it will grow on you. Just get it on sale.

This game could have been a lot of fun if it weren't for the insanely stupid team AI. I don't recommend this game unless you just want to play in multiplayer mode to override the AI issues. I had multiple situations where I commanded my teammate AI to cover an area and everytime while I was reloading an enemy ran right by him and killed me and he never turned to fire at the enemy. Then before I could switch to the teammate the enemy after finishing me off took out the teammate. Bang, time start mission over.

This is the latest in the Conflict series of 1st person shooter games, that really were designed as co-op campaign games. While the game-play and storyline may seem familiar, the controls and overall feel are streamlined and the graphics are the best they've ever been, especially with the "Puncture Tech" technology, which maintains background damage while you play each level. The Co-Op splitscreen mode is the definitely the reason to get this game.

My experience with this title has been better than the other reviewers, I guess. I like the graphics and I haven't had much trouble with the AI yet. I am playing on easy difficulty so that might be part of it. I usually play as Graves because he gets killed to quick on his own. The AI controlled Lang has saved my tail on several occasions in the game so far so I can't really complain.

That being said, I find the enemy AI to be too good on the easy difficulty setting. Once alerted they seem to never miss.

However, I do have 3 gripes:

1. In a game that demands precision, the controls are a little flaky. Beyond the questionable mapping, there are times when you need to throw a grenade or give a command quick and instead of throwing the grenade the software interprets a quick touch of the button as you holding the button and you get an inventory menu instead. I've gotten killed several times when this has happened. Also there are times when six hits to the chest with the sniper rifle won't kill the enemy but one shot to the leg will.

2. Automatic weapon upgrades are nice but you are stuck with the same weapons throughout the whole game.

3. At 20 dollars, this game is okay but it is not worth full price.

To sum it all up, this game could have been great with a little polish. I wish developers would take more time on games. Where is the work ethic these days?

I have no experience with previous Conflict games and I like FPS games. This one was inexpensive on the used rack, so I bought it. It turns out, the price was low for a reason.

It seems like it could have been a good game. It had the basis for one. The inability to change weapons is odd, but bearable and they should complement each other well. Both characters, both playable, have suppressed pistols as well as various grenades and secondary weapons on their primary weapon, but they are not powerful (ie, it takes too many rounds to take down the enemy). The sniper rifle takes at least three non heads shots to take down the enemy and it is near useless if you are not using the scope. The machine gun is inaccurate at first, but the weapon itself functions. However, the real issue is with the AI.

You can switch between characters, which isn't instant and has a confusing transition, but it helps show where everyone is, which is a plus, because the person who you are not controlling is impossible. The only thing you can reliably do it make them stay still, as long as they aren't near enemies. Once they reach combat, they do their own little thing, often very foolishly. It is frustrating because it should be good. You can play as both characters. They have some AI, such as taking cover and obeying commands in combat. They have what should be effective weapons. You can heal each other. But, in the end, the game is ruined by the poor AI. You need to work with each other for best results, and the AI cannot work with you. Especially after the beginning, much of the game is micromanaging your partner. Maybe if development were extended until the game were finished, it would make a good game. As it is, it has poor graphics (it seems like an XBox game), bad AI (although, unlike most games, they will warn you when they cross your field of fire, so you are unlikely to have friendly fire incidents) and very disappointing weapons.

Let me start by saying I can't believe I bought this game. it was a waste of $ The game is whack. The graphics are bum, it takes for ever to bring a person down. I'm disappointed in Eidos for coming out with this game, it could have been a lot better. I stongly DO NOT recommend this game.

There seems to be a trend as of late to create Xbox 360 first person shooters that involve team-mates.

I played Army of two about a month ago, and I really enjoyed it. So, I decided to give Conflict: Denied ops a whirl as well.

What I got for my money was just an average offering. There wasn't all that much that really stuck out in my mind about the game, with one exception, which I'll get to later.

Don't get me wrong, it was fun, and I think it was worth playing.

The game is about two CIA operatives, one named Lincoln Graves, a former marine sniper, and his partner, Reggie Lang. The game revolves around you controlling one or the other in ten different missions, each one taking you to a different location across the globe, but all being interconnected.

Graves is a sniper, and is best to use if you need stealth, while Lang is big, muscular, and uses a machine gun. Not good for subtleness, but when you need a heavy hitter, he's your man.

Ok, the game play itself. I've said this before in several of my previous reviews about the way first person shooters are portrayed with the 360. You don't have a health meter, or an armour meter for that matter. The more damage you take, the screen becomes blurred and tinged red. The worse this becomes, the closer you are to dying.

And, as I've said numerous times, when that happens, get your rear to cover. But, there is a difference this time around. A very important difference! If you're taken down, you can switch over to control your partner and get him to come up to you and heal you.

Of course, if he gets taken down, that's all she wrote. You'll have to reload from the last checkpoint.

One thing I need to point out though - you should keep some space between yourself and your partner. There are a few areas that if you're both together, one hit and its game over man, game over! The upside is that you have three minutes to get to your partner once he's down. If you can't do it in that time, your partner dies, and the mission ends. Time to reload from a previous check point.

Switching control is a simple pull of the button, and you have only three basic commands to give to your partner. Stay with me, go to a specific location, or stay put. Use em wisely!

You really don't have much of a variety of weapons to use in the game. You start out with a handgun and a sniper rifle. As you progress the missions, you get automatic upgrades for your weapons, such as a grenade launcher for Lang, and an under barrel shotgun for Graves.

One important feature to point out is that you can never run out of ammunition, so if you want to, spray it, don't say it! However, that being said, you can run out of explosives such as grenades and mines.

But, that's not even a huge issue, as you will find places in each mission that you can restock on explosives - not only your grenades, but for the grenade launcher and the rocket launcher as well.

Your missions, as I stated above, really do take you around the globe. You start out in a small South American country (Sorry, I can't remember the name off the top of my head), in the middle of a civil war. From there you have nine more missions, which take you to a monastery, a diamond mine, the Arctic Circle, an oil refinery, a lumber mill, a submarine pen, an oil tanker on the high seas and a military base. I know that I'm missing one, so forgive me, I completed the game a week before I started to write this review.

So, you have no shortage of exotic locations to visit.

A couple of the missions do involve stealth, so I'd suggest using Graves to start and have him find the best path to take. Control Lang after you have Graves in place, don't get him to auto-follow. I don't know if it would work or not, but I felt safer controlling him on my own.

And, the stealthier you are, the easier time you'll have of it. Once you're cover is blown, the enemy will be all over you like white on rice.

There are several times during the game that you'll be given the chance to control a vehicle. You can drive a tank, hovercraft and an APC. The controls weren't the best, I found them annoying to use. One control stick controlled the direction your vehicle traveled, the other aiming your weapons. If you're not careful, you could find yourself driving backwards while firing when you wanted to go sideways or even forward.

That is one issue I've had with many of the games I've played. The programmers really need to come up with a better control system for vehicle operation.

As for the music, there really wasn't anything that jumped out and struck me as being really good. Not like Frontlines: Fuel of war. Still, it was well done, and in the background, not overbearing at all.

I have played games in the past in which the background music was so loud that I missed some of the dialogue that took place during the cut scenes. That wasn't the case with this game.

The graphics were your typical Xbox 360 graphics. Crisp, well defined, easy to watch. I didn't see any issues with enemy targets getting stuck inside other objects like I've seen with a few of the more recent games I've played.

Although, there were a couple of occasions where, when one of the characters I was controlling got taken down that his gun would be lost inside the ground, or stuck in a wall or the like.

But these were minor, and they didn't affect the game play in any way, shape or form.

The cut scenes were brief, and did help propel the storyline forward, and most of these scenes involved Graves and Lang. To be honest, I found Graves living up to his nickname during the game. The character wasn't really likeable at all, unlike, in my personal view, Lang.

You can judge that on your own, after all, my opinion is just that, mine. If people agree with it, great, if they don't, no big deal either.

Since I brought up the enemies earlier, I should mention the AI controlling them. They don't stand around. They move from cover to cover, they will attempt to flank you. If you stay in one place, watch out for grenades being tossed in your direction.

Again, also, if you stay in one place for too long, the enemy will more often than not try to come and flush you out, or get to a better position in order to make short work of you and your partner. Movement around the maps is key for survival.

Speaking of maps, some of the maps you play on are huge! There are many twists and turns, and it would be a good idea to explore every nook and cranny as quite often they will contain enemy soldiers that, once you've taken care of a group of them and you think your safe, one could come up and end your game real fast. Besides, doing that will help you find more places you can restock your explosives as well.

Another thing that really caught my interest was the destroyable environment. You could wreak as much havoc as you wished, tons of things, including many buildings, were completely destructible. In fact, you can even gain an achievement for destroying your environment.

Lastly, I didn't bother trying any of the multiplayer functions in the game. I'm a solo player and don't really gain any enjoyment from trying these games online with strangers.

In conclusion, as I stated at the beginning of the review, the game wasn't bad. It was fun, and the story kept me interested, even though it was a little confusing at times - why the team happened to be going to one specific location, what it had to do with the overall arc, that sort of thing.

Now, I mentioned one thing that really stuck out in my mind at the beginning of the review... it didn't take me five or six hours to beat the game! All in all, I played it for almost 11 hours in total.

I hate how short most games are today! This was refreshing.

Pros
- Length of the game. Ten missions.
- Destructible environment
- Smart enemy AI.
- Lots of exotic locations and huge maps to play on.

Cons
- If you don't complete a mission, when you play again, you have to start over from the beginning of that particular mission.
- Some of the levels had a serious frustration factor involved. A few extra check points would have been appreciated.
- Poor vehicle controls.

3.5 out of 5

Ironically, my favorite XBox games of all time are the original Conflict series games... Desert Storm, Global Terror, etc. I don't know what they were thinking when they made this game. It takes too many steps backward.

I play strictly single-player. I like being able to position my players where I want them. The biggest pain in the butt with this game is that you can position your teammate where you want him, but then he'll saunter off on his own, or, worse yet, run out into the open, right into a hail of bullets. You can place your teammate at a strategic location to watch your back, and next thing you know, you got killed from behind because your teammate decided to walk off, descend a ladder, and crouch behind a wall somewhere. It's frustrating as all heck, because you're always switching players in order to regain control over the one that's moving around on his own, so you can put him back where you want him. I can't believe none of the programmers caught this before the game was released.

It's also a lot easier for the enemy to kill you than it is for you to kill them. Take three rounds, and you're toast. But when you're fighting the enemy, unless you nail them square in the head, you may have to unload a lot of ammo to bring them down.

The graphics are fine, the general gameplay is acceptable, but I can't give this game better than two stars.

This is honestly the worst game I've ever played. I would rather be stuck playing viva pinata the rest of my life. The guns are horrifying and graphics were drawn by a blind hobo. Do not care about the cover even though it looks kinda cool, it isnt. this game sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!
RATING - + .0000000000000000000000001 / 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

im into military video games but this one just kind of seemed boring. The settings that your in are kind of bland too. the story line was really basic and nothing too interesting.