Conflict: Denied Ops

There are many franchises out there on the market that have reached the number 3 or 4 in the series and you won't see nothing wrong in that. Take Call of Duty 4 as an example - sold better than the land on the Moon, got prizes and a ton of fans. On the other hand, we have games that come as a total surprise: "Oh, my God! Another one?". At least that is the case with Conflict: Denied Ops, the fifth in the Conflict series of tactical first person shooters. And it's a real shocker to see how poor this game turns out to be, having in mind that it comes from a franchise that sold 6 million copies worldwide, for God's sake!

Now, I will be honest with you (and probably get fired afterwards). I just couldn't finish the game, and that's a terrible thing for a reviewer, I know, but I just couldn't. And not because the game is really hard, or challenging - probably it's not too long, either. It's just bad. And I don't see anybody spending more than the 5-6 hours I spent with it. Honestly.

Story

Conflict: Denied Ops is said to draw its inspiration from a CIA group of skilled agents that are used when the United States need intelligence, but they don't want to be associated with that operation if something goes wrong. These agents are part of the deniable operatives or the National Clandestine Service. The shadows, if you could call "shadow" a guy that wreaks havoc 3 miles around him...

Anyway, two of these special and skilled agents are Graves and Lang, the same two guys that you will control. The first one sends people to the grave using his lethal sniper rifle, while the other prefers brute force and really loves to see stuff around him exploding.

The first mission will take you to Venezuela, where you have to blow some building up, then you will go to Russia and solve some nuke problems, then to Africa in a blood diamond related job. What's next - I don't know and I really don't want to find out. If you have the patience - go ahead, give it a try, you'll have all my respect!

Gameplay

Conflict: Denied Ops has some great ideas. Indeed, they are not original, innovative and so on, but they are still great ideas. For example, you have to command two players instead of one (even though, if you wish, you can play the entire game with only one of them): Graves should be the "silent assassin", the unseen sniper, while Lang - the beast that jumps straight in the middle of the action and destroys everything. Also, you can order your partner, by pressing one single button, to follow you, take cover, move to a specific destination or provide cover fire. And that would be great... if any of these things would actually work.

Send your teammate anywhere and he will get killed. Order him to cover you, he will not be able to kill a single enemy. Don't tell him to follow you and he will just stay in the same spot until you remember that this is a co-op game and call him back. The dudes have no personality, no AI (at all!), I am shocked such poorly trained people managed to get into the CIA. To counter balance this, however, you will have the same stupid AI, behavior and aiming from your enemies, who will sometimes just stop and look at you instead of pressing that trigger!

And since I've mentioned it already, one of the most frustrating things is the aiming. From this point of view, Lang is useless - his machine gun always misses, no matter if you shoot while running or laying on the snow. You will just empty your clip on one single enemy and you won't be able to kill him. So unless you are really close to the bastard, you're dead or ineffective. The bad thing is that Graves' sniper is also bad. It is unbelievable to target an enemy's head, have the crosshair right between his eyes, pull the trigger and miss. And having in mind that your enemies rarely stand still, you should know that you will have a terrible time trying to shoot and kill. Consider yourself warned!

The game also allows you to drive different kinds of vehicles, but that part is really crappy, too, and quite bugged. You have the option to order your partner to enter a vehicle, drive it and so on, but don't expect him to fire the damn weapons! A solution would be for you to jump in and start shooting, but you will have another problem: the vehicle won't move. If you will finally manage to have both the agents in and the vehicle running, you will regret the time you wasted trying to solve the "mystery" - first, it is almost impossible to drive any of them, and second, you will aim worse than you can imagine. Actually, there is no "aiming" involved. So vehicles - useless!

Conflict: Denied Ops is described as a tactical shooter. Why - it beats me. There is nothing tactical about it, unless, maybe, the fact that you don't have a health bar. On the other hand, you will always have ammunition, which is a complete crap. Translated, it means that the developers were just too lazy to introduce different types of weapons - you can't pick any dropped weapons, you can't experience more than what you have from the beginning. And that is totally lame. Maybe another rifle would've been more accurate...

And there are much more annoying things about this game. For example, your agents are too damn slow. I don't say it would be too realistic to see a guy packed with tons of weapons running like Flash, but since nothing is realistic in this game... Anyway, let's say that you will get used to their speed - or you will accept it - but the thing I will never accept is their inability to jump. The elephants are the only mammals that are not able to jump and that's it. Humans jump. Skilled CIA agents jump. Everybody jumps when you press the Space button. These guys won't. And they won't jump even if you press six buttons at a time - I've tried. And that is really frustrating.

Another thing: the map. Where is the map? Come, on, CIA! You send me in Russia to destroy some nukes and you don't give me a God damned map? I spent 30 minutes in that Russian bunker, with no enemies around, trying to find a door and it was more frustrating than the labyrinths in Castle Wolfenstein, and I played that game decades ago!

Generally, there is one word that can describe the game experience: frustrating. Actually, let's make it two: frustrating and unpleasant. I would love to say that there is something good about this game, something original, something that at least as a concept is worth noting, but there is not. The only thing I enjoyed was that cut scene where Lang tells you the name of his sniper rifle. That's all! Sorry...

Sound

First, we have the voice acting: mediocre. Then, all the other sounds: mediocre. The enemies, the guards, or whatever you wish to call them, will say the same old lines you'll get tired off pretty quickly. Now, I've never been in a war before and I certainly wouldn't want to take part in one, but I doubt your enemies are that stupid to say over and over the same thing, like a bad foreign actor that only managed to learn that particular one line.

Of course, we have explosions (?), the sound of the tank's engine (?), your weapons (?) and probably much more. And no - I am not crazy, that question mark between the brackets just means that I have absolutely no idea if we really have these sounds. I was so irritated by the game that I just couldn't focus on them. They probably are. Mediocre, like everything else.

Graphics

Here, the things are not as bad as the rest of the game. Conflict: Denied Ops has some... a bit over mediocre graphics. They're not next-gen, not last-gen, they're caught somewhere in between. You will still see blank faces that have no life, when it comes to your opponents, but at least your partner seems more alive. I know because I've shot Lang right between the eyes when I was extremely mad.

Still, the worst thing regarding the visual aspect of the game is the fact that absolutely no object has anything to do with real physics: if you will hit a box, it will jump off like a balloon filled with helium, if you break a door, 20 squarish pieces will result, if you shoot a glass window... oh, God... you will have to shoot all your bullets and the lousy window will still be there! Even the sugar-made windows used in the movies by stunt persons seem 100% more realistic than they do here.

Multiplayer

Of course there is a co-op mode, but that doesn't help the game. It's still the same poor thing, you have no enhanced characters, or weapons - nor the graphics or the sound. At least you will feel better, since you won't be the only person that gets mad. But I doubt any of you would be such a beast to convince a friend to join you and play Conflict: Denied Ops together.

Conclusion

This game is a miss, like 90% of the bullets that you will shoot during your play. It has absolutely nothing to make you ask for more. If hardcore fans of the genre will give it a try, they will probably start screaming in... at most 30 minutes, while new players will get a wrong idea about how a first person shooter (or tactical shooter if you believe *them*) should feel like.

Still, this is not the worst game I have ever seen. Unfortunately, there are many more who fail miserably and are, overall, well... worse. But this is no excuse. This is no reason to release such a game to the audience - we're tired of unfinished games or finished but poor games that have only one goal: to get some bucks out of our pockets. Now, excuse me, I will go play a tetris game. At least that's fun.