
	Platform Playstation 3 Genre Shooter Publisher Eidos Developer Pivotal ESRB M (Mature) Released February 13, 2008

- In the single-player campaign, better "heal" system than Gears of War - Straightforward and somewhat likeable (for some reason), especially during play another a human

- Some weird control choices - Buddy AI is pretty awful (though it is a relatively good shot) - All the straightforward features of the shooter genre are present and accounted for and not improve upon

Review: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360) Review: Turok (360) Review: TimeShift (PS3)
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Conflict: Denied Ops

Score: 5.5 / 10

First-person shooters are all over the damn place nowadays – and a lot of them are actually good. Games like Call of Duty 4 and the multi-headed Orange Box are at the head of the class. Conflict: Denied Ops is closer to the back of the class, but is saved from failure by including a straightforward co-op mode, with the emphasis on blowing things up rather than any kind of military tactics.

There are bad things happening in the world and gruff sniper Lincoln Graves and machine gun-toting Reggie Lang are sent through the typical collection of environments to root out evil and blow up anything and everything that gets in their way.

If that weren’t enough of a tip off that Conflict: Denied Ops is as straightforward a shooter as there ever was, the ammo is unlimited, which is a good thing because

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the selection of weapons is extremely limited – you can’t even pick-up weapons from enemies. The only item that needs to be replenish are your grenades, which can be acquired at conveniently placed supply crates.

I actually don’t have a problem with either of those things, and I’ll even give the graphics a pass (for the most

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part), but what’s really frustrating is the pathfinding of your AI counterpart. You can hop between the two characters at a button press and I found myself constantly switching between them when I found that when left alone your AI buddy gets hung up on objects and just can’t navigate the environment the way a human can. There are some basic commands you can give your AI buddy, but that doesn’t alleviate the need to leapfrog to keep the duo together. However, the developers should be lauded for including the ability to heal each other. Even in single-player, if you “die” you immediately plunk into the other character, so you can run over and heal the “dead” character. It’s like Gears of War, only better.

The game fairs much better when played with a real buddy. At which point, you can both contend with sluggish controls and odd button placement, like clicking the right stick in order to zoom in. It’s not game-breaking but it sure doesn’t help the overall package.

The other aspect of Conflict: Denied Ops which is very good is the level design. Though there’s no continuity between areas – you’ll jump from the desert to the artic (without changing your camo – the levels themselves feature some very good layouts. Typically, large open areas are connected by fractured paths with many different approaches possible, with some “duck and cover” tactics popping up sporadically.

Conflict: Denied Ops isn’t a very good game, but it’s hard to actively dislike because the co-op mode can be a lot of fun even if you have to cope with the game’s other failings.

- D.D. Nunavut

(March 10, 2008)