Conflict: Denied Ops

I've never played the Conflict series before but people seem to love the games. Sadly I've started the series off with one of the worst titles this generation and I really have no interest in the previous entries.

The game starts off like any other shooter. You're sent on a mission in some desolate place and you need to kill the leader. The plot will advance from there using stereotypical crap to move it all along.

If you've played Army of Two then the game play may feel natural to you. You have control over two characters at once. Well, the AI controls one while you control the other. If one dies you can switch to the other character and heal the one who is now dying. It works pretty well but the game never told me you could switch thus a few unneeded deaths landed my way.

The game really doesn't give you many directions and one would think that such a linear level setup I wouldn't get lost but alas the game failed to mention (yet again) that I needed to shoot down this hover chopper that was doing nothing but hovering. Sorry, I thought I only had to take down hostiles but I guess not.

One thing the game does have going for it is the destructible environments which is cool because you can use the cannon on the tank to blow up a tower and other stuff. Problem is that it's only specifics and main items can't be damaged which in the end defeats the purpose of it all.

To make it all worse is the fact that the game looks like it was beat by the ugly stick. Bland textures and horrid load times make this feel more like a PS2 title than a 360. The animations are bland and all of the enemies share the same clothes and faces.

The entire game is fairly boring as you just run into a room, shoot people, hide, repeat and then walk up to your objective and hit A. There are times where you may need to climb up a step or something and you'll use A to do that but it's slow and clumsy and the game can easily ambush you right at that time and there is no way to cancel that movement until it is finish.

One saving grace for the game is the fact that the vehicle control have way decently. Of course it's also tiresome moving around in a tank and when your AI partner controls the gun yet never fires, forcing you to do both just irks me to no end.

The game does feature on-line play but I couldn't be bothered to touch it. One thing the game does do right is the achievements which are nicely done. Not too easy nor too hard and they range from completing the game to just completing what some would consider hidden bonus objectives. For example if you go the entire way in the tank without it blowing up you get an achievement and trust me it's a little harder than one would think.

All in all this is just another crappy FPS that is clogging up the consoles these days. It plays like crap and it some how looks worse. The game is riddled with minor glitches and sloppy AI. I say pass on this bad boy all together.

Story - 5/10
Graphics - 2/10
Sound - 6/10
Control - 8/10
Game Play - 4/10
Replay Value - 4/10

Final Score - 3/10