holoz0r's A-Z of Steam: Conflict Denied Ops

Description:Conflict: Denied Ops is a war game. At least, that is what it looks like in its opening cinematic, describing a nation of Venezuela in criss. Here, you make a data server go boom.

It is an interesting format of game - you're a two man squad in this first mission, and you can swap between the squad members by hitting tab on the keyboard. Doing so means you get different weapons, different skills, and the same enemies to fight.

There's a fairly realistic physics sim in the base of the game, with cans of pressurised gas not violently exploding when you shoot them, but activating their safety valves and going flying around the map like a rocket.

Explosions are pretty satisfying, but the gunplay leaves little to be desired, with it being very, very basic. What is really jarring is going from Venezuela to Russia in the space of a single mission.

It is also worth noting that natively, the game only supported a max resolution of 1650x1050 The music is also too loud, and proves to be very distracting throughout the missions of the game.

You can probably fix a lot of this, but it doesn't really feel like it should be something you should waste your time on, given the fact that the AI is super-human. Even if you're really stealthy and remove an enemy with a silenced pistol, having snuck up on their position - that's great - you'll get every enemy in the area instantly alerted to your presence - and with hitscan weapons, through smoke, through darkness, and even sometimes through walls - they'll shoot you.

It is an admirable attempt at a co-op style game without the actual co-op - and to that extent, it behaves a little tiny bit like The Beureau: XCOM Declassisified - but it doesn't have a story nearly as good, or unique gameplay mechanics engaging enough to keep you interested beyond the second mission.

For someone who has nothing else to play, and feels like a "tactical" first person shooter, this would barely suffice.