Conflict: Denied Ops puts players in the role of two secret commandos – as is the case with most games in this genre – dispatched to a South American state that has just been overrun. In order to give the US government deniability, the soldiers are stripped of their uniforms, thus being able to complete their assigned task of returning stability to the country without raising too much attention.
One element of the first-person shooter that was somewhat different to anything we've played before was the mapping of the controls. The left trigger is used to direct your only other squadmate, instead of aiming down the scope – that is done by clicking the right thumbstick. Tapping the left trigger informs your partner to fall in, but if your crosshairs are on an enemy at the time, your teammate will focus his fire on that target. The other squad member can also be ordered to lay down suppression fire, or to throw a smoke or frag grenade with the right bumper. Up, left and right on the D-Pad is used for leaning over and around cover, while down brings up night vision. Though the controls can be changed in the options menu, we stuck with the defaults as we found them very intuitive and easy to pick up.
As well as issuing orders to teammates, you will also be able to hot swap between characters.
Another interesting element of Conflict: Denied Ops was the 'hot swapping' mechanic, which features heavily throughout the game. Pressing the B button 'hot swaps' you from one character to the other. The feature works similarly to Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, zooming you from one person to the other, except that your partner does not have to be in view in order to swap vantage points. This is especially useful, as it allows you to find out where your teammate has got to during moments of intense fighting. Indeed, while simply ordering your teammate around will work in some parts of the game, other situations will require players to switch directly between characters. For example, you may want to lay down suppression fire as one commando in order get your sniper to a particular position, at which point you will switch characters in order to use the scoped rifle option.
In the level we played, our characters were sent inside some ruins that had been fortified by the enemy. Each teammate came equipped with two weapons – while one solider packed the heavy stuff, and the other carried the ranged guns. After sneaking inside, we were told to gather some enemy intel. We were met with a number of opponents, all of which displayed a decent level of intelligence, taking cover and retreating when necessary. Indeed, the partner AI also acted quite competently. After navigating through a labyrinth of dark tunnels – in which our night vision proved rather useful – we ventured across the enemy info. After making a hasty escape from the wasted fort, the stage we were played came to an abrupt end.
Apparently, the warehouse renovations didn't go entirely according to plan.
Even though we were only playing an early build of Conflict: Denied Ops, the graphics were all well rendered and highly detailed. However, the various environments and character models still looked as though they need a bit of work, and there were also a number of bugs evident during our hands-on time with the shooter. Nonetheless, these issues are sure to be ironed out before the game's release date of February 22nd.
Conflict: Denied Ops is promising a total of twelve levels in the single-player campaign, in addition to co-op and multiplayer modes. Though it is sure to face stiff competition from Frontlines: Fuel of War and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2, from our initial impressions we can say that Conflict: Denied Ops is shaping up as a reasonable addition to the squad-based shooter genre and a worthy next-gen addition to the Conflict franchise. Look out for our review of the game closer to it's release date next month.
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