Joystiq impressions: Conflict Denied Ops
by Andrew Yoon 
{ Oct 4th 2007 at 10:55AM }
Players take control of two members of the CIA Special Activities Division, or the Denied Ops. If captured, any link with the US government will be denied, hence the name. The game takes place in Venezuela, as a new government regime is threatening to deploy nuclear weapons against the US. Just in case you didn't know, this is a bad thing.
You'll have to use two-man tactics to get through each level. In single-player, players will be able to swap control between the two soldiers at the press of a button, but in multiplayer, two players will be able to play simultaneously (online and off). The fundamental concepts of the game are solid: one player is a sniper while the other has access to a louder arsenal of weaponry. A standard tactic to use would be to have one gunman draw the attention of your enemies, while the other sneaks around and flanks the enemy. We can see this being great fun in multiplayer, especially if you have friends that specifically prefer to play as a sniper, or as a run 'n gunner.
Unfortunately, this is all the game really offers. The level we saw was incredibly linear, and simply had players going from point A to B. The gunplay doesn't really captivate, or offer any real innovations. "Puncture-Tech" is a catchword Eidos is throwing around for this game, and like Red Faction's "Geo-Mod," it's just a hyperbolic marketing term. With "Puncture-Tech," players will be able to shoot through objects, like wood and doors. We're pretty certain that we've seen this is other games before. Simply saying the game has "destructible environments" would more than suffice.
The presentation only adds to our disappointment. Although still in development, the look of the game is uninspired, with a generic art style and story that fails to captivate. The textures we saw were incredibly unimpressive, and the environments are far below the standards of other games in the genre. Compared to the sleek, visceral feel of Kane & Lynch, the look of Denied Ops is rather lackluster.
The game is being prepped for a Q1 2008 release, so there's a lot of time to clean up the visuals and add in some much-needed cinematic flair. With a few improvements, Denied Ops can turn out to be a fun, but familiar, multiplayer game, especially considering its "budget" price -- $49.99 for both Xbox 360 and PS3.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
blooh (CDF - Ass Ring) @ Oct 4th 2007 10:58AM
sounds cool. I loved rainbow 6 vegas, the cover and squad stuff was great in it. And I loved how enemies tried to flank you
Word of the street(IDF-Digital Ruler). @ Oct 4th 2007 11:10AM
I don't know which part you were reading but that preview didn't sound very possitive.
Anyway is that the U3 Engine?,because the creators can say is Venezuela but the U3 Engine makes everything look like Europe.
blooh (CDF - Ass Ring) @ Oct 4th 2007 11:22AM
i just read the part before the break
Negativecool @ Oct 4th 2007 11:16AM
What 1st grader came up with this plot? If a small country actually threatened to use nukes against the US, the US would not deny attempting to squishing them. Hell, Iraq didn't even contain so much of a smoke bomb let alone a nuke, nore did they threaten to use one.
No, DENIAL comes about from using force against countries on the razors edge of enemy and highly sensative. The US would deny the use of force in countries such as North Korea, Iran, and current (non-fictional) Venezuela, etc...
..and ugh, like the Iraq, South Africa, the Asian countries and everywhere ugh such as...
But I guess only Tom Clancy is allowed to use more realistic scenarios that don't insult your intelligence, seeing as how Venezuela's president got all pissy about Mercenaries 2.
DemonGSides @ Oct 4th 2007 11:56AM
Pretty sure, that in today's political climate, sending any sort of armed forces to Venezuela would be a VERY BAD IDEA for the American Political Machine, Nukes or not.
Or do you not realize that Venezuela is a hotbed of political strife?
Negativecool @ Oct 4th 2007 12:06PM
Maybe you didn't read my comment.
I said (real) Venezuela WOULD be cause for denial. But this (fictional) Venezuela has got nukes and has threatened to use them against the US...a little different there bud.
john @ Oct 4th 2007 1:41PM
Yeah, but as far as nations that have nukes and have threatened to use them on the US, how many have we crushed? US doesn't invade or militarily engage countries that have nukes. That's why Iran, Korea, etc want them.
We knew that Iraq didn't have nukes (the gov claimed that they would have them soon), which is why it was OK to invade. If we knew that they had them, we would have continued with sanctions and other non-invasion strategies.
Negativecool @ Oct 4th 2007 3:04PM
Countries with Nukes:
US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel.
Ugh John, name one country that has ever actually officially expressed desire to nuke the US. You will find none...maybe Cuba, but they had Russia's nukes. Even the Russian cold war stance was fire only when fired upon. And if that isn’t true, then they didn’t fire nukes out of respect for the US’s capabilities and vise versa. You simply can’t compare Russia with a fictionally nuclear armed Venezuela.
The US hasn’t "crushed" any nations that have threatened them with nukes because no one has ever outwardly threatened them with nuclear war.
The situation is simple. If the US were going to use military force to diffuse a situation as critical and dangerous as imminent nuclear war, they wouldn’t send in 2 guys from the “denied ops” team…that’s just 1st grade bull like I said before.
BTW North Korea already has nukes, and they have not threatened the US with nuke strikes, they barely have the capability to reach Japan let alone the US.
Threatening to use them and having nukes are two different things, unless you assume the very existence of nukes is by nature threatening...in which case we need to impose sanctions on the UK and France! Or send in our two “denied ops” agents to “crush” them.
kinshadow @ Oct 4th 2007 11:20AM
Horrible name