My first impressions after playing the 360 demo for Conflict: Denied Ops were incredibly negative. Oh great, just what the world needs: another FPS, and a crappy one at that. But, dedicated reviewer that I am (or is that OCD?), I picked up the retail version when it came out. Surprisingly, by the end of the first mission — even though the demo level was a shortened version of the first mission in the retail copy — my mind was changed. When it came time to choose my next mission, I decided that I kinda of liked this game.

That would last until the mission in Africa which, in addition to being a kind of sucky mission, had a serious glitch which put me off the game for a week.

Denied Ops is a modern (I would even say slightly futuristic, given the highly modified weaponry) FPS in which you control a two man black-ops team. The title refers, of course, to the fact that your missions are off the books and are therefore deniable. Whatever. The big propaganda point for this game is that you can seamlessly switch between the two members of your team, whom I lovingly refer to as "sniper guy" and "meat shield".

Denied Ops is surprisingly fun. But, the team switching selling point is pretty much lost on me, as I suspect it will be on many others. I like playing sniper guy. He's got a nifty scope and a corner-shot modification that allows him to make sniper shots from behind cover. Just about the only time I play meat shield guy is to revive sniper guy when he gets knocked out, or when the enemy pisses me off and I want to go on a scenery destroying rampage. This usually happens after sniper guy gets knocked down a few too many times.

I found it kind of lame that the press release I got for Denied Ops went on about the destructible environment. So wait, blowing up your surroundings is a key selling point? That's a bit weak. So yeah, the environment is highly destructible, but I think it's mostly due to the fact that a significant portion of the environment is made up of explosive barrels and gas cans and little propane tank looking things. That said, blowing stuff up can be pretty satisfying.

The missions vary in both length and locale. Some are as short as 10 or 15 minutes where others can take you an hour to get through. You'll fight in the snow, in caves, in the desert, in a war torn city, and in a castle. Perhaps other places as well, but I have not, as yet, seen them. You'll also get to drive the occasional tank or hovercraft. Most of the missions are pretty fun except for the one where meat shield got stuck in the tank. The final objective was hard enough to begin with, requiring a couple of checkpoint restarts, and then as I'm finally getting my kill-on, dumbass gets stuck in the tank. Kind of made the mission hard to complete. I said "screw this" and cracked open Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements (which had the same release date). Had I known how bad that was, I would have stuck with Denied Ops.

One thing I will say is that Denied Ops does allow the two most popular play styles to be satisfied. If you like to run and gun, then play meat shield guy. He's got a big-ass gun and a rocket launcher and seems to be in his element running towards the enemy blowing the whole place to kingdom come. If you like the stealthy approach, then play sniper guy. While the game doesn't have a proper cover mechanic, sniper guy can shoot from behind cover using the cornershot attachment on his sniper rifle. And when roaming the halls looking for the next major engagement, the 12-gauge attachment is handy for taking out any surprise stragglers.

Denied Ops is a decent game. If you enjoy FPS games, then you'll probably enjoy this. The default difficulty is also pretty easy. So, even if you enjoy FPS games, but suck at them — and therefore tend to avoid them — then Denied Ops may be worth consideration. It's not nearly as hardcore as some of the other FPS games out there. More than anything, I recommend playing the demo. Twice. The first time, you'll be getting the hang of it. The second time around, you'll know how it works and be better equipped to judge if you like actually like the game.