Operation Darkness is a very addictive Strategy game set in World War 2.
Let me jump straight to the nonsense - sometimes the game does cheat. Please understand this now before you buy. Even a few walk thrus have mentioned this, so I don't feel so bad whining about it. Like most "tactics" games, there is a "range finder" that shows you if something is in range for the weapon you have chosen. You can have an identical weapon to the enemy, share the same flat plane, be 10 levels above them, and they will somehow have range where you do not. This is the only technical flaw. It's extremely frustrating, but once you accept it like a date with only one odious habit of loudly scraping their plate clean in a nice restaurant, you can enjoy the rest of the game.
Controls are pretty much the same format found in other strategy "tactics" games I've seen. Turn base cursor movement with a range finder showing you how far you can move in any direction. You select where you move, how far, and what direction you're facing when you end.
The lead character is a real prat, though. It makes you long for the opportunity to bump him off and play someone else. He's angsty, annoying, and leaves his head permanently wedged in a "not safe for work" place.
I rented this game and we liked it enough that we purchased it instead of returning it.
You're able to rifle the bodies of the fallen which is a good thing to do often because we found a high level Japanese artifact on a no-name German NPC corpse. It's very handy to empty your bazooka on an advancing tank, then reach down and snag the panzer faust off the corpse at your feet. Pillaging really helps your inventory which can then be tossed into a big pile between missions and then redistributed out to everyone before the next.
There are skills that can be learned in this game, but the only one you need to know about is the auto-heal skill. Learn it, live, love it. And for God's Sake's don't forget to the equip it to newly joined members!
Speaking of multiple members, you do have a collection of core people that the game ends on if any of them die. Then you have the NPCs who are have wandered in from various books and legends. They are like mobile weapons with personality. You can lose them and they don't end the mission. Then there's the recruits - or as I like to call them "Ablative armor". Recruits all have pink berets and are either male or female. The names change, the faces are the same. They never speak. They're the typical "minion".
While you can recruit a lot and take as many as 12 people on a mission at a time, if you have too many - your characters will not level up as the experience is spread around. This caused Restart from beginning #1.
Experience is gained thru how much damage you do which cheers me up greatly.
I do recommend saving in at least 2 slots. If one of your team is down when the map ends - they're dead. We lost a high ranking NPC just before a map ended. Then it autosaved over the spot. This caused Restart from beginning #2.
Grinding is also recommended.
While I wouldn't say this game has the Reich Stuff, it is fairly accurate on the side. Using video montages from actual war footage, it helps really add flavor to the game and keeps you aware of the timeline.
I originally wrote this review for GameFly while I was snickering a bit at the dismay at my FallOut 3 review. However, despite this being a game about WereWolves and Vampires taking place in the European Theater of World War 2, I was not allowed to post this because it contained the word Nazi and Reich.
In the end: while I normally don't like Strategy games like Final Fantasy Tactics, I found this one oddly addicting. XBox 360 - I recommend you wait for the price to go down.
Let me jump straight to the nonsense - sometimes the game does cheat. Please understand this now before you buy. Even a few walk thrus have mentioned this, so I don't feel so bad whining about it. Like most "tactics" games, there is a "range finder" that shows you if something is in range for the weapon you have chosen. You can have an identical weapon to the enemy, share the same flat plane, be 10 levels above them, and they will somehow have range where you do not. This is the only technical flaw. It's extremely frustrating, but once you accept it like a date with only one odious habit of loudly scraping their plate clean in a nice restaurant, you can enjoy the rest of the game.
Controls are pretty much the same format found in other strategy "tactics" games I've seen. Turn base cursor movement with a range finder showing you how far you can move in any direction. You select where you move, how far, and what direction you're facing when you end.
The lead character is a real prat, though. It makes you long for the opportunity to bump him off and play someone else. He's angsty, annoying, and leaves his head permanently wedged in a "not safe for work" place.
I rented this game and we liked it enough that we purchased it instead of returning it.
You're able to rifle the bodies of the fallen which is a good thing to do often because we found a high level Japanese artifact on a no-name German NPC corpse. It's very handy to empty your bazooka on an advancing tank, then reach down and snag the panzer faust off the corpse at your feet. Pillaging really helps your inventory which can then be tossed into a big pile between missions and then redistributed out to everyone before the next.
There are skills that can be learned in this game, but the only one you need to know about is the auto-heal skill. Learn it, live, love it. And for God's Sake's don't forget to the equip it to newly joined members!
Speaking of multiple members, you do have a collection of core people that the game ends on if any of them die. Then you have the NPCs who are have wandered in from various books and legends. They are like mobile weapons with personality. You can lose them and they don't end the mission. Then there's the recruits - or as I like to call them "Ablative armor". Recruits all have pink berets and are either male or female. The names change, the faces are the same. They never speak. They're the typical "minion".
While you can recruit a lot and take as many as 12 people on a mission at a time, if you have too many - your characters will not level up as the experience is spread around. This caused Restart from beginning #1.
Experience is gained thru how much damage you do which cheers me up greatly.
I do recommend saving in at least 2 slots. If one of your team is down when the map ends - they're dead. We lost a high ranking NPC just before a map ended. Then it autosaved over the spot. This caused Restart from beginning #2.
Grinding is also recommended.
While I wouldn't say this game has the Reich Stuff, it is fairly accurate on the side. Using video montages from actual war footage, it helps really add flavor to the game and keeps you aware of the timeline.
I originally wrote this review for GameFly while I was snickering a bit at the dismay at my FallOut 3 review. However, despite this being a game about WereWolves and Vampires taking place in the European Theater of World War 2, I was not allowed to post this because it contained the word Nazi and Reich.
In the end: while I normally don't like Strategy games like Final Fantasy Tactics, I found this one oddly addicting. XBox 360 - I recommend you wait for the price to go down.