Operation Darkness demo on XBL Marketplace

by Xav de Matos { Apr 24th 2008 at 10:30AM }

A few months ago the demo for Operation Darkness, one of the first Xbox 360 titles from famed Japanese publisher Atlus, hit the Far East Live Marketplace; last night the same demo has made its way Stateside for Western gamers to take it for a spin.

Featuring 4-player online co-op, the strategy RPG is set in an alternate World War II universe where you must do battle with mystical creatures and the many minions of Hitler. That's right, no sugar coating this final boss. Strategy RPG fans tired of their lack of options on the Xbox 360, unless you're an XBLA fiend, should check this one out.

Tags: 2008-releases, atlus, operation-darkness, success

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Tony @ Apr 24th 2008 10:39AM

I just saw this. Looking forward to it.

itsburnsie @ Apr 24th 2008 10:45AM

I'm intrigued, Altus has put out some good games, and it's great to see them coming to the 360.

I'll have to download it as soon as my Elite comes back from Microsoft... it seems I have finally been struck by the RRoD. (My first console, a pro which I sold to a co-worker is still running fine though, what're the odds.)

ManicBomber @ Apr 24th 2008 10:51AM

Beware the fanboys on this one folks. The game is an obvious downgrade (Xbox 360 exclusive, cause they wouldn't subject the Japanese market to this). It's a walking advertisement for Japanese consoles and the Atlus fanboys (the weaboos that they are) are going to defend the crap out of this game. It's technically flawed, graphically horrible (and a vast departure from the over stylized look of all of Atlus other games), and has some real issues for a $60 game.

dunnypop @ Apr 24th 2008 11:13AM

I'm not an RPG fan, but a co-op RPG and battling Hitler is always a good selling point. I'll try this out.

Terry @ Apr 24th 2008 11:17AM

@itsburnsie Your elite red-ringed? this does not bode well for my Decision of which gtaiv to get..id like to get the 360 version..(we know the reasons)..but if i buy it and my elite red rings during play..PISSED..i will be!

itsburnsie @ Apr 24th 2008 12:33PM

Yup, my elite that I "upgraded to" last summer. I thought they were red-ring resistant, but alas I was wrong.

I just wish Microsoft would come out and state in plain language what causes the RRoD, which consoles are more likely to be affected, and what exactly they've done to fix it. That's the only way they'll restore consumer confidence, at this point.

andyface @ Apr 24th 2008 12:52PM

I assume it's something to do with the hardware overheating (assuming the towel method of inducing a rrod works) and then either melting or just generally being dead. It being a permanent break, not just a temporary crash. What mildly baffles me is that it's still able to produce a red ring and not just plain stop working altogether. There is also the possibility it is not simply one issue but a collection of problems that results in the red ring. Anyway that may all be relatively obvious, but thought you may enjoy my musings, I could easily be wrong.

itsburnsie @ Apr 24th 2008 1:23PM

@andyface

I always enjoy good musings :-)

But again, that's my point, we know a few things about the RRoD and it's likely causes... but Microsoft keeps us in the dark about the important things.

Things like how they've supposedly dealt with the defect, which consoles have the improvements in them, what they failure rate of the new and improved hardware is... etc.

Way off topic on this article, and for that I apologize. Just miffed I have to miss GTA IV for a while because my console finally croaked.

Boff @ Apr 25th 2008 5:15AM

Itsburnie: There was an article on her some time ago about identifying models with the Falcon chipset. You need to check the PSU (125w instead of the 'old' 250w) and also the manufacturing date/code.

Big Filth @ Apr 24th 2008 11:20AM

I downloaded this last night. I was excited. I played it for about 5 minutes, laughed out loud. Stared at the screen in amazement for another 5 minutes then deleted it as fast as possible.

ManicBomber @ Apr 24th 2008 1:54PM

I wish I could have laughed, but I was too busy feeling a sense of loss at how far removed this is from the genius that was Ogre Battle.

Way to not even be able to provide the same stellar experience you did like 15 years ago Atlus.

Mr.ESC @ Apr 24th 2008 11:27AM

Umm I've always considered games that mock WWII or spin offs of WWII tasteless.

I'm downloading Universe at war demo instead.

gundamxzero @ Apr 24th 2008 12:55PM

Oh are you kidding me? Return to castle wolfenstein is an awesome game, and enemy territory(the multi expansion on PC) was incredible.

Tony @ Apr 24th 2008 11:29AM

The SMT games definitely have a similar style, but they're actually developed by Atlus's internal teams.

Atlus didn't develop this. They just localized it. In this case there's no real style for them to depart from.

I just finished downloading it. I already knew it wasn't the prettiest game ever, but who knows. Neither was EDF and that game's awesome.

If it sucks I think it's unlikely any Atlus fanboy is going to defend it. The people on the Atlus forums, probably the most diehard Atlus fans there are for obvious reasons, love to bitch about things. Half the threads on this game have been negative before it even came out due to the price tag.

Tony @ Apr 24th 2008 11:59AM

Game's kind of a C... average. As far as strategy titles go I've played worse and there does seem to be room for some interesting senarios; however, the demo doesn't give you much of an idea of what there might be in the future, really.

It's definitely not pretty. Some of the animation is stiff and the camera pans are really jerky (looks like frames are skipping, but I don't think that's the actual issue).

I would consider picking it up eventually if it was like $30 or so... but $60? No.

ccc @ Apr 24th 2008 11:39AM

@Tony

I will give this game a try to see if it is as bad as they say but I am surprised to see you mention EDF.

EDF is an amazing game that would own if it were online.

Did you get a 1000 out of it?

Tony @ Apr 24th 2008 11:57AM

Hah, no way. I can't even finish the first couple of levels in Inferno.

ccc @ Apr 24th 2008 1:14PM

I only have a few inferno levels left.

Armor farm alot and get a friend to play with, it helps.

Jonman @ Apr 24th 2008 2:40PM

This sounds a bizarre videogaming spin on Godwin's Law.

I'll check it out this evening, if I can seperate the wife from her pinatas.

Beck @ Apr 24th 2008 4:09PM

I'm kind of disappointed with this demo. It's a decent game from what I played... but it's actually fairly hard. I mean, if one of your three of eight - or was it 12? - characters die... game over. And it becomes way too unfair when the enemy can pull a rocket launcher out of his @$$ and blast you away. Anyway, it's kind of slow. I mean, I'm a S-RPG fan - Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics, Front Mission, all my favorite games - but this is even slower than I thought possible. I mean, when you have to go 5 turns before you can engage the enemy... you know something is wrong. In any case... this should really not be a full priced game. I'll buy it if I find it for $20 MAYBE $30.

SABCA @ Apr 24th 2008 5:21PM

For people complaining about how hard it is... go into your skills menu, and set each char up with skills. There is one that allows you to use an auto-potion everytime you take critical/killing damage.

With that, as long as you loot corpses for more potions, you're pretty much invincible, lol.

It makes the games camera angle issues a lot easier to deal with, since the feature is like a "band-aid" to the poorly implemented viewing system.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: I wish Working Designs was still around! They would have made an effort to polish the game before American release, and then given us liner notes in the back of their full-color premium manual, telling us how much they went through, to give us the best version of the game possible!

...Oh, and I thought the Cover actions helped pick the games pacing up A LOT. And the fact that enemy turns can go by so fast because of them moving 3 or 4 at a time... I thought there were a lot of genuinely smart ideas at work in the game....

Mrbishop77 @ Apr 25th 2008 12:12AM

This demo absolutely sucks. I gave it more than my usual amount of patience to let it try and win me over. The camera was awful, the pacing and amount of time it took to just move was unbelievable. This thing couldn't leave my Xbox fast enough. Only fanboys need apply here.