[360] Operation Darkness. Europe probably shafted again, blame Germany this time

Operation Darkness is a new strategy rpg from Atlus. It's set in the second world war but being made by Japs, features all manner of silly supernatural beings like werewolves and dragons. Your team is made up of a bunch of British special forces guys (I think their most special ability is their near-flawless American accents) and you fight Nazis.

Equipment is of the machine guns and grenades variety and different equpment weighs different amounts, meaning that loading everyone up with bazookas will stop them from moving anywhere and adding a more tactial depth to equipment choices than the more common "Pick everything with the highest stats". Also, you can grab weapons from downed enemies.

As well as conventional weaponry, your team can utilise various magic powers and some can turn into werewolves. There are also various skills to develop and choose from. All in all there's plenty of customisation and tactical choice.

A new feature is the cover commands. You can tell your troops to cover run, which means moving at the same time as someone else, cover fire which means shooting at anyone who comes in range or cover ambush which is like cover fire but different apparently, I haven't really worked it out from the demo yet.

You get online co-op play and all the environments are destructible so you can blow up houses with the bazookas (Yay!).

From playing the demo, I can tell you that the game is not without it's flaws. The camera controls are horrible and it's a little hard to tell where everyone is without using the mini-map. Also, the voice acting is horrific and the graphics aren't all that (Although considering it's in 3d and most srpgs still use crappy sprites they're live with-able).

I believe the game is already out in Japan and due out in the US fairly soon. No European release date yet, despite the demo being available in PAL regions and apparently publicity materials being sent to European reviewers. Most specualtion about a European release points at Germany's blanket ban on references to Nazis as a reason for it not coming out. We got Wolfenstein though so I live in hope. If it does come out I reckon I'll buy it as I've not played a decent srpg for ages and it'd be nice to play one that's not infested with cutesy anime style characters.

Jam it back in, in the dark.