Turn-based strategy is like the cantankerous, old neighbor who wakes up each morning with the blood-rite of making the lives of the block’s kids a living hell. He/she boots them off of the lawn or swipes away the renegade basketball that bounced off the rim and into his/her yard. Much like the old codger, turn-based strategy is a genre set in its ways, but, in saying this, that is not to claim that innovations are a thing of the past; Sid Meier’s Civilization series continues to expand on what is possible within the genre, while keeping the tried and true gameplay of the series as addicting as ever. Operation Darkness – rather than innovating on (or even taking notes from) what other turn-based strategy efforts do particularly well – feels like a step back for what should be the most basic expectations of any strategic game, and it stands as an relic of the old school; Operation Darkness is the old neighbor, and, unfortunately, the players are the little kids who just want to have fun. Games in the strategy genre have always been iterative in nature – constantly adapting and adding the findings of their predecessors to create the perfect strategy experience; Operation Darkness lives in a cave and has gone a little insane because of it.

Operation Darkness is a World War II turn-based strategy game with a very distinct twist – monsters. Vampires, werewolves, and zombies walk the battlefield, as the player takes control of a squad called The Wolf Brigade. This patchwork of soldiers is given the mission of taking on the axis and preventing them from constructing a nuclear bomb. As the player finds out more about the real power of The Wolf Brigade, things become a bit more complicated. The story has no shortage of oddities, but none of that matters in the least without proper presentation and a fun game.

In one fell swoop, Operation Darkness’ visual presentation falls completely short, and this wouldn’t usually be the end of the world because, frankly, turn-based strategy games have never won any beauty contests, but Darkness takes it to an old, last generation low. The game honestly looks like it would find a suitable home on the Xbox (original). Even on that system, it would still stand out as being less than stellar, and this disappointment carries over to the camera system – the game’s cardinal sin. It is incredibly hard to strategize when a full view of the battlefield is not readily available. If this were a game feature (like the fog of war), then there would not be a single complaint, but the camera controls do not allow players a readily viewable picture of battle conditions. There were countless occurrences when the sending of units to what seemed to be a safe zone only resulted in their getting killed by some enemy standing by a tree that was just outside of the camera’s view; with a good camera system, this sort of artificial difficulty could’ve been easily avoided.

So, with all of the game’s shortcomings, if it can still offer a fun strategy experience then most can be forgiven, and, fortunately, there is some fun to be had. It is a very straightforward system: move your squad to opportune (preferably covered) positions, attack the enemy, rinse, repeat. This sort of simplicity does have a certain addiction factor to it, but it seems like it would’ve been a better fit on a handheld system like the Nintendo DS or Sony’s PSP. The ability to pick up weapons off of fallen enemies is a neat feature and adds to customizability of squads, and, prior to going into combat, the player is also able to outfit his/her team with weapons and items. If this all sounds very generic, that is because it is. I suppose “fun” isn’t the best way to put it; perhaps a better way would be “it is something to do.” The inability to save in the middle of battle is a huge misstep as well, because some fights can take as long as an hour.

The game’s story, while odd, also lacks any value beyond the initial “that’s weird.” Once that wears off, the poorly written dialogue (a lot may be lost in the translation) and unoriginal characters will not be enough to keep players glued to the controller.

Operation Darkness represents everything that shouldn’t be done in the contemporary turn-based strategy market. When a genre is already becoming an endangered species, it is not going to elongate its lifespan with mediocre efforts like this. It’s lack of a fully workable camera system, archaic graphics, beaten-to-death gameplay, and no in-mission save system leaves players with nothing more than a future bargain-bin title.

4 / 10