Delta Force: Task Force Dagger

"It wasn't a good idea to send players to Afghanistan"

Delta Force Task Force Dagger is a FPS in which you're a member of special forces sent to Afghanistan. Yep, you're playing in this recent war. But was it a good thing to take this conflict as background for this game?

I played Land Warrior in the same series and I enjoyed this title. Well, it wasn't an Half-Life or a Doom and this scope for sniping was giving me some hard times but I enjoyed the game. And I wanted to renewed the experience with the next Delta Force. Professionals didn't seem enthusiastic about it.

Do you want to know something? Despite the warnings from the professionals, I bought the game. I wish now I hadn't spent my money.

But before revealing why I regret my action, I think that I'll point out some good points. First is the diversity of the playable factions. If you want to be a simple soldier but faster than anyone, you can be a member of SFOD - DELTA (US Army Special Force Operational detachment) or of JTF-2 (Canada). If you want to be an heavy gunner, with big chainguns, choose to be a Green Beret (USA) or a Marine Force Recon member (USA). You want to be a sniper? Play as a CIA SOG (Special Operations Group) member or as a SAS (UK) one. And if you prefer to be someone explosive, I mean, with grenade launcher or anything else that can make kaboom, choose to be a SASR (Australia) or a Ranger from the US 75th regiment. Finally, you prefer to do your job without sound or to be the best swimmer, so, be a SEAL Team 6 member or a CSAR (US Airforce Combat, Search and Rescue). But if you're playing multiplayer, SEAL and CSAR are also medics.

Well, for the weapons choice, you have 14 primary weapons, 3 secondary ones, 5 sidearms, 3 explosives. My favorites are the OICW Assault Rifle with 20mm grenade launcher (a zoom of 6x, 3 modes of firing, great design), the PSG-1 Suppressed Sniper Rifle (only silent weapon for sniper with a zoom of 4x) and the M82A1 Barret Sniper Rifle (14x for the zoom but the problem is the sound, it's very noisy).

You can also ask for an aerial strike; you have the laser designator for that. Not as fun as in Conflict Desert Storm or Vietcong though.

Delta Force isn't a game that is difficult to play. I mean, it's intuitive like most of the FPS games. You just need to shoot. Infiltration phases aren't so difficult if you're used to the concept. Graphics are correct; Novalogic is known for developing its own graphic engine. But I must admit that it's inferior to what was done at that time. Neverless, Delta Force TFD is the same as Land Warrior, the previous game. Soundtrack is also a very good point.

Now why am I regretting to have bought it? Well, the fact that I didn't finish the single player campaign. Because of there being too many enemies AND the fact that I was killed in the first seconds of the last mission I've played. How to get past it? I'm sure there is a bug somewhere, if you exclude the ones with the graphics (like bodies floating or between two walls).

Another problem is the 3rd person perspective. You can play it in this FPS, but it's unplayable. You don't have the a great accuracy and you're not at your ease. I missed the way Tomb Raider or Max Payne were giving you the feeling that you could do a lot of things without being bothered by their back. So why include the possibility when it's a scary view in this game? Why Beta Testers didn't report the problem? Or did they only test the 1st-person perspective?

The scope when you're sniping is placed on the side of your screen. For having a global view it's great but for sniping it's not a good thing. It seems so unrealistic. I mean, it sounds like you can snipe and see the global situation at the same time as if you have more eyes than 2. The map isn't really useful, only for viewing your road. But the rest, I've never understood it. Even with the manual.

I also had the impression that the AI wasn't really great but I can't really remember what stupid actions the enemies made, apart from the fact that they stayed long enough in the same place, shooting at me, making easier for me to kill them.


GAMEPLAY: 5/10 - Scope on the side really fed me up in this game, where Land Warrior didn't make me feel that. Probably the bugs, associated with the scope and the frustration of some missions, made me sick of this game. But DFTFD is intuitive.

GRAPHICS: 6/10 - Correct ones but I was feeling that Land Warrior was more beautiful than TFD. Perhaps the change of country? Or simply because some parts are like 2D paper, like the pilots in the helicopter?

SOUNDTRACK: 7/10 - Good one, but not as good as some old games or Land Warrior

LIFETIME: 5/10 - Well, I didn't get addicted to this game, mainly because of one mission, always failed - or I'm killed or I don't kill enough enemies but I'm pretty sure that there is a bug there, it's not possible to arrive to this mission and then, suddenly, you can't go through, as if you were a bad player... So, I don't think that the lifetime is really high.

STORY: 5/10 - Good idea to take as background a recent war, because some players will be happy to be part of a still-going conflict (or at the time of the release, a new conflict) but the lack of individual characters and personality is making the storyline mediocre.

FINAL NOTE: 4/10 - If you want to try, I can't prevent you from doing it. It's a good soft for the ideas but the campaign is so difficult that I can't really have pleasure. Weapons are great as is the sound. No individual characters with a name isn't a good idea. The scope could have been a good idea but it's so disappointing that you'll have an hard time to be used to using it. If you want a really great product in the saga Delta Force, buy Land Warrior.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/15/08

Game Release: Delta Force: Task Force Dagger (EU, 06/27/02)