Delta Force

"Makes me wanna join the Army!"

Introduction

Delta Force, at first glance, seems to be just another first-person shooter. However, it has enough differences to set it apart from all other shooters. Unlike other first-person shooters, it has few weaknesses.

High Points:
- Super addictive gameplay
- Vast, open terrains to explore
- 40 single player campaign missions to complete
- Excellent control
- Realistic health adds suspense
- Non-linear missions
- Largescale multiplayer (32 players)
- Strategic scoring system

Low Points:
- Super pixelated graphics
- Almost no plot
- Small weapon selection
-Too much oustde combat

Storyline - 3

In October of 1977, the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-DELTA was secretly formed to deal with the growing threat of world terrorism. At Fort Bragg, elite Delta Force operatives, recruited mainly from the 82nd Airborne, Special Forces Green Berets and U.S. Army Rangers, rigorously train in hostage rescues, specialized reconnaissance and other counter terrorism techniques. Highly skilled in CQB (Close Quarters Battle), armed with the best equipment, and able to infiltrate as civilians, Delta Force is ready to deal with the most dangerous world threats.
Due to the extremely sensitive nature of these low-visibility missions, the U.S. Department of Defense still does not officially acknowledge the existence of Delta Force.

That's the story as stated in the manual. If I were to sum up the story from the game itself, that paragraph wouldn't be there. As for character development, all the people you meet either die, or you save them and never see them again. And the main character is you. I guess if you wanted to know what the main character's personality is like, it's fairly simple. Which do you use more, a sniper rifle, or a fully automatic assault machine gun (now that's more like it). Let's face it; this is a first person shooter. Since when has a first person shooter ever had a story? At least this one has a history...

Game Play - 9

This is what sets this game apart from all others. Instead of being cooped up in a tiny facility (Remember Goldeneye?) shooting people as you see them around corners, you are free to roam as you wish. You can take on your objectives in any way you want to. This adds a good deal of strategy to the game. You can choose to take on all the soldiers at once head on, or you can pick off the ones that have wandered from their main group, then pick off the rest from a distance with your favorite sniper rifle. It feels great to actually be able to use a sniper rifle. In most other first-person shooters that I've played, they offered a sniper rifle solely because of their existence; they had little use in those games since most of your kills were at point blank range. Another plus in Delta Force is that all of the weapons you use in it actually exist in real life, some of which are even used in the U.S. Army. It is an army simulator after all isn't it? You won't find any of those weird weapons you found in Half Life or Duke Nukem. Now Goldeneye had mostly real weapons, but they renamed them for some reason. Remember the D5K Deutsche from Goldeneye? Well in real life it's called the MP5 and yes, that's what it's called in Delta Force.

There are many campaign missions for you to play through in single player. The missions take place through several countries, and you can start at any of the countries you wish. As you progress, more missions are unlocked until you reach the ultimate goal of stopping the terrorists or whatever. Eventually there will be 40 missions that after you have unlocked them, you are free to replay them as much as you want to.

Delta Force also offers a fast paced multiplayer over NovaWorld. It's almost a whole new game in itself. You choose to play several different types of games, including, Deathmatch. Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill, Team King of the Hill, Capture the Flag, and Cooperative. All are fun to play, especially the team games. This is where you will spend the majority of your playing time.

Many little additions to the games make it even more fun. When you first start the game, you get to create a soldier, or choose a previously used soldier. All your kills in various areas are kept track of. Your single player campaign kills, multiplayer kills, multiplayer deaths, and multiplayer team games won are all kept track of for you to measure how you've been doing overall. At times, actually most of the time, it looks like a war zone in Delta Force. Tracers flying over your head, soldiers falling, grenades exploding nearby, the knowledge that it only takes one bullet to kill you, and much more make the experience very suspenseful. Another cool thing in Delta Force is that there are no enemies that just spawn out of nowhere when you step over a certain point. All of the enemies are already placed somewhere in the mission. You can even know where most of them are just by bringing up your GPS screen.

There are a few problems with the game play, though. The biggest one being that the weapon selection is extremely small. I can easily count all of the main weapons on one hand. Then I could count all of the secondary weapons on the other. Then after that there are only two side arms. This is somewhat made up for, though, since all of the main weapons have are unique in their purpose. Just a minor problem, but night vision is automatically equipped on certain missions. What's so bad about that? It turns your whole screen green and you can't turn it off as far as I know. Another big problem is the buildings. You can go inside some of them, but most are just landmarks and bullet stoppers. The windows are really annoying too until you get used to them. They are pitch black so that you can't see inside of them at all unless you're really close. I suppose that gives snipers a strategic advantage. The buildings confine you to, in my opinion, too much outside. The great outdoors are great and all, but couldn't they have achieved a more reasonable balance?

Graphics - 3

The graphics are almost as bad as Duke Nukem. Yeah, that bad. You can hardly tell by looking at it that it is a 1998 game. The only difference from Duke Nukem is that now the people and objects are 3D. The terrain is extremely pixilated and looks really fuzzy. If you look straight down, all you can see is a bunch of really big squares on the ground. The highest resolution you can put it on is 800x600. Even then, the pixilation is really bad. I really like the animations, however. It almost makes it fun to die in multiplayer. When you die, the camera switches from the normal first person view, to a third person view so that you get to see your dramatic death. The graphics of Delta Force are defiantly not one of the games strong points.

Sound - 6

The sound is pretty good overall. There is hardly any music, except at the main menus, but hey, I don't believe that any army dude runs into battle while listening to his portable CD player, at least I've never seen one. As for the sound effects, they are really good! You can actually tell which way gunfire is coming from, as well the sounds of your own gunfire. You can even hear the bullets whizzing past you and grenades blowing up near you, which is often discomforting. And the screams of death are great, unless they're your own. Every gun even makes it's own sound, just as they should.

Control - 10

The control of Delta Force is the best I have ever some by in a first person shooter! First of all, the most annoying thing about other first person shooters is that the left and right arrow buttons are used to rotate your guy left or right. When you have a mouse, why don't you just use it to do the looking around? Delta Force uses the left and right arrow buttons to shimmy, an extremely useful tactic so that you can shoot and move at the same time. The scope is also a well thought out thing. You just have to right click and it brings up your scope (if the gun you're using has one). Instead of your scope taking up your entire screen, it only takes up a small circle at the side of your screen. This lets you see everything going on around you, as well as concentrate on your target and find other targets at the same time. It's much more efficient. There is only one very minor problem, if you try to run up a slope that's steeper than a certain angle, you'll move really slow or even fall back to where you started. This can be corrected easily by trying to climb a less steep hill.

Replayability/Length -9

The only motivation to replay many of the single player campaigns would be to raise your number of campaign kills. Other than that, you'll be playing in multiplayer games a lot. With the variety of game types to play in, and a load of maps, the combinations are endless! Plus the game play is really addictive, which will have you coming back for more.

Final Thoughts:

Though I gave this game a really good review, I would not recommend buying it. This game is very out of date, plus there are a few sequels out that look very promising. It cost me a well-spent $20 to buy. If I were you, I'd read my review on Delta Force 2 before you decide on getting a Delta Force game.

Delta Force Score - 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/23/01, Updated 06/23/01