Delta Force: Black Hawk Down

"Helicopters and Hummers"

Under the glare of the blazing sun, you take your place on the back of a Hum-vee. You're job is to use the machine gun to take out any hostiles and to protect the column. A truck with a .50 caliber machine gun comes flying across the dunes straight at the column; your only choice is to open fire before he can get near you. You pull back on the trigger and your own .50 calibers opens up, riddling the side of the truck full of holes. Finally one makes it to the fuel tank and the truck explodes before any harm can come to you or your comrades. The column stops at it's designated area and your orders now are to scout the area and watch out for an ambush. You take your sniper rifle upon the nearest hill, and through the scope you see a small band of rebels waiting for you and your men. You aim carefully and slowly ease back on the trigger. Your bullet explodes from the chamber and flies straight and true towards its targets. Before the first enemy hits the ground you fire a second shot to take out another member of the ambush party. In a matter of moments you've cleared out the resistance. A radio message comes in that a group of Deltas are under fire and need assistance. You jump into a Blackhawk helicopter and take your spot behind the side machine gun. The helicopter takes off with a little jolt and flies into the center of town. The members of your squad are pinned down in the center of town...you must help them. The Blackhawk glides over the area and out of the corner of your eye you see movement. A group of rebels are on the roofs and in one of their hands is an RPG. You turn quickly ready to fire, you pull the trigger and the bullets do their dangerous dance along the roof, but before they reach their target the Rocket Propelled Grenade soars from the enemy. In slow motion you see the small explosive glide through the air toward the tail end of the helicopter. The last thing you remember before the crash is the words, Black Hawk Down.

Black Hawk Down: Delta Force is the latest installment from the Delta Force series from Novalogic. It's a first person shooter game that takes a little bit of reality and a little bit of fiction and meshes it together. They take real life scenarios that happened in the early 90's to a small band of American's in the African country of Somalia and mixes it with good game play and interesting graphics. Whether it can stand up to other FPS such as Counter Strike and Quake in it's multiplayer area is a question that may or may not come quickly.

If you've read my little introduction you maybe really excited about the game, but perhaps a little worried that I may have exaggerated a little. That's not true at all. In fact in your first mission you'll take a Humvee from base, ride through an enemy infested area, go on foot and clear out pockets of resistance before getting back on. The mixture of on foot, sniper, helicopter, and humvee sections of the game really break up the game so you never feel like it's too repetitive. Also the different times of day help make every mission feel unique.

However the game play does take a hit from the enemy AI. In most missions the enemy is just plain stupid. Some will not detect you at all and will just stand there. If you want you could simply walk up to them and pop them with a pistol. Other times the enemy can easily cut you down with an emplaced weapon. Also a lot of the enemies have RPG's, which can make for tough going, but even that doesn't add much danger. If you can't do a mission, you can just restart and the enemy will be and do the exact same thing. If an enemy has an RPG and takes you out, you can reload and know exactly where that enemy will be and how long it takes him to fire. This can cause the game to be a little too easy and far too predictable.

The music you'll hear from the very beginning really gives you the feeling you're in Africa. The menu music is kind of soothing and maybe a little distressful. It may make you feel like a terrible event is about to occur. During single player in times of distress the music will pick. Outside of that little musical number, the gun sounds are very well done. Each weapon, even similar ones sound distinctly different. From sound you can tell what kind of rifles a sniper is using or even what handgun a fellow player is using against you. This part of the game is solid and I see no real flaws in it.

With all this great game play and musical scores you'll wonder what is the downside of the game. At first glance the graphics aren't too bad. For being a modern game they probably could of used a little boost, but overall not bad. However after you start playing you'll notice a major graphics problem. The skins are used OVER and OVER. You will see the same tin hut, same bad guy, and same truck over and over. There is not a very good mix of graphics and are way overused. Even multiplayer maps all look too similar. If you can put up with repetitive graphics then you won't mind too much.

What really makes this game shine is the multiplayer. Players can choose from a host of different characters. Medics can heal, Gunners carry machine guns, CBQ use rifles and grenades, and Snipers can well snipe. Each class has a bunch of different weapons they can use ranging from explosive, handguns, and rifles. The best part of BHD's multiplayer is the maps are small and quick to download even on slow connections. Also a great feature of the multiplayer maps is that they are huge. Most maps have a small city in the middle and then sand dunes or water that goes on and on. Sniper will be happy since they can camp out on hilltops far away and score tons of points from shooting from a distance. What can take away from the multiplayer is something that most people never think about, server selection screen. Most online multiplayer games have a favorites list as well as a way to search and/or narrow down the server list. This game has no favorite list nor does it have much in the way of narrowing the list down. If you already know what the server you want is named then you can search for it. One other issue is that this game has an expansion pack sold separately and the servers that use it will not let you join without purchasing the software. Now, most games would allow you to not view these servers. Not this game, you'll have to wade through thousands of severs to find that special one.

Overall this is a great game. I would defiantly recommend trying it out, especially if you are a multiplayer FPS freak. Hopefully the expansion pack will add some different skins, but keep the game play. This is defiantly a good game, especially at the price, that you need to try out. If you ever watched the movie Black Hawk Down and wondered how you would fare under those odds then this will get you as close as possible while keeping you safe and sound at home. 5,000 rebels vs. just you...sounds like good odds to me.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/09/04, Updated 12/03/04