Somalia has never been a great place to live. In 1993, it was pushing to become a unified nation after hundreds of years of foreign occupation and clan fighting. After the UN had concluded that General Aidid and his Habr Gedir militia was the biggest obstacle to peace in Somalia, the U.S. deployed Task Force Ranger (TFR) to arrest Aidid. The TFR was made up of a number of Special Forces and one of them was the Delta Force. Although, according to the U.S. government, the Delta Force wasn't actually an official force, it definitely existed, and in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down gamers get the chance to play as one of the members of this special force.
Gameplay
Like any other action game, Delta Force is divided up into a number of missions, and objectives within missions, that you must complete. There are a total of sixteen missions that closely resemble what happened during this conflict in Somalia, including the incident in which two Black Hawk Helicopters were shot down. Although the story is pretty interesting, the gameplay is even better. Each mission is completely different, so it won't get boring if you decide to beat a quarter or more of the game in one sitting. The missions are always filled with action. Whether you are with a group of forces taking on dozens of enemy forces, or it is just you and a couple other men, it is always something different and action filled.
There are quite a few weapons that you can use in the game, and the best part is you can usually pick and choose which ones you want. There are eighteen total weapons that you can use, not including explosives and other equipment. Your primary weapon will fall under the category of assault rifles, sniper rifles or machine guns. There is a great deal of selection when it comes to your primary weapon, and throughout the game you will have the chance to use all ten of these. Your secondary weapon is the light weapon that you won't often use. You can select from guns such as a pistol, SMG or even a shotgun. Explosives such as frag, flash, and smoke grenades are useful in a number of the missions. Some missions will even have you planting satchel charges to blow up bridges or vehicles.
One of the first things that you will notice when you start using your weapons, is that one hit kills stand true for almost any gun at any range. This may sound like you will be dying every time you turn around, but the one thing that prevents this is distance. About 90% of your shots will be at a medium to long range. This will have you squinting to see if you are shooting an actual person, or just a trash can. Although this may be more realistic, it definitely doesn't seem as fun when compared to a game like Counter-Strike.
In Counter-Strike, combat in much closer but can also be performed at a long range as well. Maybe more compact levels and playing arenas needed to be included in this game. Also, you will usually have to use your binoculars to zoom in to see exactly where the enemy forces are, and then go back to your primary weapon and fire away, which is another qualm I had.
Vehicles exist in ths game, and you will often are able to ride around in them. The three main vehicles are the Black Hawk helicopter, the Little Bird helicopter, and the Armored Attack Vehicle. Each of these three vehicles have mounted turrets that are extremely useful, and it just so happens that when you have access to these turrets there are hordes of enemy forces heading right for you. There are also a number of other trucks you will be able to ride in the back of, but sadly you don't get to have some fun driving around and running over a few people.
Although most people don't care about this, the manual included with this game is extremely high quality. It is full of information, in complete color, includes tons of neat pictures, and has more information than what you would ever need about the game. If we had such of an award, this game would definitely win, "Best Game Manual of the Year".
Xbox Live
One of the main features this game is known for is its ability to have up to fifty players playing in the same Xbox Live game at once. No other game previously has been able to match this amount of people in a single game. Online play is fairly broad, and many will enjoy it more than the actual campaign of the game. There are a total of seven different gameplay types online that consist of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Team King of The Hill, Search & Destroy, Attack & Defend, Capture the Flag, and Flag Ball. Most of them may seem obvious, but it will take you a great amount of time to completely understand all of the different game types and get to the point where you will always know what you are doing, no matter what kind of game you are in.
Also available online are the features that you see in just about every game such as leaderboards, quick match and optimatch, friends, and an option to create your own "team" which is the same as creating a clan in a game like Halo 2. However, with Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, you can do things such as have a team motto, description, logo, and even the URL of your clan's website. This is taking organized clans online a bit further than what Halo 2 does, and it is likely we will see other advances similar to these in games down the road. There will also be downloadable content in the near future.
Graphics
Sadly, the graphics of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down are not nearly as good as its gameplay. Since this game is actually a port of an older PC game, the graphics aren't expected to be that great. The environments are done pretty well, but the overall quality of the textures is very poor. Things like grass and water add greatly to the environments, but they are nothing like what you will see in some of the more popular Xbox games. Enemy models look pretty blocky, but the models of your team seem to look much better. The weapon models would have to be the best part of the graphics. Each gun looks distinctively different and like the actual weapon. Also, weapons like turrets and chain guns have neat animations and bullets flying out of them, and luckily you get to use these often.
Overall
Overall, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is an excellent military shooter that's lacking in a few areas. Online play is extremely well done, and the gameplay as a whole feels nearly complete. Sadly, the graphics stand nowhere close to games like Splinter Cell or Halo 2. The "always long range shooting" is not the funnest combat--maybe new smaller maps will be released to fix this--but this probably won't dramatically change online play. Other than that, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is a great game to rent and play through if you don't have Xbox Live, and definitely a game worth purchasing for playing through the campaign and using it to its full extent online.
| The Core Score |
Overall
7.8 |
| Fun |
|
8 |
| Gameplay |
|
8.4 |
| Graphics |
|
7 |
| Audio |
|
7.5 |
| Replay |
|
7.5 |
|
