Delta Force: Black Hawk Down - Review
Added August 8th, 2005 by Serenity Now
Introduction:
The title ‘’Delta Force: Black Hawk Down’’ may sound familiar. Well, at least it should. It was originally released back in early 2003 for the PC. Back then, quality PC games that offered large-scale battles were still scarce. Much attention was focused on Delta Force: Black Hawk Down as it supported up to fifty players via a dedicated server. Many wondered if this heavenly number of players allowed in one match would ever come to the console realm. Here we are, two years later, and still, no console game has ever accomplished this feat of allowing up to fifty players to duke it out all at the same time. That is until now. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down has hit the Xbox and completely shatters the console record for most players allowed in a multiplayer brawl. Plus, as an added bonus, it includes a single-player campaign with sixteen exhilarating missions. However, the question is, how does everything play? Is it buggy and chock full of glitches? We know this is a great accomplishment, but does it actually work? And most importantly, is it fun? All of these questions and more will be answered; you just have to continue reading.
Gameplay:
The single-player portion of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down feels extremely scripted, unlike titles such as Call of Duty. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Of course, most will generally view this as a flaw, but since the entire single-player experience feels like an added bonus instead of an actual full-fledged mode, it’s to be expected. It’s a nice alternative to the tactical, more serious online aspect of this game. These arcade style missions provide tons of fun, not to mention there are a total of sixteen missions not including the surprisingly enjoyable, and informative tutorial.
The title ‘’Delta Force: Black Hawk Down’’ may sound familiar. Well, at least it should. It was originally released back in early 2003 for the PC. Back then, quality PC games that offered large-scale battles were still scarce. Much attention was focused on Delta Force: Black Hawk Down as it supported up to fifty players via a dedicated server. Many wondered if this heavenly number of players allowed in one match would ever come to the console realm. Here we are, two years later, and still, no console game has ever accomplished this feat of allowing up to fifty players to duke it out all at the same time. That is until now. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down has hit the Xbox and completely shatters the console record for most players allowed in a multiplayer brawl. Plus, as an added bonus, it includes a single-player campaign with sixteen exhilarating missions. However, the question is, how does everything play? Is it buggy and chock full of glitches? We know this is a great accomplishment, but does it actually work? And most importantly, is it fun? All of these questions and more will be answered; you just have to continue reading.
Gameplay:
The single-player portion of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down feels extremely scripted, unlike titles such as Call of Duty. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Of course, most will generally view this as a flaw, but since the entire single-player experience feels like an added bonus instead of an actual full-fledged mode, it’s to be expected. It’s a nice alternative to the tactical, more serious online aspect of this game. These arcade style missions provide tons of fun, not to mention there are a total of sixteen missions not including the surprisingly enjoyable, and informative tutorial.
Since the single-player campaign isn’t the main attraction here, not much emphasis was put on the story. Well, some was, it’s just obvious it wasn’t executed very well. The date is 1993, and the place is Somalia. You play as a soldier on an assignment aptly named Operation Restore Hope. The campaign mainly consists of a bunch of rescue missions. This, however, doesn’t mean they’re not fun rescue missions. I mean, sure, the single-player campaign is your basic “shoot it, kill it, save him, run over there and hide under there” type game, but everything just plays great. Not a single time was I perplexed as to what to do. From the environments to the radar system, the setup is absolutely beautiful.
The single-player mode may be just fine and dandy, but the heart and soul of this game is its impressive online mode. The reason why it’s so impressive is because up to fifty players can participate in an online skirmish at the same time. It’s not without its fair share of problems though. I found it very difficult to join games. I mostly encountered problems with joining large-scale games. User-hosted games I could usually join without any hassle. Loading times are an issue as well; especially after it’s finally completed loading and you view a screen that says the game session is no longer available. This definitely isn’t a hassle-free online mode as promised.
When you do actually manage to join a game, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down becomes an extremely fun online experience. You’ve got all your basic modes of play here, plus some additional unique ones as well. There’s Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Flag Ball, and several more. This game is truly feature-packed. It also creates an immense sense of urgency. I mean, it can get pretty darn hectic when there are fifty screaming maniacs running all over the place, and gunshots flying past your head.
The next thing I’m about to discuss will either be something you will love or something you will hate. It’s a little hard to actually locate your enemies. They barely show up on your radar, and nothing lights up above their head signifying what team they belong to. Your team, however, will always have their team color above their head shining bright, so friendly fire usually isn’t a problem unless it’s done on purpose (then it wouldn’t be friendly fire, now would it?). It would be a huge assistance if the team color of your foes would stay above their heads instead of going off every second. When you’re on a plane and looking down for enemies to take out, you have to look for little black dots. Back to why you’ll either hate this or love it. I think the reason why it’s like this is to keep things more realistic and frantic. And if that is indeed the case, they did an excellent job.
There are vehicles in this game, but none of them can actually be manually operated. You literally can’t drive anything, you just have to hop in and watch it go. I guess this lets you focus on killing your enemies, but it’s honestly the main reason why this game feels so scripted (single-player portion at least). However, I do like getting in a plane and letting it take me all over the map while I just lie there with my sniper rifle taking out opponents. It’s rather amusing.
The gameplay in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is certainly not lacking in terms of content, but more so in terms of playability. Nearly fifty percent of the time you’ll get a message saying that the game session is no longer available. Not only is this frustrating, but considering you just endured five minutes of loading time, it quickly becomes a huge pain. However, when everything does work, the online play of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is extremely enjoyable, exciting, and a somewhat unique experience. The single-player aspect feels more like a little something extra thrown in, but when it’s this fun, I’ll take it. Overall, the gameplay in Delta Force: Black Hawk is fantastic, but it’s certainly not without its flaws. Let’s hope a patch will be released to fix the online issues.
Graphics:
Since this is a port of a two year-old game, expect outdated graphics. The visuals in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down are in no way bad, it’s just this game looks like garbage when compared to other recent Xbox titles. The textures look dreadful. It’s apparent that not much work went into improving the overall look from the PC version. From the weapons to the character models, everything looks extremely generic. Everything in this game, from a distance, looks just fine, it’s when you get up close that things start to take a wrong turn. Of course, if textures are the problem here, that’s predictable. Sadly, not much detail was put into the visual facet of this game.
The single-player mode may be just fine and dandy, but the heart and soul of this game is its impressive online mode. The reason why it’s so impressive is because up to fifty players can participate in an online skirmish at the same time. It’s not without its fair share of problems though. I found it very difficult to join games. I mostly encountered problems with joining large-scale games. User-hosted games I could usually join without any hassle. Loading times are an issue as well; especially after it’s finally completed loading and you view a screen that says the game session is no longer available. This definitely isn’t a hassle-free online mode as promised.
When you do actually manage to join a game, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down becomes an extremely fun online experience. You’ve got all your basic modes of play here, plus some additional unique ones as well. There’s Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Flag Ball, and several more. This game is truly feature-packed. It also creates an immense sense of urgency. I mean, it can get pretty darn hectic when there are fifty screaming maniacs running all over the place, and gunshots flying past your head.
The next thing I’m about to discuss will either be something you will love or something you will hate. It’s a little hard to actually locate your enemies. They barely show up on your radar, and nothing lights up above their head signifying what team they belong to. Your team, however, will always have their team color above their head shining bright, so friendly fire usually isn’t a problem unless it’s done on purpose (then it wouldn’t be friendly fire, now would it?). It would be a huge assistance if the team color of your foes would stay above their heads instead of going off every second. When you’re on a plane and looking down for enemies to take out, you have to look for little black dots. Back to why you’ll either hate this or love it. I think the reason why it’s like this is to keep things more realistic and frantic. And if that is indeed the case, they did an excellent job.
There are vehicles in this game, but none of them can actually be manually operated. You literally can’t drive anything, you just have to hop in and watch it go. I guess this lets you focus on killing your enemies, but it’s honestly the main reason why this game feels so scripted (single-player portion at least). However, I do like getting in a plane and letting it take me all over the map while I just lie there with my sniper rifle taking out opponents. It’s rather amusing.
The gameplay in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is certainly not lacking in terms of content, but more so in terms of playability. Nearly fifty percent of the time you’ll get a message saying that the game session is no longer available. Not only is this frustrating, but considering you just endured five minutes of loading time, it quickly becomes a huge pain. However, when everything does work, the online play of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is extremely enjoyable, exciting, and a somewhat unique experience. The single-player aspect feels more like a little something extra thrown in, but when it’s this fun, I’ll take it. Overall, the gameplay in Delta Force: Black Hawk is fantastic, but it’s certainly not without its flaws. Let’s hope a patch will be released to fix the online issues.
Graphics:
Since this is a port of a two year-old game, expect outdated graphics. The visuals in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down are in no way bad, it’s just this game looks like garbage when compared to other recent Xbox titles. The textures look dreadful. It’s apparent that not much work went into improving the overall look from the PC version. From the weapons to the character models, everything looks extremely generic. Everything in this game, from a distance, looks just fine, it’s when you get up close that things start to take a wrong turn. Of course, if textures are the problem here, that’s predictable. Sadly, not much detail was put into the visual facet of this game.
One thing I did admire about this game’s graphics was its huge environments. I guess they figured if they’re going to allow up to fifty people to play at the same time, they better make some maps that are of decent size so that things won’t become overcrowded. The frame-rate, single-player and multiplayer sections included, seems to stay at a steady rate. The particle effects are gorgeous. There are definitely plenty of explosions and things of that sort in this game, so you’ll get a healthy dosage of particle effects. Another thing I liked about this game was its rich and vibrant colors. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down isn’t the best looking game I’ve seen on Xbox, but nonetheless, it’s a decent looking game, and if it weren’t for the awful textures, it would have been a very visually appealing game.
Audio:
The audio in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is nothing to die for (pun intended). The voice-acting is mediocre, and the music feels a little out of place. There are some unnamed rock songs that continuously play throughout the single-player campaign. Normally, in these types of game, you would be hearing live orchestra music. Well, at least that’s what you should be hearing. To make a game seem epic, you need epic music, and the music score in this game is certainly not epic. One thing this game does very well in the audio department is its sound effects. The music may not be good, but who cares when you’ve got gunshots that sound as if they’re real. Explosions are very well done as well. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down has some nicely done sound effects, but the music and voice-acting is nothing special.
Controls:
The control setup in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is basically your conventional first-person shooter setup. The only thing that wouldn’t be found in most console shooters is the way you jump. Instead of using the A button, you have to use the left thumbstick. In my opinion, this is the better way. It’s a seamless task to jump using the left thumbstick. Is this recreating spacebar jumping? Of course not, it’s just the best possible button they could have used. The D-pad is used to crouch, lie flat, lean, and to roll. Everything else is what you would expect. To shoot press the right trigger, to reload press X, etc. This doesn’t control as well as its PC counterpart, but, in all honesty, I don’t think they could have done much better.
Replay:
Here is where Delta Force: Black Hawk Down really shows its strength. The online portion of this game could consume countless hours of your time, and the single-player campaign has a grand total of sixteen missions. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of bang for your buck. The online portion is so crammed with features that it will never get old. Plus, the tactical gameplay leaves room for players to improve their skills. It’s not like other games where the first time you play you’re an expert. If you’re wondering if Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is lengthy enough to justify the hefty price tag, speculate no more, because it is.
Audio:
The audio in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is nothing to die for (pun intended). The voice-acting is mediocre, and the music feels a little out of place. There are some unnamed rock songs that continuously play throughout the single-player campaign. Normally, in these types of game, you would be hearing live orchestra music. Well, at least that’s what you should be hearing. To make a game seem epic, you need epic music, and the music score in this game is certainly not epic. One thing this game does very well in the audio department is its sound effects. The music may not be good, but who cares when you’ve got gunshots that sound as if they’re real. Explosions are very well done as well. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down has some nicely done sound effects, but the music and voice-acting is nothing special.
Controls:
The control setup in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is basically your conventional first-person shooter setup. The only thing that wouldn’t be found in most console shooters is the way you jump. Instead of using the A button, you have to use the left thumbstick. In my opinion, this is the better way. It’s a seamless task to jump using the left thumbstick. Is this recreating spacebar jumping? Of course not, it’s just the best possible button they could have used. The D-pad is used to crouch, lie flat, lean, and to roll. Everything else is what you would expect. To shoot press the right trigger, to reload press X, etc. This doesn’t control as well as its PC counterpart, but, in all honesty, I don’t think they could have done much better.
Replay:
Here is where Delta Force: Black Hawk Down really shows its strength. The online portion of this game could consume countless hours of your time, and the single-player campaign has a grand total of sixteen missions. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of bang for your buck. The online portion is so crammed with features that it will never get old. Plus, the tactical gameplay leaves room for players to improve their skills. It’s not like other games where the first time you play you’re an expert. If you’re wondering if Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is lengthy enough to justify the hefty price tag, speculate no more, because it is.
Summary:
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down has a great deal to offer. First and foremost, it has support for up to fifty players to engage in an online battle. Second, its controls are as PC-like as they’re going to get for this generation of console first-person shooters. And finally, it has an enjoyable and long single-player campaign. Snuggle all of this together into one package -- label it a video game -- and you’ve got yourself one heck of a title. Sadly though, this game isn’t blemish-free. I encountered some issues when trying to connect to large-scale battles, the graphics aren’t too spiffy, and the audio could be better. But, if you can get past the low production values, you’ll find a very satisfying game here.
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down has a great deal to offer. First and foremost, it has support for up to fifty players to engage in an online battle. Second, its controls are as PC-like as they’re going to get for this generation of console first-person shooters. And finally, it has an enjoyable and long single-player campaign. Snuggle all of this together into one package -- label it a video game -- and you’ve got yourself one heck of a title. Sadly though, this game isn’t blemish-free. I encountered some issues when trying to connect to large-scale battles, the graphics aren’t too spiffy, and the audio could be better. But, if you can get past the low production values, you’ll find a very satisfying game here.
