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Delta
Force: Black Hawk Down
Score: 7.0 / 10
History Lesson:
In 1992, the United Nations along with the United States launched
Operation Restore Hope in an effort to suppress the growing famine,
insecurity and clan warfare that had ravaged the East African country of
Somalia. The military force which arrived on the beaches of Somalia in
1992 was made of mostly American troops which played a pivotal role in
opening supply lines, protecting non-governmental organizations and
ensuring the safe distribution of food and aid. As success was being
made in the horn of Africa, the newly elected Clinton Administration
took office and scaled back its presence in the country. As the slow
withdrawal of American troops took place, insecurity and clan warfare
began
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mission objective involved targeting a powerful warlord by the name of
Mohammed Farah Aidid in the capital city of Mogadishu. The movie and the
book: Black Hawk Down, are based on the final mission US troops were
involved in during there operations in Somalia. The final raid Task
Force Ranger carried out in Somalia left 18 American Soldiers and over
1000 Somali’s dead. The political fallout and the grizzly image of a
dead American soldier being dragged through the dusty streets of
Mogadishu forced the Americans to withdraw all there troops from the
region and scrub any plans of apprehending Aidid.
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (BHD) lets you experience the ten months US
forces spent in Somalia. It’s important to note that BHD is in no way
connected to the movie or book of the same name. None of the characters
from the movie or book make appearances in the game. It’s also important
to note that the Xbox version of BHD is a straight port of the PC
version, unlike the PS2 version.
The game consists of sixteen missions, with one training mission at the
very beginning. The training mission just familiarizes you with all the
character actions, weapons and obstacles you may come across on the
battlefield. The first few missions of the game see you in the shoes of
a 10th Mountain Infantry soldier carrying out missions such as
protecting convoys and destroying weapons shipments. From there you take
the role of a Special Forces soldier carrying out more dangerous
missions that center around targeting individuals who are of interest to
you.
Each of the sixteen missions plays out the exact same. Each of these
levels is comprised of linear environments that see you shoot down
gunman after gunman with some variation thrown in for good measure.
Aside from the regular on-foot action seen in so many military shooters,
there are some “on rail” segments where you can ride in humvees, little
birds and Black Hawk helicopters. Unfortunately you cannot control any
of these vehicles. Instead you can only sit in them or take control of
the machine guns mounted on them.
Since a majority of the game takes place in urban locales in and around
Mogadishu, the levels have been populated with civilians. Many of the
civilians react angrily towards you, throwing rocks and cursing you and
your fellow soldiers. Civilian casualties don’t occur often in the Xbox
version of the game. If you’ve played the PC version, then you’ll know
that your moronic teammates would open fire on civilians and kill them
immediately, but in the Xbox version of the game it’s much more
difficult to incapacitate civilians, so this makes the game a little
easier in some ways.
Rather than having a checkpoint system, each of the single player
missions have a limited number of saves you can use anywhere within a
mission. The saves come in quite handy, considering that the single
player game is not very easy. Unlike the PC version, it seems like you
can die much quicker in this version of the game. The gameplay is
largely trial and error. Once you die, you’ll usually figure out where
the enemies come from, considering the enemies always attack you from
the same spot.
The AI for both enemies and your teammates is quite horrendous. Your
teammates couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. Frequently they’ll walk
right past enemies and not give you much help. You can issue about nine
or ten commands to your soldiers, but you’re better off just letting
your braindead soldiers follow you around each level. The enemy AI is
just as spotty. Many times you’ll see Somali gunmen run away from you at
top speed, run around in circles or charge you head-on. All of the
enemies take only a single shot to kill. So shooting an enemy in the
foot or in the head can score you an easy kill. Perhaps the developers
decided to take this route because of all the enemies you’ll face at
once.
The single player campaign is extremely short. You can easily finish the
game in eight hours. There isn’t much of a reason to go back to the
campaign mode, but there are six missions out of the campaign that can
be played co-operatively with up to three friends. There are also a
number of competitive modes through split screen play for up to four
players, but they are nothing special, considering there are such few
maps and no option to play with bots.
The real bulk of BHD lies in the online mode. BHD supports 50 -- 50! --
players online through Xbox Live. The online setup is great, supporting
an in-depth ranking system and easily accessible online options. There
is also a promise of downloadable content in the near future too. The
game features all the same modes found in the PC version of the game:
Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Flagball, Attack and
Defend, Search and Destroy and King of the Hill.
Much like the PC version, the Xbox port suffers from the same online
problem: no controllable vehicles. Instead, like the single player, you
can just use the attached weapons on vehicles while the vehicles drive
or fly on scripted paths. Riding in the vehicles online doesn’t offer an
overwhelming advantage as it’s quite easy to kill players in vehicles.
Lag isn’t a big problem, provided everyone has a good connection.
Finding online games isn’t a problem either, considering there is a
fairly large online community.
The visuals in BHD are relatively poor. The textures have a muddy look
to them and some of the character animations look awkward. While rare,
you’ll sometimes run into some unusual graphical glitches like your
fellow soldiers getting stuck on ladders or some sort of environmental
obstacle. Also, lots of the characters could use quite a few more
polygons. On a positive note, the particle effects from explosions look
excellent.
Given that the game takes place in East Africa, expect to see lots of
brown in terms of the color palette. The environments look extremely run
down, much like in real life. You’ll frequently come across bombed out
buildings, shanty towns, huts, etc.
The game’s audio is a mixed bag. The music is a mix between tribal and
rock music. The tribal music sounds quite authentic, but the rock music
doesn’t fit very well. The voice acting is second-rate, sometimes being
too over dramatic and uninspiring.
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is a simplistic shooter military shooter
set in modern times. With so many shooters on the Xbox, BHD fails to
stand out from the rest of the pack; however, those looking for a
shooter to go online with should certainly give BHD a try, but those not
interested in online play should look elsewhere.
- Siddharth Masand
(September 8, 2005) |
