Delta Force: Black Hawk Down - A Mediocre Day in the War

Overview

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is a first-person shooter with mission in Somalia covering the US relief efforts. There are a good variety of modern infantry combat working alongside vehicle sections to provide a rounded experience.

Features (2 out of 5)

The one feature I really like is the well done vehicle sections. There are a few missions where you are protecting food convoys and they are quite fun, especially for a rail shooter which is no more complex than an arcade game. A lot of the missions also include the helicopter ride to the area, which is just a nice touch.

That’s it for the stuff I really like though. There just isn’t much to say about it. You have a range of weapons and a squad backing you. There are options for night vision goggles and minor tactical play. In the end, it’s just a mediocre shooter though. There just aren’t many redeeming qualities. Everything feels tacked onto the gameplay. You can use a flashbang to stun the enemies inside a room, but it doesn’t do anything except make them easier to shoot. There’s no reason or real benefit to taking advantage of the extra features, since the missions aren’t hard.

Enemy AI is atrocious and your allies aren’t very good either. It’s particularly annoying due to the setup of most missions. There were many times when I was running between marked positions looking for some random soldier facing a wall, because he wasn’t triggered for the fight. This is not compelling gameplay. Enemies also usually die with one hit, taking away a lot of the danger.

Graphics (2 out of 5)

The graphics are pretty bad. The environments are dull and lifeless. The enemy characters are just little blobs. Your fellow soldiers and allied vehicles look alright, but this just makes the dull environment look even worse.

Multiplayer (2 out of 5)

Black Hawk Down had some fairly interesting multiplayer aspects, but after 5 years, you will be hard pressed to find a good game. There’s plenty of better options on the market.

System Requirements (4 out of 5)

It doesn’t require much to play. The requirements just call for 192 MB of RAM and a 32 MB video card. I was able to play this on an older machine with 1 GB of RAM and a Nvidia MX 420 graphics card.Sample contents.

Overall (2 out of 5)

I suggest that you give this one a pass. It’s a decent bargain bin game, but there are so many better options among it’s contemporaries. Call of Duty is far superior in quality and gameplay, and is from roughly the same time period. I personally felt that the old Medal of Honor games were even superior to this. You can pick up most of the classics in the Medal of Honor war chest for a very low price. There’s just no real reason to get it.