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Delta Force
Rating: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 best

By Tom Chick
(11/5/1998)

Game at a Glance
Recap: Exciting gun sport in wide-open arenas with unlimited visibility
Ups: Great terrain engine; good situational awareness; lots of enemies at once
Downs: Lousy nighttime and indoor environments; not much weapon balance
Multiplayer: Excellent
Single player: Good
Demo: Available
Patch: N/A
"To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receive him again and often forever."
-Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
The above passage comes to mind while playing NovaLogic's Delta Force, a first-person tactical combat sim that's all about hitting the dirt and staying low. Sprint from one place of cover to the next at your own peril, or slowly creep along and avoid the high ground. There's a vivid sense of bullets whizzing past your head and smacking into the dirt beside you, keeping you pinned down behind whatever hill you can find. Unlike most first-person shooters in which your armor and hit points will shrug off attacks until you find the next health power-up, Delta Force evokes a visceral sense of virtual danger: Peek over that rise, and you might take a fatal slug in the face.
Down and Dirty
The gameplay is still cinematic, much like an action movie--not a Schwarzenegger-esque-übermensch-impervious-to-bullets action movie, but a Bruce-Willis-everyman-cowering-behind-cover action movie. The enemy casualties after an average mission are absurdly high, but the satisfaction of having survived is even higher. For more casual players who just enjoy the thrill of the kill, there's a god mode view and an option to make guns less lethal.
Unfortunately, Delta Force can't be configured for players who want something closer to Rainbow Six. The whole style of play is different from Red Storm's excellent game, which was an exercise in meticulous planning and careful execution. But Delta Force has no tactical planning and it ultimately feels like one person against the world. Although there are friendly computer-controlled units on the map, you have no way of interacting with them. They'll respond to scripted triggers, but it would have been nice to have them move into position and hold their fire until you gave the signal. Also, the aiming in the game is ridiculously generous; even for long-range sniper fire, a shot in the general vicinity of your target is enough to kill him. I suspect Delta Force was issued some of those "magic bullets" used in JFK's assassination.

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Delta Force

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