In Delta Force, which is based upon the U.S. Army’s elite Special Forces unit,
players take on real-world style Delta Force missions in extremely detailed
terrain with the ability to see and shoot for miles in every direction.
Missions include eliminating biological/chemical weapons threats, stealing
enemy intelligence, and capturing airfields among other assignments.
The gameplay is intensified by the large-scale multiplayer aspect available
via NovaWorld, a service provided to customers free of charge with the
purchase of NovaLogic games.
With
realistic first person shooters starting to gain momentum due to the popularity
of Redstorm Entertainments Rainbow Six, Novalogic has brought to the table
their version of a first/third person shooter in the guise of Delta Force
(in stores now). I’ve had the final for about 2 weeks and in that time I’ve
been putting it through its paces to see how it stacks up against the competition
in the realm of combat shooters.
While this is based around a real world
unit and real world weaponry the action is not solidly planted in reality
and is more along the lines of a Quake shooter than a Rainbow Six. With
an emphasis heavily on the twitch action of those style shooters and long
range sniping in multiplayer, this is a very lite game which won’t give
you too much of a cerebral challenge. Instead you may find your fingers
hurting from the constant movement and firing and the only strategy is
keeping yourself alive.
When
I first saw Delta Force at E3 and couldn’t
wait to get my hands on it, then along came the demo and I was clamoring
for it along with everyone else. With the continuing popularity of Rainbow
Six, attention has been placed on the path of realism based shooters,
so this game has come under close scrutiny by gamers all over the web.
The greatest attention and greatest point of debate has been Novalogics
use of their proprietary Voxelspace engine and not 3D acceleration. Although
it's a great note of flattery to compare this one to Rainbow Six, it's really not fair. It is a totally different game; much more action oriented
than Rainbow Six and both games are fun in their own respect.
The
reasoning behind the Voxelspace engine use is to give us a huge playground
in which to shoot and loot, something that accelerated games cannot do
beyond a couple of hundred meters. (I’ll speak more about that later.) While
I applaud Novalogics efforts in bringing us a never before seen size of
playing area for a ground pounder game, I am also a bit disappointed at
the steep hardware requirements needed to play DF with both good resolution
and frame rate.
For those with straight Pentiums you’ll get a playable looking screen, it will take some getting used to but it’s fun once you’ve made the adjustment. If every gamer had a PII I’d agree this would be a
great thing, but not all gamers have the hardware to enjoy this one to
the fullest. Either way read on about what you can expect out of Delta
Force.
Let’s
start by saying it up front, this is NOT a combat simulation. If you’re
looking for a real world simulation with a strong hold on reality stick
with Rainbow Six. If you like your action fast, furious and crazy like
Quake then you’ll be more than happy with this one. The real strategy in
this one will come in the form of multiplayer Capture The Flag (CTF) and
King Of The Hill (KOH), as these require teamwork and tactical movement
very much like paintball.
The game comes with 40 missions ranging through
5 campaigns in areas such as Indonesia, Peru, Uzbekistan and Chad. You
can choose to play in either a ‘realism’ mode which will get you killed
with a couple shots to the body or in a more traditional action mode where
there are power-ups available to keep you going through the fight. You
also will have other Delta Force teams (Alpha and Charlie) available in
a lot of your missions in support of you but you have no control over them,
keep in mind this is not a strategy shooter like Rainbow Six.
I
fired this one up while reading through the manual that comes with the
game. The manual covers all the game mechanics you’ll need and gives a
rundown on weapons you’ll use.
Along with the manual comes the traditional
Novalogic keyboard overlay, which I’ve always felt was a great addition
to their games to give quick help while under fire. The manual is 19 pages
long and it reflects the amount of info you’ll need to know to get playing.
Not much preparation is needed here with the emphasis on action.
Once
into the game itself I was overwhelmed by a feeling of déjà
vu, “hey, I’ve been here before!” The first mission is the same mission
we’ve all seen in the demo. Stopping the druglords is your priority in
the first campaign. It’s from this mission I first found out that, "yes,
you do have other Delta Force troopers out there with ya, and no you do
not have any control over them… bummer!" They follow their own scripted
routines but there is some randomization, so they don’t always
do the same thing every time.
They will also radio in sitreps to you as
to their status and enemy disposition which gives you a feeling of being
part of a team effort even though you have no control tactically. Although
the actions of your AI teams are scripted, I must say they do act pretty
smart most of the time and their actions are all in support of you as the
gamer. So you don’t have to worry about preserving their lives. Let them
die to preserve yours where needed you don’t be penalized for them dying.
There are some instances where you may not have to complete the mission
by yourself. There was one situation in which I found myself stuck in a
heavy crossfire and was unable to move. I continued to return fire and
while doing so my fellow troopers continued the mission, next thing I know
as I closed on the objective the mission end screen popped up. The AI troopers
saved my skin! While some gamers may not like that and feel it takes away
from the fun you should keep in mind that when you’re in deep kimchi it’s
nice to know you’re not completely alone.
On
the other hand the enemy AI has a combination of good and bad characteristics.
Shoot at an enemy and he may attempt to flee or hit the dirt to make himself
harder to hit while he tries to zoom in on you. Those are some nice touches
especially the hitting the dirt part as this is a realistic reaction. On
the attack the enemy AI will blindly rush at you at times or in seemingly
aimless patterns, sometimes even back and forth as in a shooting gallery
(hey where’s my kewpie doll for nailing that sucker?!).
I don’t know if
this is an attempt at mirroring a zig-zagging defensive posture but it
gives the enemy an arcadish look and feel. Other times you will see a sentry
just sitting behind his defensive position while the entire area is lit
up like a Christmas tree just waiting for you to set off his ‘trigger’
to spring into action, this makes them easy pickings at long range.
The
missions overall are a nice assortment of action and one can easily play
through them all with a few days of concentrated play. The replay value
will depend greatly on multiplayer.
You’ll have the opportunity to
use a lot of the different weapons available to you in this game to get
through these missions as well as for use in multiplayer matches. The weapons
available are: M4, MP5, M249 SAW, Remington M40A1 Sniper Rifle, Barrett
Light .50 Sniper Rifle, Satchel Charges, Claymores, LAAW’s, .45 Pistol,
.22 Silenced Pistol, Hand and 40 MM Grenades, binoculars and a laser designator
to paint targets for offboard artillery. A good armory, though I must say the common weapon in multiplayer is the M4: with its combination
of 40mm grenade launcher and 4x scope attached you’re a one man wrecking
crew.
The
big selling points from Novalogic's perspective on this one are the directional
sounds and their latest version of their Voxelspace engine, Voxelspace
3.0. I’ll admit it up front I do not like the Voxelspace engine. In the
past it was ok but with 3D acceleration so prevelent I’ve just had a hard
time making the switch back mentally to Voxelspace.
To be fair it does
make a huge difference by allowing us some of the best terrain for multiplayer
environments I've seen in a ground combat simulation and for this reason
only I have been sold on its use. Voxelspace makes me feel that I’m playing
an old DOS based game and not a Windows 95/NT game, maybe I’m just too
picky I dunno. But once you get over the pixelation in the game
you’ll really enjoy the terrain you can freely roam over, and even UNDER, since you are able to swim through streams and rivers. (I know Delta
troopers are some of the country's best trained soldiers but even they
cannot hold their breath for over a klick underwater!)
The
reason there is no acceleration is due to the fact that the terrain is
constructed of pixels and not polygons, with polys there can be acceleration
with pixels there is none. There are enough objects in this game (buildings,
tents, enemy and DF characters) that could be accelerated if NL chose to
do so as rumor has it they might in an upcoming patch. How much it will
help I’m unsure but I’ve also heard that acceleration was originally considered
and was dropped due to slowdowns.
>How the game looks will depend very much
on your hardware. If you have a high end PII and enough memory you should
see very good frame rate and the resolutions can go as high as 800x600 at
32 bit color. Although there are a lot of gamers out there with high end
PII’s a majority of gamers are still running on straight Pentiums and that
is where this game suffers.
On a 233 MMX with 64 Megs RAM, (which is about
an average gamers machine) the frame rate on this one is ok for single
player. But the game does show a slowdown in mulitplay situations with
bandwidth playing a good part in that as well as your processor working
hard to draw all the objects, so your reaction time may suffer in large
games. You have the option to go as low as 320x240 to increase frame rate
but at that resolution there’s almost no point in playing as the screen
appears very blurred and is absolutely hideous.
Also I believe Novaworld
has been overworked on this first weekend of release so that could be a cause for some slowdowns I’ve seen online. Best time I’ve found to play is very early in the morning as later in the day and into the evening it gets very laggy online due to more players
as well as the overall congestion of the internet.
Going
back to the point of directional sounds I’d like to point out that these
are some of the best in a game I’ve seen to date. This is a very important
point, especially in multiplayer where you’ll find yourself under fire from
all angles and each weapon has a distinct sound. From the rat-a-tat-tat
of the M4, the plunk of a 203 to the intimidating boom of the Barret .50,
paying attention to the directions of the rounds whizzing by your head
can keep you alive.
If you’re being shot at from the right you’ll hear
the bullets fearful ‘zing’ through your right earphone; if from the front
you'll hear in both earphones. Besides being a great asset in gameplay
it also brings to this game a real feeling of being in a combat environment.
Nothing like hearing the plink, plink, plink of rounds hitting the barrier
you’re behind to get you motivated enough to find a new spot.
Btw, if you
play this game not only do headphones enhance your gaming experience they
are a mandatory thing to wear to survive; you just don’t get the same effect
from speakers no matter how good they are. Pop those headphones on in a
32 player game and crank up the volume and get assaulted by the sounds,
gives me flashbacks to Saving Private Ryan! I can’t tell you how many times
my heartbeat was elevated as I ran back to my base with the flag in tow,
rounds lashing the dirt behind and around me, intense!
One
last point that has been in debate amongst gamers has been the ballistics
modeling in this game. I’ve been hearing this so much that to be honest
I’ve gotten a bit sick of it, all of a sudden we have hundreds of ‘experts’
claiming the trajectories of rounds fired in this game are unrealistic.
I just want to point a couple of things on this subject. First
off this is a GAME, it is not a realistic simulation so there may be some
deviation from reality in the ballistics modeled in this game to keep things
enjoyable and playable. Look at this for example, try running down a 30
degree hill while firing an M-16 on burst. Will you hit the target, come
even close? Not in real life, but in this game you will. Why, because it’s
a game!
Second, the ranges you will be engaging at are usually less than
1,000 meters. So you won’t need to concern yourself with the major adjustments
a sniper would be faced with such as: ammo load, wind velocity and direction,
temperature, humidity level and others all of which play an integral part
in successful sniping. Keep this in mind when you hear people complain
about the rounds dropping at 500 meters.
Rounds do drop over distance and
you can see it in this game, as I said this is a game not a sim so don’t
get stuck on such a simple thing as this. From
my multiplayer experiences I was pretty impressed with the 'round drop,'
as it seemed to me quite realistic. It brought me back to the 500 meter line
in my Marine Corps rifle qual days it was believable enough for me.
Besides
having 40 missions the multiplayer support enables 32 players to play head
to head over Novalogics Novaworld online gaming service for free. Connecting
is as easy as logging on to the internet, starting the game and clicking
JOIN in the multiplayer screens. The built in mini-browser will connect
you within a few minutes and show you what games are available. Currently
Novaworld is hosting deathmatch only, with king of the hill, capture the
flag and team deathmatch available right now. You can also play over
a LAN, modem or direct IP connect with your friends online.
My
multiplayer experiences had been in deathmatch only until this weekend
and it didn’t do a lot for me. I found the situation of just sitting there
and firing away at people an extremely boring and unchallenging style of
play. If you play with a sniper rifle it takes almost no skill whatsoever
to take down a target. Get yourself a great hide position and plink away,
like fish in a barrel. Sure it was nice to nail a guy at 800+ meters through
my scope but after awhile I found it to get a bit tedious for me with everyone
lying around sniping at one another. I prefer team tactical movement and
coordination, something CTF (capture the flag) does have and probably KOH will have as well.
CTF has been a BLAST this weekend, if it was up to the single player
only missions in this game I wouldn’t be as high on this one as I am. CTF
is what sold me, it’s like playing one of my favorite sports, Paintball, and it’s just as intense. Here teamwork is essential to success
and it’s great when you can get online and work together with people you
don’t even know to win the game.
Here is where sniping does play a good
part but snipers are only a small portion of the overall game. The game
is only won by those willing to run down under fire to grab the flags,
something I find both challenging and exhilarating. I just hope Novaworld
adds more maps to CTF as the ones we’ve been playing, fun as they are,
will get old in a few weeks. Possibly a mission editor would help us gamers,
how about it Novalogic?
You’ve GOT to try CTF it’s one of the best multiplayer
situations I’ve played in this year, 16 players on each side firing away
at each other with everything but the kitchen sink. Claymores set up at
flag stations to give you a nice surprise and even LAAW rockets in use
whooshing over your head. You can catch me online playing the CTF fields
under the name CSIM, see you there!
The
bottom line? If you are looking for a lite action game that’s a lot less
serious than Rainbow Six, has tons of action and awesome mutliplayer capabilities,
Delta Force delivers!
One thing to note is the hardware requirements. Novalogic claims a P166 MMX is the minimum recommended but after playing
this on a 233 MMX I would say it’s more like a 233 would be most appropriate
as a minimum. I couldn’t imagine how it would play well on a 166 after
seeing the frame rates on a 233 push it. On a 166 I think the frame rate would suffer and would frustrate a gamer and
not allow him or her to enjoy this game to its fullest. We’ll just have
to wait, watch and hope a patch with possible acceleration that could boost
performance will be released in the near future.
While
the game is a decent single player shooter, the true fun factor and worth
lies in the multiplayer aspects. Unlike Rainbow Six, which is unforgiving
and realistic in its multiplayer play, Delta Force regenerates you continually
through the game. This makes for instant and continuously furious action,
a total blast to play!
