Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is the latest release from Novalogic. This game can be purchased for under $40 according to TechIMO's affiliated Resellerratings price search engine. The game runs on the Comanche 4 engine which uses Direct 8.1. Fortunately, DF:BHD does not require a powerful computer because of the usage of the Comanche 4 engine.

System Requirements

As one can see, DF:BHD does not require a super computer to run. Here’s a screenshot that explains what the player will see when they start.

As one can see, the player is in a crouched stance, the weapon, an M60, map and coordinates, also the mission, which is the Bandit’s Crossing. Take note of the lights as it shines under a Geforce 2 GTS, so it doesn’t need the world’s best video card to do some of the eye candy.

Game Play

The game takes place when from actual events in Somalia in 1993, while some missions are fabricated. While running the computer, I had forgotten that set no acceleration was in DXDIAG for sound because Elder Scrolls 3:Morrowind has problems with my Hercules Game Theater XP. When I first started playing, I had noticeable problems. When I fired the gun, the shot would be heard four seconds later. Not only sound lag, there was also video lag. There was excruciating long waits to move twenty feet in the game. Once I changed no acceleration to full acceleration, everything went away. Other than that, the game play is spectacular, even on a 1.6 GHz system with a Geforce 2 GTS and 256 megs of ram.

Graphics

The game is like what Mark Stubblefield said about Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, where he is quoted as saying:

"Graphics: 90% - a great example of what can be done with the quake 3 engine when used properly."

The same holds true for DF:BHD. Novalogic has done an awesome job of changing the Comanche engine into an First Person Shooting (FPS) game. Other sites that reviewed DF:BHD stated the graphics are not up to par on today’s standards, and I agree, but those reviewers said there were clipping problems. No clipping problems were seen thus far. They say the other Non-Playable Characters (NPC) models use few polygons, and thus making the NPCs blocky and not humanistic. I have not yet seen this, probably because I doesn’t stare at the characters during play.

Artificial Intelligence

This author agrees 100% with other reviewers on how STUPID your team mates are. The teammates are ridiculously stupid! In one mission, at one point I was gun’s a-blazing, and one of the teammates walked into the line of fire. In the same mission, I was waiting for the enemy to approach to the alley to take a head shot, but a team mate had pushed me into the enemy line of fire, causing him to fail the mission. Don’t let the stupidity affect the gameplay, as in the later missions, when you mount onto weapon on vehicles, like in the following screen shot, teammates shoot people off the roof and help out quite a bit.

This is one sweet looking mini-gun, huh?

Weapons Assortment

Those that play America’s Army, Counterstrike, or anyone who are gun fans/collectors are familiar to these weapons.

Overall

Well worth the $30 that I paid, but even if it is not on sale, the $40 is worth it. It’s a cheap game in price, because a portion of profits of each game sold goes to Special Operations Warrior Fund (SOWF), there’s a fully colored manual that has 45 pages and gives the history about the issue in Somalia in the fall of 1993, and there is a key preset that goes on top of the ESC key all the way through the pause/break key. Despite the fact the AI are complete idiots the majority of the time, it gives one a good laugh. They can be helpful from time to times to kill the opposing forces (opfor). Also, for those interested in backing up their copy of DF:BHD to prevent scratches, the game is protected by SecuRom New v4.84.69.0037 – thanks to CD Freaks and portmac for the identification of the protection.