[i]I don't know why I'm even typing this review considering that the main game that you need to play this expansion itself is no longer available for sale on the Steam Store. But I guess I'll go ahead and club reviews for both in this here space anyway since this is still on the shelves and I played the game anyway. [b]This review is only for the three single-player campaigns.[/b]
[b]TL;DR:[/b] Decent game. Has a tactical shooter feel to it, but very RNG based and extremely scripted. Lacks open-world aspect, so mostly linear like an action shooter; Not as strategic. Weapons all feel different. Friendly AI is competent while enemy AI is dumb. Limited save slots. Not a bad game all things considered, but nothing like the originals.[/i]
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Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is an odd entry into the franchise, albeit not a surprising one considering how this is where the game was headed from the beginning anyway. It has the elements of a tactical shooter, but lacks the emergence of a mil sim and has more scripted events that most modern action shooters. It sort of feels like a game that doesn't know what it wants to be. And the Team Sabre expansion pack only further highlights these issues.
The Black Hawk Down campaign follows the infamous tale of the attempted war against Farah Aideed in Mogadishu where two Black Hawk Helicopters went down and marked the beginning of unending troubles for the Delta Force. Only, the campaign works to outline the entire story from the entry of the Delta Force and how they aided the situation in Mogadishu, to beyond the Black Hawk event where they went back in to extract the price on Aideed's head. In that regard, the campaign can be called complete in that it does weave a narrative. You'll mostly face protection and capture missions as was the nature of operations in this real-world campaign. Team Sabre, on the other hand, features two campaigns: one in Colombia featuring a stand-in for Pablo Escobar and his contras, and the other in Iran featuring a budget Saddam Hussein. These short campaigns weave an escalating narrative well, especially the Iran campaign which details the US propaganda on the War for Oil while making you play through the truth. As far as the story is concerned, the game actually does pretty well.
The gameplay, however, is where things get confusing. Your character has the pacing of a soldier in a tactical shooter and running around recklessly will get you killed sooner that you can even determine the threat. However, the enemies aren't the best shots, and you'll often have lots of time to target and eliminate them. The primary issue comes from the overwhelming number of enemies and the very scripted nature of the game itself. You will usually have enemies appearing so suddenly in an area you just cleared that you'll be forced to proceed cautiously even when you can see an obviosuly clear horizon. And then there are the troops armed with RPGs. You can never see one in time and even if they miss, the blast radius will still get you. There are save slots, but they cannot be overwritten, meaning that there are limited number of saves on every mission. Which is fine, but when you don't know how long the mission is, you need to ration them. A checkpoint system would've been a better idea. Especially considering how all of these factors make the game very RNG-based although a note can be made about that being the nature of modern warfare.
The level design further adds to the issues. While the older Delta Force titles, no matter how action oriented, gave you the emergence to apporach the mission how you wanted to, BHD does not like to let you go out of bounds. For the BHD campaign, the urban environment provides a very linear path for you to follow anyway, so it isn't as noticable there. But there is still a very linear design to these levels where you have to follow a very specific flow from one point of the map to the other. The Team Sabre expansions is where the lack of open-endedness truly shows itself. Despite the open terrain, any time you try to scale a hill or try to flank the enemy to gain a tactical advantage, the game will warn you to return to the AO, failing which you'll die of a heart attack. As a result, what you end up with a series of ambushes that you need to fend off which moving forward or a joyride in a boat or a humvee or even the bed of a truck while taking enemies out on the rails. All of this removes huge chunks of strategic elements from a title that had, until now, allowed you to approach problems the way you saw fit as long as you met your objective.
Your friends are extrmely competent for a change. You can actually rely on them to eliminate hostiles for you in most cases. There is the odd exception when they can sometimes stand right in front of an enemy and still miss every shot like they're Neymar. In fact, their shots help you figure out where the enemies are especially in areas with dense foliage. The enemy AI, on the other hand, is dumb as rocks. They'll usually just stand and place and attempt to shoot you while missing most of their shots in most cases. Or they'll just walk around oblivious to their own allies being shot down, or even worse, get stuck running behind a pillar trying to reach you. The only time they have the accuracy of Simo Hayha is when obscured by fog or smoke and you can't see them, and the reaction time of Sebastian Vettel when you're infiltrating a CQB environment. At other times, you can comfortably stand in front of them and take your time reloading your weapon before shooting them down. Oh, and the .50 calibre emplacements are probably the most accurate of them all, considering how they can turn mounted machine guns into snipers.
The graphics are pretty good and you now have weapon reload animations as well. In some instances, the graphics are so good that the enemies get camoflagued until they shoot at you or get shot at by your teammates. Using the binocs or the scope of your rifle adds a new level of life and detail to the game. One thing I could do without would be the dense foliage which hides most enemies in a game that is already very chance-based. However, that too, perhaps, is the nature of modern warfare. The soundtrack isn't anything special, but it is generally on point. And hey, at least there is a soundtrack.
Sadly, there are also quite a few bugs in the game. Certain missions, an escort mission in particular, has moments where the NPCs just randomly die without even being shot, causing mission failures. It is also the same mission where you can fall through the floor and the enemies you need to kill to call the next script flag disappear, softlocking you. Apart from the instances where enemies can see you through dense fog, smoke, and foliage, there are times when you can slip and fall through vehicles. And the Iran Campaign for Team Sabre also has a mission which lags like anything when you try to play it. Come to think of it, the bugs are mostly present in the Iran Campaign.
Black Hawk Down isn't a bad game by any means. But its not a particularly good game either. It feels too scripted and RNG based to feel like Delta Force and the moments that make it a tense tactical shooter are often accompanied by either unreasonably difficult AI or very dumb enemies. The lack of emergence, which adds a strategic edge to the game, combined with the scripted nature make it feel like playing a slow-paced action shooter. While the game can be fun to play at certain moments, the bugs and overall lack of quality make for frustrating experience where you're more eager to clear a level rather than have fun playing it. BHD isn't a bad game. But it isn't a particularly good game either. And it certainly doesn't feel like Delta Force. More akin to a prototype for a Call of Duty game where they hadn't worked out the kinks in their formula.
