DELTA FORCE: XTREME - Ace Gamez

[DevilDog#1]

5/10


Delta Force: Xtreme is the latest offering from Middle East FPS specialists, Novalogic. It's described as being the best of best missions and campaigns from Delta Force 1, 2 and 3. What they've crammed on the disk is all of the classic missions, a few new ones and a ream of added online multiplayer missions and features. Having played and really enjoyed the original Delta Force years and years ago, back when I was in PC gaming diapers, I must admit that as I installed the game, I was keen to see if the DF magic still lingered.

[DevilDog#1]

In DFX you've got a little over 20 single player missions spread out across 3 campaigns that'll propel you into rescuing hostages, eliminating hordes of drug barons' minions, detonating bases, sniping guard towers and the like. For your pains there's a huge arsenal to choose from, including tons of machine guns, pistols, rifles, grenades, claymore mines, satchel charges and missile launchers. Everything you need to start a one man John Rambo army is here and more! As you click onto the first mission, what really hits home is the sub-standard graphics. Novalogic claim to have updated for the new millennium but really the surroundings look bland and relatively sparse. Trees branches stand statically and rivers lie painted on the landscape with not a glimmer of watery motion in sight. If this was 2001 and you'd just bought this from your local Electronics Boutique, then fine. But it's not and these graphics really aren't acceptable in a modern game.

Starting the first mission lets you see just how far behind the competition Novalogic really are. As you climb onto a static motorbike and zip off along pale, barren plains, unable to do anything but clumsily steer left and right, you'll find your mind harking back to those cool hovercraft scenes in Half-Life 2 where you can drive and shoot at the same time. Then the enemies start firing at you, standing rock still in the mountains, rooted to the spot so much so that you can even waltz up and dangle a knife in front of their faces. A single straight yellow line flicking intermittently across the screen is supposed to indicate the travel of your enemies' gunfire. I don't think I've seen something as pathetic as this since some of the later games I played on my ZX Spectrum 128k.

Anyway, you decide to pick off your first enemy. He's over on the other side of this gully, maybe twenty or thirty metres away, so you're thinking that you'll need a weapon with a scope. But as you glide your crosshair over his distant figure, it turns red to signify you've got a clean shot. How can that be? You're using a machine gun, not a Russian Dragunov super sniper rifle, for crying out loud. You click your left mouse button and sure enough, it's a clean kill. You'd have hoped that with all of the progress we've made in FPS shooters over the years, a developer wouldn't still be releasing games of about the same complexity and realism as the original Doom. But they are. Novalogic have made DFX just so unrealistic and ridiculously easy. You can charge into camps packed full of thirty terrorists and take them down one at a time, each with a calmly placed head shot. With one eye on the TV, I managed to complete all 20 missions in about four hours, just running aimlessly past bad guys, ignoring checkpoints and landing at my final objective, totally unharmed and leaving a bloody trail of about two hundred dead guys in my wake. Is this what gaming should be about? I think not.

I wonder if Novalogic still think that AI is merely some film by Steven Spielberg that didn't go down too well, starring that freaky little kid from The Sixth Sense [Well, there was at least one person that loved it! Ed]. Even if they have the slightest conception of what AI's grander meaning may be, they definitely haven't bothered to apply it to DFX. Enemies clump next to buildings looking bored as hell, not even batting an eyelid as you slide a knife into their face. And don't even try taking a team into the field; you'll find yourself constantly turning around to find that they've gone, forcing you to trek back and baby-sit them along the landscape to your checkpoint, all for nothing, as within two seconds they'll have killed themselves in a hapless grenade accident. You just have to go solo, because it really isn't worth the bother or the heartache.

In the sound department they've pretty much taken their foot off the gas again. Typical sound effects like explosions and gunfire sound okay, if a little basic, blatantly copied and pasted from the previous DF titles. This is not really a bad thing in one way, as old sounds mean you know exactly what's going on, plus you do not have to learn them all over again. Unfortunately, it also means that nothing new and exciting happens either, something that Novalogic are seemingly getting very, very good at replicating.

At least you can play the game online, I guess. I did even get relatively addicted as I played against all the Americans, charging through jungles and stuff. It was nice to play against human characters that actually challenged me. It also revealed that the landscapes and graphics, although poor and somewhat dull, didn't really matter when you played it online. It was just damn good, simple fun. There are six types of multiplayer game including your usual Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, King Of The Hill and Co-operative play. Unlike Xbox Live, you can also get up to 32 players online on the same map at once, which makes for a pretty interesting firefight. [How about up to 50 in Black Hawk Down on the green and black box? Protective Ed] Should you actually get any good at it, Novalogic have kindly set up an online stats tracker so you can check yourself against the best of the best across the world. There's also a neat system that spots online cheats, which makes it a lot easier for you to rise in the DFX ranks without being conned out of your due accolades.

While the gaming industry moves from strength to strength, producing some of the finest, most gorgeous looking, booming, realistic shooter experiences yet, Delta Force: Xtreme is like its atrocious enemy AI - it stands still and watches as the competition runs up and slaughters it. Sure, it's easy to pick up and play, the graphics and sound are just about passable and there's a decent range of weapons, but if I had gone out and bought it I'd feel somewhat cheated as I played the first mission, only to find that there's very little new here. In fact, the whole thing smacks of a rather conceited attempt to squeeze that last little bit of cash out of a flagging franchise in serious need of a new game and graphics engine. Sure, it's good for some old school fun online but other than that, this is one to avoid unless you're a diehard Delta Force fan.

Reviewed by Ross Alexander for AceGamez

[DevilDog#1]

Gameplay = 5

Graphics = 4

Sounds = 6

Life Span = 5

[JonM]

haven't u already made a review ?

[DevilDog#1]

This is not mine. I found it for the community.

[Hellfighter]

as Trojan says done!

nice to read some thing good. thanks DD

[BeBop]

lol that is the best, most "To the point" review i have read in a while of all the ****ty titles Novalogic has released recently (teamsabre and beyond ^.^).

EA is gonna blow them away in less than 20 days with BF2... i mean seriously... ^.^ Novalogic needs to REALLY catch up with the times.

Hey guys,

Sorry if im bumping an old thread. I write for Acegamez, and noticed you liked the review!

[Trojan]

Hi funkyflea. Welcome to NovaHQ.net. Thank you for visiting. I hope you enjoy your visit and please come again anytime.

-Trojan
Site Administrator

[Hellfighter]

At least you can play the game online, I guess. I did even get relatively addicted as I played against all the Americans, charging through jungles and stuff. It was nice to play against human characters that actually challenged me. It also revealed that the landscapes and graphics, although poor and somewhat dull, didn't really matter when you played it online. It was just damn good, simple fun. There are six types of multiplayer game including your usual Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, King Of The Hill and Co-operative play. Unlike Xbox Live, you can also get up to 32 players online on the same map at once, which makes for a pretty interesting firefight. [How about up to 50 in Black Hawk Down on the green and black box? Protective Ed] Should you actually get any good at it, Novalogic have kindly set up an online stats tracker so you can check yourself against the best of the best across the world. There's also a neat system that spots online cheats, which makes it a lot easier for you to rise in the DFX ranks without being conned out of your due accolades.

funkyflea???
sorry were you get there a online system that sports cheats? to make rank? you lost me. Novalogic, Inc they do not support online cheats for their game system online they are anti-cheat 1000%

[funkyflea]

Wehey, I registered, I'll stick this site into the bookmarks!