Sometimes I make mistakes. Yes, I admit, however rarely, there are still moments when I am prone to error. In the case of NovaLogic's Delta Force action/simulation combat shooter, this is one case where I was glad I was wrong. The story goes like this. As I've said repeatedly throughout my articles and reviews, one of the most important things to me when evaluating any type of software product that has a relation to 3D is the quality of the graphics. This generally tends to mean hardware accelerated graphics via Voodoo with Glide or OpenGL. One day, I was looking for something new and interesting to play that could once again push the limits of my graphics accelerator, and happened to be reading over a few game reviews. I came across a review for Delta Force by NovaLogic, and initially it sounded like something I might have been interested in trying out. Well, that was the case until I reached the bottom of the review, where they got into NovaLogic's 3D technology, which is the same type of stuff they used to create many of their flight simulations. The horror struck when I realized that this technology didn't support Glide or OpenGL hardware acceleration. In fact, it didn't even support the worse level of acceleration available in Microsoft's D3D. Nearly immediately, I decided that this was not the game for me.

As luck would have it, the game I did decide to purchase was a flight simulation also developed by NovaLogic. On the CD-ROM there was a demo of Delta Force, which I didn't even notice until after completing the flight sim. "Ah, what the hell.?" I thought, and gave it a try. Nearly immediately after finishing the Delta Force demo, I was compelled to go out and purchase the full version. It was just that good. After installing the full version on my machine, I found that a host of improvements had been made since the release of the demo, and this purchase was definitely not a mistake.

Although I found the graphics in Delta a bit less than what I'm accustomed to, the main thing that got me hooked on it is the stunning game-play. As the name implies, you are a member of the U.S. Army's Delta Force unit, and you're presented with assorted campaigns that have several missions within each geographic location. Before beginning the mission, you are given a briefing, as well as the criteria which will translate into a successful mission. From here, you can choose your weapons load-out, which I must also say, as a former Marine, is very representative of a realistic field load. This is not Quake where you're carrying around 300 pounds of weapons and ammunition. In Delta you carefully choose your weapons and ammo load to reflect the type of mission you are going to engage in. This usually means a primary weapon, a sidearm, and some type of secondary weapon which will help you in achieving your objectives. Your ammo load is also very much limited to the laws of physics that would apply in the real world. A couple of magazines for each weapon, and that's it.

The realism doesn't stop there. When you get into the game, you'll quickly find out that a single shot to the head can spell the end of your mission. Alternately, two shots to the body will achieve the same end result. In this game, being able to think out your moves before-hand, as well as execute your plans with a combination of stealth, cover, and necessary deadly-force will get you a lot further than going in Gung Ho, guns a blazin'.

During the course of your missions, you are also assigned two support Delta teams that will pursue parallel objectives to your own. The most disappointing part about this though is that the player doesn't have any control over their AI comrades. This is where the biggest difference happens between Delta Force and similar action/combat sims like Rainbow Six (don't get me wrong though, I still feel Delta is at least 10 times better than Rainbow could've hoped to be). When you do encounter an enemy during the course of your mission, Delta also has a tendency to loose a bit of its realism. Instead, for example, when an enemy is wounded and obviously out-gunned, instead of fleeing, they'll normally continued the attack in a do-or-die type fashion. Usually when the alert has been sounded that you are in the area, and the entire enemy base becomes aware of your presence, the biggest flaws in the AI show themselves. During these moments, the scripted nature of the AI shows through, as the enemy soldiers continually run around predetermined points, as long as you're not in sight. This generally equates to having 4 or more enemy soldiers running laps around objects for no apparent reason, as if they were in a marathon. Although flaws exist, the AI is still good enough to shine in comparison to many action games that are currently on the market though.

What's the best part of Delta Force in my opinion? It's something I didn't discover until well after starting the single player mode, and that is the multi-player mode. The first time I connected to NovaWorld on the Internet, I found the speed of playing Delta online was faster than playing Quake II over our LAN. That's saying a lot, since you can't even begin to compare a modem connection against a full-duplex NIC on UTP cable. What's more when I actually did put it on our LAN, and gave my staff a chance to compete against "the boss" for top ranking in Delta (I was well enough practiced by this point, that there was no chance anyway.). Since we began playing on the LAN, I can honestly say that no game has wasted so much productive work time as Delta Force has within our company.

How would I sum it up? Delta Force is a very good attempt by NovaLogic to bring realism to the action/combat genre, while at the same time they have balanced it out well enough so that it is still great fun to play. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who hasn't had a chance to play it yet. Recently, NovaLogic announced that they will be releasing Delta Force 2, so I'm eagerly awaiting its arrival, and expecting yet another good time-killer to land on our company's LAN.