Reviewed: March 29, 2004
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Novalogic
Developer
Ritual Entertainment
Released: January 21, 2004
Genre: FPS
Players: 50
ESRB: Teen
7
9
8
7
8.1
System Requirements
Recommended System
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down Team Sabre is the obligatory expansion pack to last year’s military first-person shooter from Novalogic. This time the king of expansion packs, Ritual, takes over the helm to put their own distinctive styling to the franchise. Interesting enough, what started off as a tactical simulation along the same lines as Ghost Recon has quickly devolved into a more traditional FPS game that favors reflexes over tactics.
Team Sabre adds 11 new missions to the original mix spanning two short campaigns through the jungles of South American to the islands of the Persian Gulf. Admittedly, this is a modest offering for those looking for the solo experience, but online gamers will find much to revel in with five new terrains and more than 30 multiplayer modes featured on NovaWorld.
While the original game actually featured missions and locales dealing with events from the movie, Black Hawk Down, Team Sabre advances the timeline and moves the missions to areas that have nothing to do with the previous game. It might be an expansion of the game engine but certainly doesn’t extend the narrative or even attempt to tie itself to the original game.
Team Sabre does bring some new toys to the table starting with a modest selection of new weapons including the PSG1 sniper rifle, the G36E, and the powerful G3A3 assault rifle. Some new vehicles come into play like the inflatable raft, helicopter, and armored transport, but you don’t get to drive them like you did in Operation: Flashpoint. The AI handles all the vehicle control for an on-rails experience.
Adding further to the confined feeling of the game is the fact that you have these huge new open environments and your ability to explore them beyond the scope of your immediate mission is severely restricted. If you deviate too far from the mission path you are given a verbal warning and if you don’t get back on track you fail the current mission.
At times the boundaries of your “range of operation” are severely limited to the point of interfering with logical gameplay tactics. It’s not as bad as invisible walls at the edge of the road in a racing game but it can get just as annoying. You are definitely being corralled into situations and forced into action when a stealthier approach would be more prudent.
While gameplay can be challenging at times there are some balancing issues that work for and against you. There are only a few encounters that pose any real threat and those deal with enemy units armed with rocket launchers or the larger .50 caliber turrets. Armed with anything less and the opposing forces are merely target practice. Most of this is directly related to the rather poor AI of the enemy, a deficiency that wasn’t as obvious in the more cluttered environments of the original game.
Now that you are out in the open the enemy can’t really hide and once you get a sniper rifle the game is over. You have a dead-aim with your scope; there is no drift and you don’t have to hold your breath to snipe the enemy from 300 yards out. You can safely drop soldier after soldier without them ever figuring out where you are. If other soldiers see a man drop they will take minimal action, crouch, look around, but they never investigate and they only call for assistance when the story dictates.
There are some severe targeting issues for both the enemy and your own team AI. The game engine uses a line-of-sight targeting system which worked well enough in the original game but in Team Sabre there are many times where you will see the enemy and your men firing into objects, buildings, the hillside, and even each other and YOU while trying to shoot somebody at the end of some invisible line leading from them to their perceived target.
The classic problem of one of your men moving into your line of fire is now replaced with your man moving behind you putting you in his line of fire. Even worse is when riding around in an AI-driven vehicle they have no regard for potential threats. They will drive right into a gauntlet, and while the vehicle will emerge unscathed all of my men will be ripped to shreds. This forced me to cover some areas on foot where a vehicle would have made better sense if I could have driven or the AI had actually passed Drivers Ed.
To complicate the team AI issues are the limited commands you can give them, assuming you can order them at all. There is nothing here nearly as sophisticated as Ghost Recon; in fact I would venture to say that I have more control over my team in Unreal Tournament than I do here.
About now you are probably wondering why such a negative sounding review is attached to a relatively high score. One word. Multiplayer. Just like the original game, the multiplayer elements of Team Sabre save the day. You are no longer forced to fight with and against moronic AI, unless you are unlucky enough to hook up with real gamers as stupid as the computer. Once you add the “human” element to Team Sabre the game becomes an entirely new and better experience.
NovaWorld is a solid online community backed with plenty of servers capable of offering up the 30 modes, 40 maps, and support for up to 50 players. With a DSL connection I was able to participate in some epic battles of 24+ players. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill and other popular modes are supported and the new larger maps are perfect for these huge battles.
Team Sabre uses the same graphical engine that powered Black Hawk Down, which is the same engine that powered Comanche and delivered those wonderful rolling landscapes. Now that the missions are moving into the great outdoors the engine can really shine.
The character models are still very primitive and the buildings are low in complexity and detail, generally square and lacking any interior extras. Vehicle models are also on the primitive side, with boxy cars and trucks with wheels that just don’t quite look right.
Despite all these deficiencies, when all of these objects start moving everything just falls into place and looks awfully impressive thanks to an incredible draw and view distance. The water texture and lighting effects certainly stand out, as do the excellent weapon models that occupy the foreground of your screen. This perfect blend of simple models and complex textures allows gamers to run this game at high resolutions with maximum details on the recommended system.
Team Sabre delivers the same solid sound package as the original Black Hawk Down. The weapons all have a distinct and very authentic sound to them. There are powerful explosions and plenty of subtle sound effects that come across brilliantly in Dolby Digital on supported sound cards like the Audigy 2 ZS.
My only complaint is that some of the levels weren’t as noisy as they should have been. After coming off a recent tour of duty in Vietnam: Purple Haze I know what a jungle sounds like and the Columbian jungle in Team Sabre is a bit too quiet.
There’s a modest amount of voice acting, mainly in the radio chatter and occasional comments or complaints from my men. It was all surprisingly good quality and really helped to immerse me in the experience.
Priced at $20, Team Sabre borders on being an acceptable value. There is about 8-10 hours of single-player content in the two included campaigns, and you will have access to some wonderful new maps with massive scope that favors long-range gameplay (read: snipers). The new weapons are cool and the vehicles are great in theory but I do wish I could drive.
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down Team Sabre continues to push the Delta Force games further from their tactical roots creating a more action-focused gameplay experience. You’ll probably want to dedicate most of your time to the multiplayer aspects of Team Sabre where you will at least have a conscious choice over the intelligence of the people you play with and against.
If you are looking for a good story or intricate plot development then you had better go play (or replay) Call of Duty, Hidden & Dangerous 2, Vietcong: Purple Haze or any of a dozen other more solid solo FPS games. As a solo game, Team Sabre is a bit lacking.