Black Hawk Down is pretty much like Delta Force 1 and 2, only this time the setting and plot actually matter. You're no longer moving down an empty level to a cut-and-paste enemy base, instead you're traversing the narrow streets of Somalia, and engaging in urban warfare in claustrophobic towns and cities, where it's hard to quickly discern between friend and foe. That is, until the plot and setting get abandoned half-way through, and each level requires you to kill everyone in sight, negating the layout of the level, since you'll traverse almost all of it to reach the end. The game also makes sure there are plenty of people to kill, replacing the few well-placed enemies that offer a challenge, with dozens and dozens of enemies that get sent your way once you reach a certain area. Levels are also much longer in Black Hawk Down than in Delta Force 1 and 2, partly because of the many things you're tasked with doing in each level, and partly because objectives get added or changed half-way through. Frankly, it feels like instead of creating more levels, they milked the few they had. Not that more levels would have helped much, since after a while, all levels blend together. When you first encounter the narrow claustrophobic streets, and realize that an enemy on the roof can take out your entire squad, there's a rush of adrenaline to the game. Especially when you're tasked with reaching your friends, whose helicopter was shot down, and who spotted enemy movement towards them. You don't know where they are, and are forced to navigate narrow streets roughly towards where they crashed, not knowing if you'll get there in time, while hearing their cries for reinforcements on the radio. It's quite an experience, until you realize there's no timer ticking down, nor any penalty for taking your time. Instead, you have to take your time, since, despite the semi-open levels, the path you're nudged towards is filled with cheap Serious Sam style traps. It could have been great.
Delta Force is supposed to be a game where you control a squad in order to stealthily overtake an enemy base or extract captured civilians, but the game is so clunkily designed, it's much quicker to run and gun. Enemy AI is almost non-existent, so you have only two types of enemies - ones that fire non-stop even if there's no target to fire at, giving away their location, and enemies that camp and wait for you to stare them in the face before they start firing, and even then it takes them a second or two before they realize they ought to open fire upon you. They do sometimes come off as intelligent, when at times it seems like they're trying to flank you, but their path selection isn't very good, causing them to either take a long detour and to never be seen again, or to climb up a hill you're on head on, making themselves easy targets. It seems the game compensates by letting them know of your whereabouts at all times, regardless of if you're under cover or not. It's better to have cover, but enemies seem to sometimes spot you through hills, and fire at you as if those hills aren't there. If you do pop out of cover, it seems they go through the same motions of firing near you at a fixed distance, firing again much nearer to you, again at a fixed distance, and only then hitting you. Yet other times just walking around stealthily, you'll be hit by a sniper's bullet - a sniper that somehow saw you, and managed to kill you with his first bullet, even when you're a moving target. It puts an end to stealth, and forces you to do the same - get a gun with a good scope and plenty of ammo, and scour the level for enemies. After a while you can distinguish with a naked eye between a shrub and an enemy, both about 4 pixels big. There are plenty of weapons, but the best gun is a gun with single & burst fire, and a scope. Running and gunning makes missions blend together, and I could have played dozens more, but stealth is too time consuming and somewhat broken.
