Based more on the brutal 1993 conflict in Somalia rather than just a specific moment made famous by both the book and later the Ridley Scott film Black Hawk Down, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down for the PC placed us in the role of the Special Forces unit in charge of keeping the peace.  It allowed us a peek at the eruptions of violence that had President Clinton willing to drop all aid to the country and pull out the troops before things escaladed into an even bloodier mess. Two years later, Xbox owners are getting a chance dive into the conflict but with mixed results.

Assuming the role of a nameless, faceless U.S. Special Forces Operational Detachment (or Delta Force) leader, you find yourself in Somalia during the fall of 1993. Sent to help aid the UN on their mission to provide aid to the people and to bring down the deadly warlord General Mohamed Farrah Aidid, and his Habr Gedir militia that have been stealing aid packages and killing relief workers and civilians, Delta Force is sent throughout the heart of Mogadishu and its dangerous outskirts. Relying on your training and your fellow Delta Force comrades, we get to go through 16 single-player missions.  

The problem is that while the missions are straight out of the PC version, the game has lost its genuine thrilling moments to the point that they feel almost predictable and dull. This is unfortunate seeing as the game brings us all the same things, like getting to man the mounted gun on a AAV transport while fighting back waves of militia bad guys in trucks. You even get to climb up on and man the mounted machine on a Black Hawk helicopter while shooting down enemies attempting to ambush UN relief convoys. Yet here the moments are scripted to the point that you’ll know what’s coming the second you man the mounted guns or complete a mission objective. There’s a moment in the game where you are sent to destroy a lonely bridge only to find (the very second you’re ordered to blow said bridge) that it’s suddenly not so lonely anymore. The same can be said when you’re ordered to destroy a weapons' cache. Once destroyed, enemies suddenly pour out at you in waves and you’ll wonder why they weren’t around to defend their weapons' cache in the first place.

These scripted moments just end up making this an average shooter similar to Close Combat: First to Fight but it’s the somewhat-awkward controls that make things even worse. You can kneel for more accurate shots and you can drop on your belly to avoid return fire but your response time isn’t quick enough to keep you from getting hit or killed. You can also order your squad around (and I highly suggest you do this with your Xbox Communicator headset) but your teammates aren’t the brightest bunch ... unless it’s common Delta Force practice to open fire on civilians when you order them to fire at will. They do clear a room well enough, though. The enemies aren’t bright either, often rushing out to meet their demise when you’re in the middle of slaughtering enemies on a mounted gun. One time an enemy even ran right past me without turning around to shoot at me.

All is not bad, though. You’re given the chance to ignore the gear recommendation and pick out your own gear at the beginning of each mission. There’s a healthy selection of heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, various handguns, shotguns or even RPGs. The weapon implementation is smooth so you can switch weapons on the fly without stopping to sort through your inventory. There are also some fun moments in the game, such as the last three mission in the game where the action becomes more intense. It’s just too bad these moments are spaced so far and are drowned by the other dull missions.

With such a dull single-player game you’d think I would recommend that gamers stay clear of this game altogether but its saving grace just so happens to be its multiplayer modes. You can play the game split-screen style with up to four players using various maps and playing either deathmatch modes or co-op missions. Then there’s the System Link that, hooked up right, can make for a great party game fit for up to 32 players. The real treat, though, is the Xbox Live support that places you in a battlefield of up to 50 players. Online you can create your own team with your own motto and logo and invite friends to join up to battle against other teams fighting for a place on the leaderboard. There are character specialties such as medic, sniper and gunner to pick from and seven multiplayer modes. While most of the modes are the usual game modes we find in other games (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, etc.), it’s Flag Ball that will light up your Xbox.   

Visually, there’s nothing here that will have you thinking this is an Xbox game. The environments aren’t rendered as well as they should but they at least resemble the locale it was meant to resemble especially when it comes to the villages and its cities. You’ll pass UN supply trucks with UN officials passing out aid packages to the people and you’ll watch as they scatter when warlords start showing up in trucks or on foot. The problem is that from afar you won’t be able to tell civilian from foe and there are many moments when I’ve opened fire on groups of peasants because you can’t tell them apart from even a reasonable distance. Explosions and gunfire don’t have the impact it should either. We’ve seen a lot better than this.

As for the game’s sound, well, it doesn’t do a great job of bringing explosions and gunfire to life like other shooters do. I’ve played the game on simple surround-sound speakers and I’ve played it with a major sound system hooked up and the result is always the same: explosions and gunfire too loud that it can’t be distinguished. In this game, you won’t tell an AK-47 from a M249 SAW or a satchel charge from a grenade. The voice work is Ok but you won’t hear a peep from your squad and nobody seems to care enough to tell you when the enemy just tossed a grenade in your general direction. The soundtrack ranges from great Arabic-sounding music to ultra cheesy guitar rock.

In the end, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down isn’t able to bring all the things gamers loved about the far superior PC version of the game. Aside from the control issues, enemy AI blunders and the predictably scripted moments found in the single-player game, gamers will not feel like they’re a part of the volatile conflict. What the game does best, however, is provide an Xbox Live multiplayer mode worth the price of admission alone. Skip the main mode and play this one online and you’ll see why it will give your Halo 2 disc some much needed rest.

Gameplay: 6.8
With plenty of scripted moments and enemies that tend to run blindly into your line of fire, the game’s first-person shooter action just doesn’t feel right on the Xbox. Add some unintelligent allies that sometimes can’t tell civilians apart from armed thugs when you order them to “Fire at will!” There are some fun moments scattered throughout the game, though. It’s just too bad those moments don’t last very long.

Graphics: 6.0
The Xbox is perfectly capable of displaying much of what we see in the two-year-old PC version but instead we get a game with little in terms of visual flair. The textures are not as smooth as we’d like them to be and characters, particularly up close, seem to have oddly-shaped heads with blank expressions on their faces. The environments aren’t well detailed but they do bring the locale to life.

Sound: 6.0
Have you ever noticed how different the sound of a shotgun is to, say, the sound of an M16? Well the sound department that worked on this game doesn’t and much of what you’ll hear sounds muffled to the point that you won’t be able to tell them apart. The voice acting is just Ok in this game and there’s a nice piece of music that feels straight out of the Black Hawk Down movie. That is, of course, until the repetitive and cheesy guitar riffs that makes up the other half of the soundtrack comes up.

Difficulty: Medium
There are moments in the game where you will laugh at the lack of intelligence the enemy shows and times when you’ll be frustrated at their ability to seemingly come out of nowhere and attack in droves. There are some challenging mission objectives but the biggest challenge is keeping your squad mates alive.

Concept: 7.5
The single-player game seems to be missing that spark that similar games, like the Ghost Recon and the Rainbow Six 3 games, bring to the genre. While there are plenty of missions with their own list of objectives, it is the co-op mode and Xbox Live multiplayer game that more than make up for what would otherwise be just a flawed military shooter like Close Combat: First to Fight.

Multiplayer: 9.0
As a single-player game, Black Hawk Down is as average as they come but when you go online this is where the game shows its true colors. With fifty players on screen at once, this is what an online multiplayer dreams are made of. There are a few stutters here and there but it's nothing compared to the multiplayer action that will have you skipping the single-player campaign altogether.

Overall: 6.9
As flawed as the game is, Black Hawk Down is a shining example of what makes the Xbox Live such a necessary service for any Xbox gamer. You’ll want to ignore the disappointing single-player mode and play the online multiplayer modes that truly add more to what would have been just another so-so FPS experience.