Delta Force: Black Hawk Down was the fifth installment of the Delta Force tactical shooter franchise. Released in 2003 for the PC and in 2004 for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
After the negative response to 2000's Land Warrior and its 2002 Mission-Pack Sequel Task Force Dagger, developer NovaLogic decided to take a new direction with the franchise. Following in the footsteps of games like Medal of Honor, they dropped the more tactical aspects of past games to focus on faster gameplay, a cinematic ambience and grittiness of modern combat.
Rather than the previous games' Next Sunday A.D. sort of settings with a focus on the next generation of military hardware, Black Hawk Down is set during the UN military intervention of Somalia after the collapse of its central government in the early '90s. The player takes over as a US soldier who is initially part of Task Force Ranger before being called to join Delta Force, battling various hostile paramilitary factions attempting to take control of the war-torn nation.
The game received an expansion in 2004 named Team Sabre that includes two more campaigns, one set in the jungles of Colombia and the other on Kharg Island in Iran.
The game generated mediocre to decent reviews for its outdated graphics, inept AI, loose feeling and lackluster storytelling, but was praised for its multiplayer component, satisfying gunplay and sound design.
The PS2 version is not a straight port of the PC version but a remake/reimagining using a different engine. The Xbox version is a direct port with added local multiplayer modes such as co-op.
NOTE: The game has nothing to do with the 2001 war movie Black Hawk Down directed by Ridley Scott, outside of being set in the same conflict.
The game contains examples of:
- Action Prologue: The first mission, Merka Breakdown, starts things off with a bang with a mounted turret section aboard an armored vehicle, followed by a minigun turret section aboard a Blackhawk helicopter. Later missions are more typical on-foot tactical shooter missions.
- All There in the Manual: Literally. The game, at least on PC, doesn't bother to explain a thing about the conflict, but the manual explains everything you need to know about the conflict, Task Force Ranger, Delta Force and more.
- Adapted Out: The Malasyan Peace Forces are never acknowledged during the Battle of Mogadishu, again.
- America Saves the Day: Subverted, The game makes some references to other coalition nations fighting the warring factions and there's a mission where you support Pakistani forces. Also, in the Iran campaign you play as an SAS member during some missions.
- Antagonist Title: The true final chapter of Black Hawk Down, "Aidid Takedown", is named after the main antagonist of the game's main story. It doubles as a Spoiler Title since you will actually kill him to complete the mission and the game.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- In long, multi-objective missions, you can generally find first aid kits and ammo packs after completing a major objective so you'll be in top condition to tackle the next objective. The game is still balanced as a tactical shooter as you die after a handful of hits and you're not going to find health refills in the middle of a firefight.
- Your AI allies might be pretty poor shots, but they're remarkably durable, and on normal difficulty they're unlikely to get incapacitated during a mission unless you go out of your way to try and get them killed.
- Militia with RPGs usually miss their first shot, so you can be alerted to their position and kill them before they get off an accurate second shot which is a one-hit kill against you and any vehicles you're trying to protect. For some reason, the game throws this out the window in the penultimate mission, making it very hard and frustrating.
- Artificial Stupidity: Your AI allies are very slow at aiming and are terrible shots, while the enemy AI is only programmed to engage you when they see you without regard for cover or self-preservation.
- Based on a True Story: Some missions are based on real operations during the conflict, except for the final mission, which is revealed to be an Alternate History scenario regarding the confrontation with Aidid.
- Big Bad:
- Black Hawk Down Campaign (Main Story): Mohammed Farah Aidid, who is the Somalian warlord being responsible for the chaos across Somalia and its plight due to orchestrating many terrorist attacks across the country including Mogadishu. He isn't largely present across the game's main story but he's largely a pivotal character and a menace to the Task Force Rangers, up until the true final mission where he makes his grand appearance as the game's Final Boss, which requires him to be eliminated for the Golden Ending.
- Colombia Campaign: Antonio Paulo, a powerful Colombian drug lord and an Arms Dealer who has an iron grip across several regions of Colombia in the remotest parts of the country. He is operating his drug-running operations across the country and in the United States in order to cook up an anti-government coup d'état against the Colombian government.
- Iran Campaign: General Haatim Jaareah Bin Shamim Kalb, a renegade rebel leader formerly a part of the Iranian government who is disillusioned with their move of allying with the western powers through economic relationships. Kalb and his fundamentalist rebels seize the oil terminal in Kharg Island and in Bandar Shahpur, posing him as a serious threat to the Western investors and even the Iranian people in general.
- Bittersweet Ending: Most of the Rangers and Delta operators survive the Battle of Mogadishu, but the chaos of the battle leads to international backlash and the United States decides to withdraw Task Force Ranger from Somalia, leaving the country in shambles just when they began to deal some damage to the central clans. However, a single Delta operator assassinates the warlord they were looking for years later.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: The Somalian terrorists and Aidid himself are on the Obviously Evil scale, being responsible for leading Somalia into a self-destruction of its own due to launching countless terrorist attacks. The Task Force Ranger members and operators, on the other hand, while they're still the closest there is to heroic characters in this game, had a lot of grey morals in their efforts to stop terrorism, but with the Somali citizens proving otherwise as they are seen as very hostile towards them from the get-go. To add insult to the injury, the chaos of the war led to a massive international backlash that led the Task Force Rangers to their withdrawal from Somalia, allowing the country to go further in shambles, making their efforts useless.
- Blinded by the Light: Flashbangs can do this to anyone, even the player if they see the flash.
- Checkpoint Starvation: There are no checkpoints, but a small amount of manual saves during missions. This is specially notable during the expansion's campaigns, where most missions can last up to 20-minutes but only allow you three or four saves.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Or rather contrasting "main arc" antagonist, each Big Bad of all three main missions are different to one another.
- Mohammed Farah Aidid is a Somali terrorist who is responsible for causing Mogadishu to fall into a chaotic state, orchestrating many terror attacks against civilians during the Battle of Mogadishu in an attempt to put the country into a brink of self-destruction. Antonio Paulo, on the other hand, is a contrast to Aidid. Unlike Aidid who is a Somalian terrorist, Paolo is a Colombian drug lord. While Aidid's terrorist cell operates more obviously and are out in the open, Paolo's drug operations are hidden within the forested jungles of Colombia. Also, unlike Aidid whose terroristic motivation also extends to warring against other terrorist cells, Paolo's goal is to launch a coup against the Colombian government.
- General Haatim Jaareah Bin Shamim Kalb contrasts to Aidid. Both are The Warlord and are actively opposing their own governments for their own terroristic causes, but unlike Aidid who does it for political intimidation and chaos and had no connections to the government at all, Kalb had former ties with the Iranian government and hatches a plan to overthrow them as he becomes disillusioned with their alliance towards the Western powers for economic reasons.
- Elites Are More Glamorous
- Every Car Is a Pinto: A couple bursts of small arms fire is sufficient to cause any non-armored vehicle to explode spectacularly. Some technicals will explode simply because the turret gunner got shot.
- Gatling Good: The player can use a minigun mounted to a helicopter to strafe enemies in the first mission.
- Genre Mashup: The game is faster paced, more linear, and more forgiving than a tactical shooter, but also more realistic and hardcore with wider-open levels compared to a typical action FPS like Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. The game was made years before Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (and slightly before the first Call of Duty), and the devs were essentially operating without a rulebook when developing a modern military FPS. Overall the game plays mostly like a tactical shooter, but with balancing somewhat more typical of a more mainstream FPS.
- Good Guns, Bad Guns: Taken to extremes, as compared to earlier games in the series you no longer have access to non-Western firearms - and you're quickly shown why that is, when your CAR-15 and M16 are pinpoint accurate at any distance, while every enemy uses AKs or RPGs that are wildly, laughably inaccurate, often missing from less than five feet away. Multiplayer avoids this by likewise not having any bad-guy guns, or even any bad guys, as the playable factions are Delta Force and the SAS.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Both allied and enemy A.I have terrible accuracy.
- I Surrender, Suckers: Militia who you catch by surprise may do a fake surrender, then immediately start shooting at you.
- Limited Loadout: Reversing the changes made in Land Warrior, the player is once again limited to one primary weapon (assault rifle, machine-gun, SMG, or Sniper Rifle), one secondary weapon (pistol or shotgun), and one supplementary explosive weapon.
- Mauve Shirt: Some of your companions are named and have some characterization but that's it.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Whether this was intentional or accidental, the soldier on the cover art for the game looks an awful lot like Tom Berenger.
- One Bullet Clips: As opposed to the earlier games in the series, this is played straight - your reserve ammo is simply listed as a specific number of bullets, and reloading no longer makes you drop whatever was left in your last magazine to replace it.
- One-Man Army: The true epilogue mission can be described as this: three years after the failed mission in Somalia with the rest of your team, you go back there by yourself through a black ops mission to find Aidid, go through a whole army of his own men before reaching the area where you finally confront the Big Bad Aidid himself. And unlike every other enemies you faced, Aidid takes several hits to kill him!
- One-Hit Kill: As in previous games in the series, enemy units only need one shot to die.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Warlord Aidid can survive several bullet hits, compared to every other enemy in the game who dies in one shot, solely because he's the Big Bad of the game.
- Stuff Blowing Up: From rusted technicals to heavily armored transports, all vehicles can be destroyed with a few bullets.
- Ungrateful Townsfolk: Somali civilians are often unpleased to see you, and will even throw rocks at you.
