All I wanted in my early teens was a Sega Saturn. I was desperate for one, however my mum would never buy me one. She was more interested in making sure that I went outside, socialised and got some exercise. Because of this, I can’t really remember how I ended up with this game. It’s also why I hate the outside world and actively avoid conversation with other people. Nevertheless, what I do know is that Delta Force 2 was my first proper first person shooter and formed my expectations of the genre all the way up until Call of Duty Finest Hour.

For those who are familiar with the film starring Chuck Norris but not the game; there’s no connection. The plot of the film doesn’t transfer at all into the game in any way shape or form. It’s all the better for it, but it will not stop me attempting to fill my article with terrible Chuck Norris references. You’re given two different storylines to follow, each containing a stack of different missions to complete which are spread across snow covered mountain ranges, desert dunes and night time swamps. What’s particularly clever about the levels is that they are absolutely huge. They make Skyrim look small. This is unusual in a game of this age, and often led to hours of stalking looking for the perfect sniping spots. This enormous scale was achieved using a Voxel game engine which, in the unlikely event that I’ve got my facts right, means that the engine basically copies the same bits of map over and again; producing almost endless maps and scenery. Very clever as I’m sure you’ll agree. It all looked pretty as well; the graphics were all well rounded and smooth, and even close up or in deep grass blockiness was kept to a minimum. I enjoyed it to, particularly on the missions where you had to complete a task such as breaking in to a base surrounded with lookout towers. I’d stalk around the outskirts for miles to sneak round the back of the base, only to be spotted almost immediately and shot at.

                On the subject of the missions themselves; they were actually comparatively intricate and in depth. They often included tasks such approach a base, kill everyone/blow up the base, then moving on to a second set of buildings and rescuing some hostages before evacuating to a helicopter. My particular favourite was one where, if I remember correctly, you had to drop a satchel bomb in front of a convoy and jump in the back of a lorry when it stopped. You’d then be transported inside the base, where you had to blow up a couple of buildings. There was a track line which you could follow if you wanted which would take you from A to B and onto C almost on rails, but there was no necessity to do so and you could take a completely different route if you wished to.

One of the other rare and impressive attributes that Delta Force 2 exhibits is a simulated trajectory; one which is affected by gravity and results in ‘bullet drop’. This is realism that you don’t even get now in Call of Duty. This means you have to consider your distance from your target, whether you’re shooting from above or below, even the wind can have an effect on whether you’re going to get a hit or if you’re going to give away your position. And if you do give away your position rest assured; there’s no Chuck Norris-esque levels of strength, one or two hits on target are going to finish you off like you’re playing Counterstrike.

Sadly, this is where the realism starts to tail off. Whilst it might sound a bit daft to say shooting your enemy only once to kill them is unrealistic, it is if you shoot them in the arm. One hit was generally all it took to get your kill, and while that’s ok if you’re in an arcade looking for a quick thrill before your pound runs out, but compared to the realism you found in other areas of the game it was a bit of a surprise that it wasn’t more of a challenge. Mind you, I shouldn’t really be surprised. After all, Chuck Norris doesn’t go hunting, as to hunt implies there is a possibility of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.  There’s more too. Picture the scene; you’re sniping at someone eight hundred yards away, which was a not uncommon occurrence. You’re looking down the sweetly rendered scope and you’ve got your enemy in your sights. You’ve taken into consideration the distance and the wind, and you slowly pull the trigger…no recoil at all. The crash of the sniper rifle alerts a nearby enemy soldier; you switch to the machine gun or your side arm and open fire…again, no recoil whatsoever. It seemed such an odd omission from a game that was trying so hard in so many other areas; it was almost like they had just forgotten to add it in, which frankly is a bit of a shame as in some many other areas this game was miles ahead of its time.

                As you can tell, this is nit-picking really. As I stared down the scope of my sniper rifle (keeping one eye on the main screen in case I’d picked a stupid place to snipe from), I really didn’t care about the lack of recoil. And when I stormed into an arctic base, quickly taking out the two guards on the gate before picking of one guy through an upstairs window, I didn’t care that we were playing one shot kills. I bloody loved it all. All the missions had replay value because, as I said earlier, the maps were so big and missions so intricate that you could play them in different ways time and time again. As a stand alone title, this game was a long way ahead of its time. If you consult YouTube, you will find that whilst the graphics are now looking quite dated, the game has aged considerably better than the film of the same name. This game sits on top of my ‘Please do an HD remake’ list as, with a few tweaks, I’m sure that it would be as good as many of the first person shooters currently on the market. For now though, if you look carefully you can find free downloads scattered about on the internet, so I’ll be reliving my teenage years without the acne, cheap cider or the inability to talk to girls.

Now to close on one final Chuck Norris joke – Chuck Norris jokes aren’t funny, it’s just everyone is too scared to point it out.

 

 

© 2013 – 2014, zero1gaming.com. All rights reserved. On republishing this article your must provide a link to this original post