E-Mail This Article to a Friend Point and shoot Delta Force: Black Hawk Down BY AARON SOLOMON
	Delta Force: Black Hawk Down For Xbox and Playstation 2 | Rated T for Teen | Developed by Climax Action | Published by NovaLogic Inc.

The instruction manual for Delta Force: Black Hawk Down reads a bit like a third-rate history textbook. Which is fitting, because the game amounts to a third-rate training exercise for would-be jarheads.

The Reader’s Digest history lesson of the first few pages is a simple attempt to explain the history of the troubled African nation of Somalia, and it stops a few clicks short of military chest thumping. America’s backing of the brutal dictator Siad Barre in the 1970s is given one throw-away sentence. Four pages, on the other hand, are devoted to guns.

If the main character were a pastel-sporting mobster or a gang-banging thug, DF: BHD would surely be rated M. It’s the hypocrisy of human nature (and the rating system) that allows for a bloodless re-enactment of the 2001 film (which was rated R) to be available to every child with $40 to spare. But because it’s disguised as a " war game, " and one that isn’t all that bloody, it’s bound to drop off the radar of even the staunchest opponents of video-game violence. If we were shown the bloody repercussions of our actions, we might be appalled. Instead, when you shoot your opponent, he keels over and disappears — no matter how many rounds from your M16 you unload. It’s like those Operation: Insert Theme games from the 1990s: lots of carnage but from a safe distance. Even Timesplitters had a little blood.

Unlike the best first-person shooters — Goldeneye, XIII, Halo — DF: BHD walks the line between fantasy and reality and comes up short on both ends. Your missions are barked at you by some faceless commander in authentic militaryspeak, and the emphasis is on something called " Rapid Aim Fire, " in which your most accurate shots come through looking the mounted sights rather than from blasting away. But you still have virtually unlimited ammo and places to pick up health boosts, and your targets are highlighted by a red box, things that are common to most shooters but not to most battlefields.

That said, DF-BHD feels authentic. It’s loud as hell. The 16 levels are beautifully rendered, and there’s no external soundtrack save for the sporadic tribal-like chants. There’s a certain excitement in navigating the bombed-out streets (all to the tune of that creepy music), but traversing the fields and hills quickly becomes boring.

Where DF-BHD shines is in its huge multiplayer content. With up to 32 players on-line for the PS2 version and a cool 50 for Xbox, you’re sure to find willing partners for your exploits. And if you’re not a team player, there are the requisite games of Deathmatch and Capture the Flag. On select single-player missions, you also have the option of giving team orders — this works just as well here as it did in The Thing, which is to say, not very. For the most part, your AI squad members are fully capable of carrying out your orders, though that largely means they follow you around the whole time. None of these features exactly breaks new ground.

As a training manual for the military, DF-BHD is scary. As a satisfying first-person shooter, it comes close enough. And if you have a hand grenade in your hand, close enough usually suffices.

Score: 6.0 (out of 10)