29-Jun-2005 Want stupid in a sesame bun? Come hither and feast. Black Hawk Down, the first Xbox incarnation of the famous Delta Force series is stoopid with extra "Oooo", a game unsure of its audience, firing off bullets every which way, hoping some of them at least hit their target. But you know what? Embrace part of this mucky pup, and as perverse as it may seem, it can be strangely enjoyable.
Artistic licence has been set high on the agenda for Black Hawk Down, namely because the hawk in question doesn't feature until a hefty swathe of the game has been beaten. If you're looking for the desperate, panicked atmosphere conjured by Ridley Scott in the movie, then go and rummage in a packet of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, for you've more chance of finding it there as a free gift. The majority of BHD is gung-ho to the hilt, a procession of shouting Americans blasting the shit out of Somalis in sticky situations that aren't half as sticky as they like to think they are. This, in part, is due to the AI. It's a wonder either side actually managed to load their weapons in the first place.
Your team often, but not always, consists of three other US Marines, all of whom, were it possible to do so, deserve a bullet between the eyes. Such a bunch of hapless Frank Spencers we have never clapped eyes on. If they're not standing in front of you wincing as they take bullets meant for an enemy, they're running randomly about the map, one minute charging a foe, an instant later spinning on their heels and firing into the air. You'd do well to ignore the presence of your idiotic assistants completely - it won't set you back much as the enemies are no better in this gaming world populated by stupids. However - and this is where the game see-saws seemingly at random - if a bullet does find its mark, you're as good as dead in an instant. The enemies are too daft for this to be an even remotely strategic experience, yet the hit-to-kill ratio is so off the scale it's certainly no arcade shooter either. We're truly puzzled.
Other random factors also come into play to stir up the mix a little further. It's fine to shoot an explosive barrel at your feet and survive, for instance, but stick a bullet in a radio transmitter and it's curtains. Radio killed the videogame star, if you will.
The campaign mode also suffers because it's just so damned dull-looking. Washed out environments, and badly detailed screen furniture do not an exciting war environment make. Sure, there seem to be plenty of cars and vehicles littered around which can be destroyed to add a little spice to an otherwise knuckle-chewing experience, but when a truck blows up in a ball of billowing flame after taking just one or two shots, the thrill soon wilts. Car explosions are just another example of baffling gameplay. Is this a strategy game or a Rambo movie? It sort of looks like a strategy game on the surface at any rate - the team orders, and various vision modes that come as standard with strategy games are here, but they're about as much use as the switches and buttons on a Fisher-Price toy steering wheel.
Team orders are accessed and given by pausing out of the game, then continuing, rather than via a quick menu system, and even when orders are given the squad react as if we'd just asked them to perform sex acts on monkeys. All running about, guns aloft, barking inappropriate nonsense to one another. Sigh.
And the night-vision goggles? We use to think these were meant to aid vision at night. Perhaps, once these were equipped, we'd be able to see people more clearly? Nope. Everything just turns green. We thought the tube in our TV had gone.
But, before withdrawing altogether and sending those dratted Somalis a box of napalm done up with a fat ribbon, here comes the cavalry. It's called Xbox Live. It's called being able to have 50 people online at once, and it's called having the foresight to give you maps and arenas so large and sprawling you could buy a farm on one and settle down. Black Hawk Down is a winner online.
We'd normally reserve this bit for the Live review, but the inclusion of Live is so pivotal to BHD's success it has to be mentioned.
Twenty-five-a-side is no small achievement for any Xbox game, and thanks to dedicated servers whirring and fizzing somewhere in deepest, darkest Novalogic HQ, the whole shebang runs like a dream. EA, pay attention please. Maps are vast, but there's never a core gaming area surrounded by dead space. If someone riding a minigun in the back of a Black Hawk isn't peppering the ground with spent shells, sniper teams (yes, whole bastard bunches of them) are co-ordinating attacks from numerous rooftops.
Meanwhile, medics are frantically patching wounded troops, units of gunners are holding down suppressing fire, and lone wolves are creeping through the shadows, slashing throats from behind. If you don't want to attack an abandoned stadium face-on, jump in a jeep, have it drive around the perimeter, then attack from behind.
Like no other Xbox game before it, Live matches feel fleshed out and populated to an extent that it sometimes rains sniper bodies. It's manic, and it's brilliant and you'll be astonished. But, (and there had to be a 'but', didn't there?), is Black Hawk Down worth your attention when the single-player campaign is so full of gaffes and pratfalls?
It's as though the Live game and campaign are two entirely separate games, and the more you play either, the more obvious the gap between them becomes. On one hand there's a game sparsely populated by trigger-happy idiots posing the kind of random danger only found by poking a sleeping dog in the eye, and on the other there's an accomplished, far more detailed Live shooter that begs to be played. The Blu-Tac and bits of chewing gum gluing together these two hideously opposed pieces barely do the job, and it's left to the Live mode to hold everything in place.
But, hold it together it does. There is so much scope for any type of player, so many variables that can take place within a match, and so much promise for clans to truly prove their worth, it's impossible not to like. Armouries scattered through maps enable you to change character type at an instant by equipping you with different weapons sets, and the whole crazy exercise feels as though Battlefield: Modern Combat has come early to Xbox.
If you have Live then we can't recommend Black Hawk Down enough. Sure, it's no Halo 2 (something it thankfully never even tries to be), but when you fire a screaming RPG into a chopper carrying a dozen or so enemies, you momentarily forget all about the terrible, stunted single-player experience. If, however, you're still not signed up to Live, stay as far away from this as you would from real-life war-torn Somalia. Because offline, Black Hawk Down is an absolute stinker of a game.
Official Xbox Magazine staff
// Overview
Verdict
A game of two utterly separate parts. Pretend the campaign mode doesn't exist and get stuck into the Live modes instead.
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