| VGLN.com
PC >> Previews
>> article
Delta Force: Land Warrior
by Jolex Del Pilar
Sunday, November 5 2000
Novalogic hopes to cash in on the Rainbow Six crowd with a new Voxel Space engine, polygonal characters and objects and 3D acceleration.
 |
|
|
Title:
Delta Force: Land Warrior
|
Platform:
PC Windows
|
Publisher:
Novalogic |
Developer:
Novalogic |
#
of Players: 1 + 32 in Online Play |
Genre:
Action
|
Origin:
United States
|
Expected
Release:
Q1 2001 |
Grapevine:
No longer will you see the chuggish 10 frames per second you came to expect from the first title, I don't think I saw the game drop below 25 frames on a P3 450 with 128MBs of RAM. |
Novalogic's Delta Force came out in late 1998 as a "realistic representation" of covert operations. You were put into the game with little ammo, no cheesy enhancements such as "double armor" or the like, and most of the time, by yourself. Your mission often put you against the likes of twenty or more heavily armed terrorist who were just waiting to plug you. Voxels (3D Pixels) were used to represent the terrain and other various objects. The Voxels were both a blessing and a curse. Voxels could create a look of amazing beauty and realism as shown by Infogrames' excellent adventure game, Outcast, unfortunately, it took a pretty decent system to run smoothly. However, when used in low-res, the choppy, pixilated mess looked less impressive as shown in the first two titles of Novalogic's Comanche series.
To solve this problem, Novalogic has created a brand new game engine which not only used polygonal characters, but high-res, hardware accelerated terrain using the latest incarnation of the Voxel technology. The result is Delta Force: Land Warrior. No longer will you see the chuggish 10 frames per second you came to expect from the first title, I don't think I saw the game drop below 25 frames on a P3 450 with 128MBs of RAM. Although the game inescapably drew comparisons to another contemporary at the time the series debuted, Delta Force is different from Rainbow Six in the fact that most of Delta Force's stages take place in large outdoor vistas rather than claustrophobic embassies. However, not one to be topped, Delta Force: Land Warrior has added "large" indoor areas as well. They seem to work well with the pre-release demo we played.
The Game has five main characters with varied personalities and skills. They seem almost comic book in nature (hey, this is a game) but they add variety to the game. They range from a small Japanese martial arts expert to a rough and burly, boxer turned special ops agent, from New York. The amount of weaponry you'll be able to utilize has been increased and is varied as well.
Sniper Rifles:
Barrett "Light 50"
H&K PSG-1 (New)
M40 Bolt-Action
Heavy Machine Guns:
M249 SAW Machine gun
FN MAG Machine gun (New)
Assault Rifles:
M4 carbine/12 gauge shotgun combo (Master Key)
OICW (Objective Individual Combat Weapon) (New)
AK-47 (New)
H&K G11 Assault Rifle (New)
Steyr AUG w/Grenade Launcher (New)
Sub-Machine Guns:
H&K MP5SD Submachine gun
Calico Submachine gun (New)
H&K UMP Submachine gun (New)
Hand pistols:
Glock 18 Machine Pistol (New)
SOCOM .45 Pistol (Metal Gear Solid fame)
SOCOM-SD .45 Pistol (suppressed)
Specialty Weapons:
MM-1 Grenade Launcher (New)
P11 Underwater Pistol
UAW Underwater Rifle
Pancor Jackhammer Autoshotgun (New)
High-yield explosives:
Satchel Charge
Claymore Mine
Grenades:
Fragmentation
Delayed Fragmentation
Secondary weapons:
Combat Knife
Heavy Weapons:
.50 Cal Heavy Machine Gun
MK19 Auto Grenade Launcher
Although the arsenal is quite powerful, you won't be able to bring more than a few of these weapons into a single mission and you definitely won't be able to bring enough ammo to feed these hungry things. The game will ship with 30 missions, ten quick missions, and nineteen campaign missions with a training mission thrown in for good measure. Taking a cue from Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear, the game has you going after terrorist who are tinkering with nuclear weapons. Do they ever learn ?
Also like Rainbow Six, the game will have you hopping all over the world to bust caps into terrorist; Egypt, Japan, Mexico, South America, Lebanon, Central Europe and the Mediterranean. A save feature will be available for the gamer who just can't get out of Japan without taking a bullet in the gut. A handy feature.
Delta Force Land Warrior looks to be the best in the series yet, with high-res, 3D accelerated visuals, and a kick butt multiplayer aspect (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill, Team King of the Hill etc.), the game looks set to give those other CT simulations (namely Rainbow Six, and SWAT 3) a run for their money. Expect this one in a few months.
--- Jolex Del Pilar
|
