Considering that the location is somewhat limited there is also a great amount of variety in the missions. You'll be playing either in a town or out in the desert the whole time, often traveling between the two settings within a mission. The enemies don't really change except for a cameo appearance by some crocodiles. This could get quite monotonous but again the strong scripting and mission design prevents this from happening. One mission will task you with destroying a bridge, another rescuing some hostages, there is also a superb night mission where you have to infiltrate a base and you are running around with night vision goggles and silenced weapons. Of course the mission every one will want to play is the Black Hawk Down scenario itself, Irene, and as well as being great fun it is also a good example of the impressive graphics on offer. The strength of the graphics engine is the way in which it can seamlessly integrate large expansive landscapes with towns and buildings. In the mission Irene you start off from your home base, jumping into a helicopter that takes you along the coastline briefly letting you marvel at the impressive water effects. Then you fly from the outskirts right into the heart of a Mogadishu. You're also not on your own, you will fly in formation with the Black Hawk's and watch other squads climb down ropes into the streets before you are dropped off onto a roof top. All this takes places without a load screen to be seen and at a steady frame rate.

The longevity of the title will stem from two avenues. Firstly the game also installs a mission editor with an accompanying manual. While I didn't spend much time analysing the editor it looks reasonably straight forward to use, consisting of placing in pre-fabricated elements supplied and adding scripted sequences. There is a tutorial to go with the editor and I doubt it will be long before some new missions are available to download. The second, more likely aspect, that will keep you playing this title is the game. Novalogic's experience as a developer clearly shows through here. To play you must log in to their Novaworld service which they have been evolving for a number of years now. This helps them fight and for players it means cheaters can be black listed. Once you are logged in you can in fact view a 'Hall of Shame' of recently banned players. Everything is done within the game itself. The server listing is refreshed every time you view it which requires a bit of patience, but once you've found a game to your liking you will enjoy a smooth and stable match. The game types on offer are nothing new: death match; team death match; capture the flag and king of the hill. The character classes are equally unsurprising with medics, snipers and assault types available. To add a little spice to the maps you will be able to jump into humvees and black hawks that circle around the levels in a set pattern. If all the occupants of a black hawk are killed it will land. It is great to be able to hover above the roof tops in a black hawk but unfortunately in order to curb it from being too much of an advantage I feel Novalogic have gone too far in the other direction. You are extremely vulnerable when flying or driving around and you will probably be killed before you've had a chance to enjoy the ride. The interface is the same as the single player game including the good map system.

Even if you've never played a particular level before you can quickly go to a full screen view to orientate yourself. I've already come across some custom made maps that have taken some fun liberties with the editor, like placing burning drums in mid air to spell out initials in the sky. If there is one element that the multiplayer game suffers from more so than in other titles it's the sniping. When the landscape stretches into the distance and the buildings offer a maze of rooftops it is far too easy for players to just lay down and snipe through an entire session. It would be a great improvement if they had limited the number of snipers per team. Some maps are of course more susceptible than others and as most servers cycle through a selection you should thankfully only have to put up with it every so often.

Novalogic have put together a very polished game that plays to their strengths and doesn't allow the weaknesses to show through. If you enjoyed the film and want to play a game that recreates the same style of action then you will certainly not be disappointed. You'll easily finish the game over a weekend but the missions are so much fun you will probably come back to them a second or third time, and in between the multiplayer game will keep you entertained. Be warned though it is a very short single player game and as such people might ask you, "Hey, why do ya buy it man? Why? Just some war junkie?" Ya know what you should say? You shouldn't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about a few hours of great gameplay not a lot of hours of mediocre gameplay, and that's it. That's all there is to it.

85%

By Richard Clifford