Delta Force 2

Back in May 1999, Delta Force [DF] marked the beginning of the the soldier simulator craze. Very short after Delta Force, PC gamers enjoyed Rainbow Six [R6] and the impressive Hidden & Dangerous [H&D], still the best balance of military strategy and soldier action. Of course I did play all of them, and this website featured regular updates on DF and H&D, as you can see by checking the column on your right.

Now, Delta Force 2 [DF2] arrives, and several questions rise, such as "how much did it progress from the original release?", and "did it keep its trend, or did it shift towards a more non-sniper perspective?"...

Well, there aren't many changes in DF2... Its basically DF with new missions, much richer environments, and a tech demonstration of how to do voxels with the current 3D hardware. Plus, you get an external view of your soldier, but that feature caused problems and the latest patch solves that and other small glitches.

If you own DF2, download patch #8 [3202 K auto executing .exe file].

DF2 is the first software title that manages to use current 3D hardware - specialized on polygons - to accelerate a voxel [volume pixels] 3D engine. Voxels are a completely different way to build 3D worlds. Voxels represent an effective path available to those who want to deliver richer environments. The problems with polygons is the usual exponential growth of the complexity of the scenes, ie, for example, if you want to double the polygons on an object, you end up making it more than twice slower to render... Voxel engines also tend to draw the world from the front to the back, thus having the chance not to output objects, or parts of objects, that will get obscured from the selected point of view.

Somehow, DF2 can use the RIVA TNT and TNT2 chipsets to accelerate its performance, but differences relative to the software rendering are minor. I still can't comment much on speed, since RIVA's latest drivers [detonator 3.53] cause graphical problems with the game [and also with GTA2...]. I've just installed the latest Creative Labs drivers [date 10 October 1999], based on RIVA's previous release, and that fixed it all, but since then I didn't have the chance to play more than enough to confirm everything is OK. However there is an undeniable gain on picture quality.

DF2 now delivers missions much richer in scope and quantities. There is more of everything. For example, I remember that in the original DF you would spot one helicopter from time to time, but now you have three or more Havocs everywhere! And more enemies... and more passive objects... you get the picture.

If you forget quantities, the best new thing is the high grass and the water transparency. You can hide much better in superb high grass and such feature says it all about the NOVALOGIC 3D engine. How would you represent usable high grass with the current polygon power?

DF2 is old news relative to gameplay. And that is good news :) I simply loved the simplicity of the original, putting you in a team, yet leaving you with all the freedom to wonder around and kick the enemy alone! That is exactly what happens again. And that is a clear NOVALOGIC option to keep the game in a slightly different league of both R6 and H&D.

Overall, DF2 is more fun and more playable than H&D, but it will not last as long and it feels less rewarding, but the truth is that while I am still resisting to burn hours on completing H&D, I will hardly avoid a DF2 marathon :)