For years, Delta Force was regarding as one of the leaders in online gaming. Even Novalogic's Joint Operations and expansion were highly rated and loved by those who played the multiplayer. In 1998, Delta Force was released. 1999 brought Delta Force 2. 2000 was the year the Delta Force Land Warrior came to be. In 2003, the smash hit Delta Force Black Hawk Down released and was loved for the intensely fun multiplayer component. That game had what was, at the time, some top notch graphics. In 2005, Delta Force Xtreme hit the shelves. It was a budget title and was sold for $20. It was Delta Force.
Okay, now that we're out of Drama Land, we'll actually talk about the specific parts of Delta Force Xtreme. For starters, the AI is pretty bad, graphics were kind of average for the time, and the single-player campaign was short. It doesn't mean it wasn't enjoyable. In fact, it was damn fun. The game has an insane tendency to throws a ton of enemies at you at once. I know some of you are wondering how you're supposed to win if so many people are shooting at you and you have restart the mission if you die. Well, 2 things. First off, the AI sucks horribly. They actually do better at long range than at short range (Don't get me wrong, they still suck); I once had 7 enemies around me at one time. Less than 3 feet away. I was hearing gunshots, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. 5 minutes later, I turned around and saw my opponents. Yes, five minutes. I never took any damage. Remember that this happened only once. most other times, they killed me after around 15 seconds. Second off, you respawn if you die. speaking of which, the game feels like the Battlefield series. A bunch of idiot bots killing you, letting you respawn and change your weapons after you die, etc. However, this isn't Battlefield. This is Delta Force. A headshot will kill you. 2 or three shots in the chest will kill you. And each map is vast and goes back to the strategic game I liked from the beginning. How you infiltrate and kill the enemies is entirely up to you. Just keep in mind this isn't Rainbow Six.
The campaign only has 20 missions within the three campaigns it houses. To me, this was a bit of a disappointment. This is a remake of the original with a bit of changes. The original had 5 campaigns and 40 missions. This one only holds the Peru, Chad, and Novaya Zemlya campaigns from that game. Each mission takes less than 10 minutes (at least for me, but the game is much harder for those who didn't put extensive time into the original for reasons with sight. First one improved my friggin' eyesight.), resulting in a kind of feeling like NovaLogic didn't even care about a campaign and implemented it at the last second. However, the game is so insanely fun that I've played through the game three times within the last week. I simply can't get enough of this game.
In terms of multiplayer, Xtreme offers the standard Delta Force modes. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Flagball, King of the Hill, etc. These modes can get pretty chaotic with 32 players and drivable vehicles. Trust me, this is pretty damn fun. However, Delta Force Xtreme 2 upped the player cap to 150 and this reduced Black Hawk Down's 50 people to a pretty small number. But, like I said, it is pretty fun.
If there's a few problems with the game that I have, it has to be some technical issues. For one, graphics could've been slightly upgraded. It was a budget title, sure, but a bit of a graphical update would've helped. Let's not forget to mention that the AI is even more stupid than Black Hawk Down's AI ever reached. Now that's saying something. But, as a budget title, it partially gets away with these two issues. However, the limited number of weapons is just saddening.
So, after all of these years, has NovaLogic given up on their games? You might've thought so from the single-player offering of Xtreme 2, but this is just Xtreme. And here, they did a mighty fine job on a budget title. This is simply the best budget title I've ever played and the map editor adds a ton of replayability to it. If Nova can make Angel Falls half as good as this, I'll be in friggin' heaven. However, nothing so far has shown me any evidence of AF's goodness, so this is just my favorite Delta Force title to date. What most other reviewers don't seem to understand is that this is a budget title. Nothing more and nothing less. That being said, fans of the series will want to take a serious look into this game for some simple fun. After all, isn't that what games are for?
Score: 9.5