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Delta Force utilizes 3D positional audio, which while walking around doesn't do much to enhance gameplay. However when the fecal matter collides with the rotating cooling device, the 3D audio shines. When not using the GPS window, an enemy's general location is discernable from the direction of their shouts. Bullets that whiz by your head, sound like they whiz by your head, while the sound of those that ricochet inside the hut walls will have you ducking behind an overturned desk. When you're in the middle of a firefight, the sounds of the automatic weapons will come from all around you, not just to your left and right. This effect really instills a sense of panic, and we often found ourselves either cowering behind a hill or running in the opposite direction.
Delta Force, like most combat simulators, uses political hotspots as the scenarios of confrontation. Missions range from crippling a drug cartel in Peru (which escalates into a sniping-the-drug lord-as-he-steps-out-of-his-limousine scene ripped straight from the pages of a Tom Clancy novel) to a nuclear missile crisis in Novoya Zemlaya. The single player missions of Delta Force are fun and varied enough to provide ample playing time, but it's the multiplayer games that make Delta Force a winner.
Even though this type of game would logically tend to have a strong teamwork aspect in single player mode (i.e. Rainbow Six), it doesn't. Even though you'll be assisted by a number of squad mates throughout each mission, you're more or less on your own. The rest of the squad is usually flanking or surrounding the enemy, so there's no one to cover your back (i.e. Spec Ops). And even though Delta Force goes completely against the grain of the "one-man army" approach of similar titles, more often than not, most of the kills will be racked up by you alone.
In multiplayer however, you're anything but alone. For Delta Force, NovaLogic set up a number of servers on NovaWorld.net, their own online gaming community. Up to 32 players can join any one of many game types, including favorites like King of the Hill and Capture the Flag. Whereas the single player aspect of Delta Force seemed like one man against a million targets, the multiplayer is completely different. The Voxel Space 3 engine plays a big role here. Being gunned down by a sniper a mile away is common place during online games. Again, this is due to the fact that Delta Force uses voxels, not polygons, and thus has no clipping plane, which makes the horizon viewable for miles. Unlike single player, the bullets in multiplayer games have your name written all over them. Survival only comes with extreme caution. It's necessary to note that the Voxel Space 3 engine leaves the terrain with a blocky, almost fuzzy, look to it (the tiling on the screenshots isn't from the low compression quality of the images, that's how the terrain looks like in the game). A side effect of the voxel terrain is pixelation at farther distances, which makes for interesting multiplayer battles. That's because a target that's a reasonable ways away from you, can be easily mistaken for a shrub, rock or bump in the landscape, even with a scope. Enemies now only become visible when moving against a static backdrop. We found the most success when our back was against something nice and solid, thus preventing any unwelcome surprises.
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