The main thing I remember about the movie Black Hawk Down, a thoroughly post-Saving Private Ryan slice of gritty military hero worship, is actor Tom Sizemore sauntering around with an almost casual indifference to the bullets whizzing past his head. Even when he gets hit, he treats it as more of an annoyance than anything. That's an experience that plenty of first-person shooters mimic—letting you waltz through a wall of gunfire with preternatural calm, shrugging off a few rounds as minor flesh wounds—but it is not the experience of Delta Force's new Black Hawk Down campaign, which will knock you down to a sliver of health anytime you pop out of cover for more than two carefree seconds. This is a shooter that treats bullets as deadly as they are to real human flesh. Pulling a Sizemore is a good way to end up real dead, real fast.
This campaign, a remake of one released 22 years ago, is a strange thing. Tightly scripted, with linear levels based roughly on the events of the film/book/game/real-life incident, Black Hawk Down has the lethality of a military sim with none of the complex simulation of an Arma 3 or Squad. It's a game of cramped environments and methodical breach-and-clear moves from room-to-room, with slow animations and slower sprinting. I, too, would only be able to jog about 12 feet while carrying 100 pounds of gear before gasping for air, but I tend to prefer shooters that don't fill my boots with lead.
