While Novalogic focuses on their upcoming multiplayer shooter Joint Operations, the developer Ritual Entertainment finished Delta Force Black Hawk Down: Team Sabre, the first expansion pack to this tactical shooter. I've finished the game a couple days ago, so here's my review on it.

After fighting on the streets of Mogadishu, Team Sabre features two new single player campaigns (over 11 heavily scripted missions) that take Delta Force deep into the jungles of Colombia in search of drug trafficker, then on to battle terrorist factions in and around Iran's island oilfields.

For starters, Black Hawk Down's arsenal is similar to that of most military-themed shooters. Weapons range from pistols (Colt M1911A1 .45) to assault rifles (CAR-15 + M203 grenade launcher) to sniper rifles (M-24) to machine guns (M-60). There are several weapons for each of these categories, in addition to grenades and other explosives. Most of the weapons have some sort of a zoom scope, and your accuracy varies depending on what you're doing at a given moment (running, crouching, etc). Team Sabre expansion adds three new weapons - the G3, the G36, and the PSG-1. The G3 and the G36 are German assault rifles, and the PSG-1 is a well-known German sniper rifle with 12x zoom. In the game you also have access to vehicle mounted and fixed weapon emplacements. These include the .50 cal machine guns on the humvees, as well as the mini-guns on the Blackhawks. Team Sabre adds new infiltration-oriented chopper, a RHIB (Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat) and a French light armored recon vehicle. None of the vehicles in Team Sabre are controllable, however, in single player or multiplayer. However, there are about 40 new NovaWorld-only maps designed specifically for Team Sabre. All the vehicles in Team Sabre are A.I. controlled.

Although the game offers a plethora of team commands to choose from, Team Sabre is mostly a straightforward, simplistic action game with some real-world trappings. You run and shoot. You have objectives and a HUD radar showing you where to go next. Your teammates AI isn't that good, you would assume that seeing the terrorists. They are often "get lost" when their path finding abilities are hampered by something or other. Overall, I'd say that Team Sabre is a bit more difficult then the original Black Hawk Down.

The multiplayer portion of the game won't disappoint you. Team Sabre adds 30 new multiplayer maps (most of them drawn from the single-player campaign) playable in 7 different multiplayer modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Attack and Defend, Search and Destroy, King of the Hill and Team King of the Hill) and up to 50 players on a server at a time. The new maps are heavy with trees and offer plenty of areas to hide. You will also be able to join NovaWorld games as an SAS character.

 If you liked the original game (DF:Black Hawk Down), especially its multiplayer portion, then it's worth the money ($20).

System requirements:
Minimum: Pentium III 733 MHz or higher, 256MB RAM, 32 MB Video Card, CDROM 4x, 750MB free HDD space
Recommended: Pentium 4 1.4 GHz or higher, 512MB RAM, 64 MB 3D Card