Delta Force: Task Force Dagger

aka: Delta Force: Operaciya "Kinzhal"
Moby ID: 8727

Description official descriptions

Delta Force: Task Force Dagger is a standalone mission pack for Delta Force: Land Warrior. It expands upon the gameplay with new missions in Afghanistan, a new location. There are 25 new missions and 13 new weapons. The game comes with new multiplayer maps and includes a level editor for the player to design their own.

Spellings

  • Delta Force: Операция "Кинжал" - Russian spelling
  • Отряд Дельта: Операция Кинжал - Russian spelling (alternative)
  • 三角洲特种部队4:近战突击队 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

100 People (73 developers, 27 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 52% (based on 21 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.5 out of 5 (based on 16 ratings with 4 reviews)

One word, HORRIBLE

The Good
The graphics were "ok" and it is a Delta Force game so cool elements from the past (and good) games are still there. If there were more than four other players on Novalogic the online would have been fun.

The Bad
The game is in actuality is Land warrior. It could have been released as an expansion or a fan made mod. Though the graphics are "ok" the guns are basically just poorly drawn images slapped onto the screen. Why would they do this???? The first two Delta Force games were full 3D. Nearly all the missions are simply running into a base, killing everyone, and running out. The online community is almost zero which is kinda sad because the first Delta Force still has a respectable amount of players. The only fun this about this game is at the end you get to kill an Osama Bin Laden look alike.

The Bottom Line
Complete and utter crap, go get Black Hawk Down.

Windows · by MegaMegaMan (2257) · 2004

Pretty good, but rather buggy.

The Good
It's Delta Force, still the last word in First Person Shooter realism. You shoot, and the bullet travels quickly, but not instantly, and there's no one in the game who needs any more than 1 headshot to kill. You travel into a battle zone, have a short mission, then leave, like a real Special Ops agent. Also, you're not able to simply jump into any vehicle you see, like in other games like Delta Force Xtreme, as if either you can hijack any vehicle you find instantly, or every terrorist in the world is dumb enough to leave their keys in their cars and trucks. Plus, added to this particular game is the UAV, which while generally not easy enough to use to spot individual enemies, it's nice to see a real-time layout of your battlefield so you can plan your action. Another little touch added was that now you can see a plane fly overhead when you designate a target. You still don't see the bombs though. Just the explosion.

The Bad
Well, personally, I think some of the things people could criticize about this game aren't necessarily a bad thing in this case. Sure, there's no music, the graphics aren't exactly breathtaking, the enemies aren't particularly clever, and many of the missions involve minimal teamwork, but I'm fine with most of those. I've never heard of Special Forces playing music while they're on a mission, nor have I heard Afghanistan in real life referred to as "pretty", so the lack of music and bland scenery in this case just adds to the realism. As for the AI, friendly and enemy, I think they're sufficient. Enemies will turn towards you if they hear you, and shoot you if they see you, but neither friend nor foe is superhuman, meaning your allies will probably die rather quickly without your help. However, though it made the game more doable, I didn't like the excessive hesitation NPCs had, some taking up to 3 seconds after seeing an enemy to open up fire, and the excessive bad aim of some, such as when some NPCs use automatic weapons, sometimes they end up not compensating for the recoil at all, and shooting way above their targets.

But, without a major overhaul, which could hurt speed and game play, I'd say there's really only thing I'd change about this game if I was making it would be fixing the bugs. Now, Novalogic has never been known for making games bug-free, but this one seems to have more than even the average Novalogic game, and this game seems especially buggy. You have to wonder when playing the game if Novalogic did any beta testing at all before releasing the game. Its bugs are many, but here are some I noticed while playing: 1. First, and most importantly, when I first started playing, sometimes when I fired the screen would go all weird, with images flashing on and off, that wouldn't quit until I restarted the game, and would sometimes come back the very first time I fired in a level. Novalogic tech support helped me with this one, and come to find my graphics card is too new for the game. I installed an older graphics card, and that fixed most of the problems, but it also made movies look washed out on some of my media players. 2. Sometimes when I started the computer, it wouldn't acknowledge Novalogic was even in the CD-ROM drive. Usually fixed when I took it out and put it back in 3. When you drop your main weapon, if there's not a full clip in it, when you pick it back up it'll be miraculously loaded with another clip. So, if you drop, say, a M249 "Minimi" SAW machine gun, which has a 200 round clip, and before you drop it, it has 197 rounds left, and you have 1 spare magazine, if you pick it up again it will have 200 rounds left, and 0 spare magazines. Those 197 rounds just disappeared, and the weapon miraculously was reloaded sometime between when you dropped it 2 second ago and when you picked it up. It's the opposite when you load. If you have 2 shots left and 1 spare ammo clip for the SAW when you saved, when you load the game you'll have 200 shots left and 1 spare ammo clip, as if exactly 198 extra bullets appeared in your gun when you loaded. 3. In the last mission, I was walking down an underground ramp, and suddenly appeared 30 feet away, above ground. It only happened once, but it was weird. 4. Sometimes when you demolish a building, be it by air strike, SLAMs, or whatever, it'll explode like other buildings, but then its graphic won't change, and it'll look exactly the same as before the explosion. I'm not sure if this happens with other buildings, but it happened to me when I tried to demolish a small house. 5. When you smash a window, by firing it or an explosion or whatever, if you go up to the window, it'll look like there's still a window there, even though firing again at the "phantom window" doesn't do anything.

Also, though it's not so much a bug, it seems a bit unrealistic to get intel (as in, knowing the exact location of soldiers and direction their facing) on people in buildings or deep underground. Kudos for Novalogic for not giving intel in missions set in cloudy or foggy weather, but I just don't see how it's possible to get the exact location of every soldier below 40 feet of dirt. It did make things easier, though.

The Bottom Line
It's Delta Force. If you're not a fan from the start, chances are you'll like at least one Delta Force game out of sheer frustration. It's one of the only FPS games set in modern times, a rarity these days with so many set in such eras as World War II, the Vietnam War, the near future, and the distant future. It's still one of the few games that brings you closest to real combat experience in modern warfare, even more so with this game because it's set in a real conflict, instead of fighting fictional terrorists like in prior Delta Force games. If you get sick of playing games where you can dodge a bullet fired 20 feet away at you (such as in Destroy All Humans), or 3rd person games in general where for some reason you're watching your character from slightly above its head, and need to awkwardly maneuver the camera to see what you want to see, or are sick and tired of any of the numerous aspects of games that fly in the face of realism, Delta Force is the game to play. It may not simulate exactly what goes on in a typical

As for this game in particular, if you could only buy one game in the Delta Force series, I'd instead recommend Landwarrior or Xtreme. Landwarrior is less buggy, has a more linear storyline, and takes you to a greater variety of locales. Xtreme is also one of the "prettiest" Delta Force games, where you'll find better, more modern graphics and some new weapons like Flashbangs. However, if you see this game at the bargain rack of store for less than $20, I'd suggest buying it. If you have the right graphics card, its bugs won't be serious enough to really bother you too much, and you'll probably have a good time playing it.

As for this game in particular, if you could only buy one game in the Delta Force series, I'd instead recommend Landwarrior or Xtreme. Landwarrior is less buggy, has a more linear storyline, and takes you to a greater variety of locales. Xtreme is also one of the "prettiest" Delta Force games, where you'll find better, more modern graphics and some new weapons like Flashbangs. However, if you see this game at the bargain rack of store for less than $20, I'd suggest buying it. If you have the right graphics card, its bugs won't be serious enough to really bother you too much, and you'll probably have a good time playing it.

Windows · by kvn8907 (173) · 2007

New things don't add much to the game, if at all

The Good
Lots of action // Stealth required at times // Fun locations // Lots of tangos to kill // Lots of weapons to try // Nice multiplayer support

The Bad
Unrealistic weapon performance // unrealistic tactical scenario (one guy vs. the world) // 10 special units actually have almost nothing distinguishing them // most of the weapons are virtually identical with minimal operational difference // most missions can be done with the same weapons // UAV and commander's map too powerful

The Bottom Line
Delta Force / Task Force Dagger is an attempt to cash in on Operation Euduring Freedom (i.e. invasion of Afghanistan) by Novalogic. They came up with some missions based very loosely on the missions actually undertaken by SpecOps troops and Rangers. The problem is, those real missions involved hundreds of people, and these missions are one-man shows where one (or sometimes, two) guys kills dozens and dozens of terrorists in your way.

As long as you keep in mind that you're NOT going to find too much realism in this game, it can be enjoyed quite well. There are a lot of weapons available. Half-dozen or more pistols, a wide variety of assault rifles, sniper rifles, even light and medium machine guns are available. There are even anti-tank rockets and demolition charges, plus grenades for additional firepower. Many of the weapons are silenced, giving you plenty of stealth if you want it. However, operationally, there really isn't any difference between some of the weapons. I mean, an Austeyr is almost the same as SA-80 or M-16, except for magazine size and minor details. Differences don't mean much operationally.

The maps really do give a sense of size, as the maps are measured in square kilometers, instead of often claustrophobic maps in other games. Sniper action becomes very important, and enemy snipers can and will target you.

Buildings aren't really detailed, but that could be forgiven. The hills and such are nicely contoured and organic looking, thanks to Novalogic's voxel technology.

Enemy AI... when set on easy, they are horrible, as they don't attack much if at all. They'll shoot at you if they see you, but that's about it. On regular or HARD, they are more aggressive and more resistant to damage, providing more of a challenge. The problem is all of the enemies look the same. Seems they all wear green camo jackets, bandoliers, eyepatch, and a green turban. Never saw any variation, such as facial hair, turban color, and so on. Guess Novalogic want to keep the enemy ID easy.

Supposedly you can choose from any of the 10 different units, but that just means you gain one of the five special abilities for being in a particular group, and even then those abilities don't really affect play that much, and you can even turn off the special abilities if you wish.

The "campaign" is just all 25 missions played together, and kills are recorded. You can also play specific missions in any order as "Quick Missions".

In the mission you can call upon "Commander's Map", which is like a god's view of the stuff nearby, and it's WAY TOO powerful, esp. on easy, when you get to see the location of every enemy AND THEIR FACING, even if they are UNDERGROUND! With this, you have no excuse to being shot as you have the ability to sneak up behind the enemy and kill them in the direction they do not expect. This feature is WAY too powerful and one must practice NOT to use it.

You can control an UAV's cameras in the mission, but there's really no need to.

The missions are generally man-vs-world type where you're dropped behind enemy lines, kill lots of tangos, find an object or two, and get out. That is NOT the way special operation guys work. They go in as a team, they come out as a team. On the other hand, it is kinda fun. Just imagine you're really a supersoldier doing a whole team's job.

Soem special mission have you riding on a chopper shooting at enemies below. Those are interesting as it provides a new set of challenges, as your shooting platform is constantly moving and you need to adjust your aim a bit. If you can hit someone from the air with sniper rifle, you must be pretty good. However, those special missions are very few.

DF/TFD's multiplayer is supported through NovaWorld, and lots of maps and play modes are supported. This is excellent... If you can find enough good players. By now, most players have moved on to Joint Ops / Escalation, so the cupboard is looking a bit bare.

All in all, DF/TFD is another chapter in unrealistic military shooter pumped out by NovaLogic. Take it for what it is, and you should be happy with it. Don't expect realism and you won't be disappointed.

Windows · by Kasey Chang (4598) · 2005

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

German version

In the first German release (re-releases are uncensored) blood was either removed or coloured white and death cries are toned down.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Thiago Oliveira.

Additional contributors: Indra was here, Ivan Napreenko, Klaster_1, Patrick Bregger, gbcat.

Game added March 25, 2003. Last modified January 29, 2024.