It’s been along while since we were able to relive some of the most intense battles that occurred during the 1993 dramatic events in Somalia that involved the US Special Operations soldiers. While it made for a decent PC first-person shooter, the PS2 got a rather stripped down version with an excellent online multiplayer mode that pit up to 32 players in a number of massive playing maps. Now, Delta Force Black Hawk Down: Team Sabre follows the 75^th Ranger Regiment, the British Special Air Service as well as the heroes of Delta Force find themselves on new and still dangerous territory.

While the Black Hawk Down title brings to mind the campaign that was inspired by the book (and later became a great movie), Team Sabre does not take place in Mogadishu. Rather, this game focuses its attention on the lush jungle areas of Colombia and key areas in Iran. Like the first game on the PS2, this one contains no story per se but rather connecting mission campaigns. The first half of the game, for example, follows you and your squad into Colombia to restore peace and to bring drug cartel leader Antonio Paulo to justice. The other half focuses on an armed group of rebel fighters that managed to take control of an oil terminal on Kharq Island as well as a few production facilities to the north as well.

The game starts off with the essentials: a mission briefing, a weapons loadout screen, the ability to upgrade your skills and mission start. Skill points are earned during each mission and can be spent after the mission briefing in order to improve your aim, endurance and the ability to move more quickly out on the field. Thankfully you will be outfitted with a number of great weapons that range from primary, secondary and explosives whether it’s a satchel charge or live demo kit. While you’re given limited ammunition, you can always ask a teammate for an extra clip and you’ll sometimes come across enemy ammo caches.

While you could issue orders in the first game of the Delta Force series on the PS2, Team Sabre’s squad commands are a lot deeper and allow your team to participate more throughout the mission. The Movement commands, for example, offer more than just pointing to where you want your team to move but rather to move to flanking positions on their own as well as regroup. The Firing commands allow your team to go “weapons ready” as well as offering suppressing fire or hold fire when civilians are around. Finally, there’s the Assist commands that consists of need ammo, heal team and heal me commands. Sadly, for the most part your squad will comply but oftentimes your team never really carries out the orders. No matter how many times I’ve successfully called for suppressing fire, my squad almost always shoots off a single burst and stops or sometimes doesn’t even fire at all.

Oh, it gets worst from here. Regardless of the missions and locale, the action itself is repetitive and rather dull. The game doesn’t stray far from the move a little up the path, shoot enemies, and move a little bit further off the path and shoot even more enemies formula. There are mission objective (such as blow up boats or communications antennas) but they’re not as creative or fun. To make matters worst, the enemy AI goes from brilliant sharpshooters to dumb thugs who seem happy to rush toward their demise. There are a number of times when I simply walked up to a crouching enemy and took my time to put a bullet in them.

There is no doubt in my mind that gamers will surely give up on the single-player campaign mode and opt for the online multiplayer mode that, once again, allows up to 32 players on screen at once. The game offers up to seven multiplayer game modes like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Sabotage, Team King of the Hill and the fun Renegade and Team Renegade. There are even specialty roles like machine gunner, sniper, assault specialists as well as medic. If online isn’t your thing, for players can play a co-op game (split-screen) that takes you through six new campaign missions.

Graphically speaking, Team Sabre is a complete mess. Now normally I would forgive a game’s weak graphics (especially if the game is good) but in the case of this game the awful graphics play a role in hindering your progress as well as get you killed. It’s often hard to pick out an enemy in the environment, especially in the Colombian campaign. Many times you’ll confuse a mercenary for heavy foliage and other times they do seem to blend into the environment but not because they’re camouflage experts but rather because of some horrible clipping issues. The textures are also really bland in this game, giving the environments and character a PSOne look.

The sound doesn’t fair any better either. For instance, the soundtrack isn’t very moving and it feels as though it has been recycled from the first game. As for the sound effects, they lack the right punch even if you’re playing the game on a good sound system. Don’t even expect to hear environmental noise either. You won’t hear any birds in the jungles of Colombia or a wind passing through a building in Iran. Yes there’s voice acting and yes it’s not bad at all. Still, wouldn’t it make sense for the Colombians to speak Spanish or the Iranian mercenaries speak Persian? 

In the end, Delta Force Black Hawk Down: Team Sabre is a first-person shooter plagued with way too many problems to make this game one fans of the genre will seriously consider buying. This is too bad, really, since the online multiplayer is actually downright fun to play but with a rather dull single-player mode with nothing special to add, this is one game you should consider renting instead or skipping altogether.

Gameplay: 5.0
As far as the single-player campaign mode is concerned, Team Sabre delivers a straightforward and repetitive shooter with squad tactic elements. The problem is that the game is filled with AI problems and your squad doesn’t know how to carry out the orders you issue on the field except for feeding you extra ammo clips and med packs.

Graphics: 4.0
Not being able to tell a distant mercenary apart from a pillar or a shrub will give you an idea how awful the game’s visuals are and if it wasn’t for the shooting reticule that changes when you pass it over a teammate you would most likely end up shooting your allies as well. Really, this is not a very pretty game at all.

Sound: 4.0
The game’s running soundtrack is nothing we haven’t heard before in military-themed shooters but the real bad news here is that the sound effects are slightly muffled and explosions lack that, well, explosive sound. At least the voice acting isn’t bad at all.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Unfortunately, the brainless enemies you encounter throughout the game won’t provide much of a real challenge. When you do die it’s more out of the fact that you couldn’t make out an enemy from a shrub. The mission objectives aren’t real hard to figure out either.

Concept: 5.0
Hunting a drug cartel leader and disposing of his many clone-like mercenaries isn’t anything new and Team Sabre doesn’t really do anything to set itself apart from similar first-person shooters. There are plenty of mission objectives in the single-player mode but it’s the online multiplayer mode that does not disappoint.

Multiplayer: 8.0
Online is where this game really shines and with huge maps and up to 32 players on screen at once there is a lot to love about these deathmatches. There’s also some split-screen fun to be had offline with up to four players total and I’m not talking about simple Capture the Flag matches but rather a six-mission campaign mode that has co-op written all over it.

Overall: 5.0
Despite an exciting multiplayer mode, Team Sabre never rises above its various flaws and its simplistic single-player level design that offers no real challenge. If anything, this is a backwards step for the Delta Force Black Hawk Down series that wasn’t so hot on the consoles when it was released a long while back. Rent this one for its solid online multiplayer mode instead.