Yes, you've read the headline right -- NovaLogic has churned out another game in the Delta Force series, with the help of developer Zombie. In Delta Force: Task Force Dagger, the Special Forces gang heads to Afghanistan to leave calling cards for terrorists, inspired by real American military pursuits of the past year. It doesn't stray far from its predecessors, and under the camouflage paint Task Force Dagger is true to the NovaLogic formula of being more action game than simulation.

An International Force

Task Force Dagger puts most of its realism in the setup. Although the game flies the banner of the American Delta Force group, Task Force Dagger lets players choose from several counterterrorist and unconventional warfare teams from around the world. These teams include the U.S. Navy Seals, the U.S. Army 75th Rangers, Britain's Special Air Service, Canada's Joint Task Force 2, and the U.S. Marines' Force Recon.

The descriptions for the various military services are accurate. They do, for example, correctly identify that Force Recon isn't officially under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Special Operations Command, but included because the team performs comparable duties. It's likely, however, that, in their pursuit of instant gratification, most players will click past these text passages faster than a speeding sniper bullet.

Such gratification is not far away . . . but it comes at the expense of some realism. Players can switch to any affiliation during the single-player game, each with different benefits. The Army Rangers, for example, are granted better accuracy with indirect weapons, while the British SAS troop's sniper proficiency grants a more stable scope when shooting. The player's self-appointed nickname in the game doesn't change, and tallied kills stay with the moniker, but the swapping of special skills sometimes makes Task Force Dagger feel like it takes place in the "Matrix."

Miles from Home

Still fresh in the memory of Americans, the single-player missions in Task Force Dagger loosely resemble the types of operations American troops performed in late 2001 and early 2002 in Afghanistan. Although several years old, the NovaLogic "Delta Force" engine is enough to create a believable Afghanistan. The blocky voxels occasionally show, but they provide functional and convincing mountain ranges. The buildings in the flat areas of the terrain also have a mix of domed buildings to give the towns a generic Middle Eastern flair that fits. The color is, as you might expect, endless dusty beige.

The single-player standalone missions, campaign, and multiplayer missions all take place in this rugged land. Sometimes it works well, and the outdoor missions are particularly pleasing with their sizable arenas. It's not a reach to believe Special Forces troops did some of the things the players do here, skulking about in the darkness, lying prone in mountain crevasses, and watching the enemy through night vision optics.

One of the game's more intriguing missions involves sniping from a helicopter.
Yet, there are some strange omissions. The enemies in Task Force Dagger don't have caves, but they have plenty of underground bunkers. The bunkers aren't terribly huge, but they are boring, repetitive to clear, and a requirement in most missions. They're awfully drab for a first-person shooter in 2002, and at times running through them reminds one of playing DOOM. The repetition is probably Task Force Dagger's worst shortcoming. Each mission is nearly identical: clear the enemies, blow up a few structures, and run to an extraction point.