Black Hawk Down Goes Massively Online
Xbox Live support for 50 people simultaneously.
Online videogames have been around since the days of the SNES, but it was only with the arrival of Xbox Live that they started to become widely popular. Soon, you'll be able to experience something previously confined to the PC - 50-player online play.
The game in question is Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, from US developer NovaLogic. The company previously released the game on PC, but with the shift to Xbox NovaLogic has gone all out to provide support for all of Xbox Live's most advanced capabilities, including voice-chat, clan management, in-depth player statistics and messaging.
But it's the massive scale of the multiplayer that has people talking. Previous Xbox Live games have generally set the upper limit at 16 players, but the scope of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down's design lends itself more readily to much larger groups of players.
The game itself is based around the downing of three US Black Hawk helicopters during Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1993. In addition to the panoply of multiplayer options, the game also includes a singleplayer campaign mode that'll take you through that fateful day.
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down will be released for Xbox this spring.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games
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