This review was first published on GameSpot on June 10, 2007.
Novalogic have been veterans in the gaming industry. Their games usually tend to create games based on the exploits of the U.S Military, and not those routine FPS games with experiments gone wrong, aliens and mutants.
In an industry that is saturated with such titles, Novalogic have stayed away from the generic formula of gaming, and focused on creating contemporary military titles. Or so it would seem.
The initial two games in the Delta Force series were innovative and fun to play. But their progress seems to have come to a standstill since then. A lot of below average titles were released, claiming to have better enemy AI, improved graphics with fancy names such as special voxel engine and ambient atmosphere with varied locations etc.
Now, you don’t expect any game developer who wants to make money in the market to say that their game doesn’t offer anything new from the million other FPS games out there, and if anything, it’s a lot inferior comparatively.
But Novalogic have stretched the truth a little too far. Because since Delta Force 2, we haven’t seen anything new in the series of titles that Novalogic have released.
Every game that has come out since Delta Force 2, seems to have used the same engine and same gameplay, which is to just navigate from one way point to another amid mindless chatter over the radio passing instructions which make no difference to the game. You could blatantly ignore the instructions more of the time, and still complete the mission.
Comanche 4 is no different. It uses the same engine that was used in Delta Force 3, except that instead of a person, you man a chopper. The graphics look extremely dated and yet again, the gameplay is repetitive like in Delta Force and Armored Fist.
To its defense, Comanche 4 has some interesting gameplay elements, like battling unmanned drones in an urban setting etc. But the fact that you cannot save during the mission is extremely frustrating, because some of the missions tend to be quite long, and this is not a game you would want to play repeatedly.
Any game that challenges you play over and over should be extremely entertaining and riveting, something like Price of Persia. Comanche 4 does entice you to play a mission over and over to succeed. The game is just not good enough.
I am not only talking about the visuals, the gameplay in general tends to get boring once you are through a few missions. I finished 25 of the 30 missions, and I just didn’t want to play any longer. It seemed like a complete waste of my time; especially when there are so many better games to be played.
While I admire the fact that Novalogic have taken a different approach, the games have not evolved with time.
It’s pretty sad that a series that was released in 2000 has virtually remained unchanged for over two years, and the graphics and gameplay have been rehashed to create a new bunch of titles in 2002. They are just not good enough to keep you interested for long.
Verdict – Fail.
This post is published on Apr 20, 2026 Monday 06:35:21 AM CDT