I had a time when I was younger that I had an ISP running out of my house. That was in the days of dial-up, my friend, and things were very slow... That is unless you had an ISP running out of your house. My T1 Line blazed across the digital plane with no mercy and a trail of fire in its wake.

Of course, I found this speed most useful when my older brother brought home a game called Delta Force. Back then you didn't need the disc to play most games if you spared a little more hard drive space for the full install, so it was no skin off his back to let me play the game on my own PC.

The game blew me away. It was the closest thing to CounterStrike at the time. As I recall it was just like CounterStrike except it was CTF and didn't have the whole gun-buying system. Also every level was outdoors. The maps were epic; covered in ridges and hills and the occasional bunker or building. I still wish they made maps like those. Nothing compares. The Delta Force maps brought COD4's creek to shame.

But you wanna know what really snapped my little world in two? It was my first online game. That's right. The fun factor rivaled 007 Goldeneye but on a much larger scale. My little ten-year-old body was doomed to sleep deficiency and frailty for that next year or so.

My lesson? Videogames aren't just fun distractions. They can have objectives that can only be achieved through teamwork with strangers. The result can be very satisfying. I found it so satisfying that I moved onto CounterStrike, Halo, and currently Call of Duty 4. I can't help but wonder if the FPS genre (or more likely my love for it) would be any different without Delta Force.

Note: For the life of me I can not find any good screenshots of the original Delta Force. I think the cover with the stickers makes up for it though.