Day of Defeat

So I finally got to play Day of Defeat after almost 5 years.

I never really got into the mod scene for Half Life when it was out - Counter Strike was as far as I ventured into that territory, and after experiencing that for a while it was almost enough to turn me off of multiplayer FPS forever. You had to keep playing to maintain your skills; it was impossible to keep up.

The long overdue update to the original Day of Defeat mod came out late last year to very little fanfare. I think the launch of Half Life 2 Deathmatch (a free multiplayer add-on) got more attention because of the ability to use the Gravity Gun. This past weekend, Valve opened up Day of Defeat: Source to try for free. I think this pissed off a lot of veteran DoD players.

"Yay, we lost again."
"Fucking freebies…"
"teh awsum!!!1"
"Stop saying that!"
"noob!"
"omg this sucks."
[Disconnected by user]

Colorful community aside, Day of Defeat: Source offers a well planned selection of maps, including noticeably different tactical options in each. Matches are won by the team who is in possession of all the control points on a map, which are represented by flags. The U.S. Army and Wehrmacht have six classes, each fairly well balanced and serving a necessary role on each team. The Machine-Gunner, for example, would never run around firing their weapon, but instead sets up near control points to act as a defense that does greater amounts of damage. One thing I noticed is Valve's attention to realism on this game: you cannot run around a fire a weapon at the same time and expect to maintain any kind of accuracy. You must kneel, go prone, or run the risk of dying when you run into a room with your Thompson or MP40 blazing. In that sense, Day of Defeat imparts a framework for those willing to develop careful strategies for offense and defense. Though in my 8 hours with the game I never once saw this happen; there was more running after frag counts or stepping into an obvious line of fire, undoubtedly a result of the overbearing ratio of new players to experienced ones.

It's only $19.95 US to buy, but for an online-only game that doesn't offer much else than standard deathmatching - well, deathmatching with the capture of control points - I'm hard pressed to think of any reason why I'd keep playing. Both the original Call of Duty, Call of Duty 2 and of course Battlefield 1942 offer the same type of play - albeit in a lighter, fluffier arcade style - and they all have the lonely option of playing with…yourself. It's something that's sorely lacking from a fast paced game such as this, where practice can make all the difference between fun and unbridled frustration.