Tuesday 1 April 2003

Archive Review: Day of Defeat

(PC Review)

The all time classic PC CD-ROM hit Half-Life defined a gamer generation. Ever since it's 1998 release the game has attracted a vast amount of attention from the modding community. Even today this game still has the largest modding community going, with numerous amounts of playable, and free, modifications (mods). The most popular of these, and an absolute classic game in it's own right, is the highly acclaimed counter-terrorism experience that is Counter-Strike. This game has been going now for 4 years and is still as strong as ever, it is one of the most played games online. Counter-Strike formed the basis of what was to become a plethora of new, innovative, mods for the Half-Life engine. Many mods that have appeared over the years have been downright bad but even the most awful have always had their own community of players... even Firearms.

One day, back in 2000, Day of Defeat was announced. This was to be a mod based in World War 2. It was described as "a playable alternative to Counter-Strike". Now this was at a time where you were either playing CS online, or some "alternative" game. But this was for good reason, CS was an amazing game, and still is to an certain extent, and easily the best online shooter available at the time. Day of Defeat came along during this time where the only rival mod to CS was Team Fortress Classic: a very popular alternative.

DoD was initially quite pants. I remember giving it a whirl one day, when I found free time from my busy schedule of CS, CS, and... CS. My reaction to it was hardly positive. It was quite buggy and almost comical. The D - Day map, for example, had a bug where players would randomly spawn into a black room. This room had no exit, and was very dark, you would simply stagger around thinking "huh is this historically accurate?" Once I found myself face to face with a German in this infamous room, where the only exit was to kill yourself via the in-game console command. We looked upon one another with interest, then he shot me. So much for shivalry. Other comical memories included the D - Day map again. I spawned as allied into one of the landing craft only to be shot in the back by a German who camped the boat and killed us as we spawned. Infact, both the landing craft had Germans in them. We couldn't spawn! The Hun really had a tactic here, why didn't they actually do this in World War 2? I might well be writting this review in German right now if it wasn't for the fact they did not see this spark of logic. "Why defend from the bunker, let's go down there, get in the boats and not let them out"! The game seemed very buggy, and as well as this the player models were terrible, and the action seemed too fast paced. Gibbage was the only cool aspect, it was very ott and you would see heads, arms, legs, guts, even a heart, laying around the map very often. I I gave it a spin, then went back to my digital cocaine that was CS.





The make over



In life everything deserves a second chance. DoD had gone down averagely on initial release and seemed doomed to the existence that was life within the CS shadow. Updates for the game were constanly being released, addressing many issues, including the "black room of death", but I still had no intentions of really giving it my attention. That was atleast until they released the mother of all upgrades, DoD 3.0. This was not so much a patch as it was a complete and utter re-make of the game. Everything from the graphics to the menu screen was changed... all for the better. Maps were of a vastly improved design, player models looked good, animation flowed, and the action itself felt surprissingly intense. DoD was finally truly born, and the moment I gave 3.0 a spin I was hooked. Many players flamed the release, arguing it basically was a different game with the same name and they missed their old DoD but many servers still ran the older version and still do to this day and 3.0 attracted so many new players that the CS community felt it.

What really took DoD off the ground at this stage was the addition of an MG class to select. This was the role of the machine gunner, who was equipt with a light machine gun such as an MG-42 for axis or 30. M2 for allied that could be deployed on a bipod onto the terrain. This gave it little recoil and basically created some brilliant new tactics. Teams would have to make sure the MG positions were constanly supplied with ammo (each player in DoD carries an MG ammo box for this purpose). I once found myself literally pummelled with MG ammo crates by an overly enthusiastic team as I lay in a bush with my big gun. Battles in DoD were intense, urban, affairs with fantastic maps such as dod_caen2 that in my opinion represent some of the best map design ever concieved. What makes these maps so good is the sheer amount of looks and crannies, ways to go, and things to discover. This is not so much in terms of interaction with the map but in terms of finding new rooms, new dingy alley ways, new rubble infested attics in the street corner with amazing sniping implications. You really feel like your in some burnt out, bombed up, town or village.





And so, 1.0 jumps in



Day of Defeat now has been updated yet again, to version 1.0. The numbering can get confusing, considering the last version was 3.0 so seems newer! I can't explain the reasoning, all I will say is that they probably set the clock back so to speak to 1.0 due to the fact that this release hails the launch of the retail version of the game. Yes that's right, now you can buy DoD... in a shop. DoD was not the first Half-Life mod to do this, CS went retail due to it's popularity and the fact DoD has now done the same just goes to show how popular it really is. Whether or not either game really is worth the price of retail when you can easily download them is something I'm not going to go into here.

1.0 is very alike to 3.0 - which actually was updated to 3.1 before 1.0 came out but only with minor changes. DoD now has British troops! This is a neat aspect which basically gives us access to even more historically accurate weapons such as the Sten gun, Browning light machine gun, Lee Enfield mk4, and the infamous Mills bomb hand grenade. I would like to add at this stage quite how much attention the DoD team has put into the weaponry in the game. They have not just thrown in a bunch of ww2 era weapons and added stock gun sound effects - coughs - Medal of Honor. They have gone out of their way to create deep realism in this game, from the physics system and particle effects (yes particle effects - in a Half-Life mod!) all the way down to bullet penetration factors and sounds for each weapon. Recoil plays a huge factor in this game, like in CS. You really do have to "learn" your guns and decide which is best for you... and that is not always going to be the sniper rifle! My only gripe with this aspect of the games inventory is the amount of grenades that seem to be thrown around. 9 times out of 10 in this game your death will have been due to grenade spamming. Some classes get 2 grenades, others get 1. Personally, I would just like to see every class get 1 grenade. This would cut down on the nading that goes on and would really improve gameplay. Saying this though, 1.0 is a vast improvement over even 3.1 in this respect. Before this some classes would get "3" grenades, the German "Grenadier" class for example, and the spamming was so bad players would spawn, run to the action, throw their nades then commit suicide - only to do it again, and again... Now the grenade explosion templates are less lethal and smaller which helps, as does the reduction in the grenade amounts.

Another great new feature for 1.0 is the new map system, Now you get an actual view of the full map you are playing on which can be accessed by pressing C or you can have a smaller version in the top right corner of your screen. This shows where all your teammates are, where you are, and also shows grenade icons where both enemy and friendly grenades have been thrown. This is a neat feature that really does save your life! If a nade icon appears by your character icon on the map... run! As well as this all players can now draw on the map and every one else on that players team will see it. This is very damn cool. You can select from pre-defined icons that each represent a different factor and place the icon on map to tell your team. Say you spot an enemy MG-42 (machine gun) position near a window across the street, then you place an MG-42 icon on map where you saw the position and also an arrow representing the gun's direction of fire and warn your team. This really does rock!

The gameplay has improved leaps and bounds since the old days of the game. I have many great battle stories of action I have seen which is always a good sign for a game. Like Battlefield 1942 the objective in DoD is not team deathmatch. The idea is to capture ground, via the taking of flagpoints which are set around the maps. The flag points you hold determine the amount of land your side owns. Once all flags are captured you have officially captured the map! Woohoo! The cheesy victory music plays for the victorious side (the allied jazz track gets very tedious and I changed it to a nice drum'n'bass number). Your captured land also determines where you spawn after death, if you have most flags you will spawn in the middle of the map nearer the action as opposed to your initial spawn point all the way at the start. DoD tried to experiment with this formula in recent updates with a new map type that is more like CS. In this type you only live once, Mr Bond (sorry), and sit it out in spectator mode after you've hit the deck. The objective is different too, on these maps one team has to defend, say a radio room and artillery piece, the other (normally allies) has to attack it and set TnT and blow it up. I, like most of the community, prefer the classic DoD gamestyle and the developers realised this and got rid of the other map types in 1.0. Bye...





Graphics and Sound



At the end of the day, and I hate that cliche', this game is a mod of the ancient Half-Life engine. They have done good in 1.0 however and really have pushed this engine to limits I very much doubt Sierra (Half-Life developers) ever thought concievable. I really like the explosions in DoD 1.0, the way they light up the surrounding textures, very nice stuff. Player models look good, but let's face it: we all know its a HL mod and we all except the graphics for what they are which is nothing special. The sound is impressive, mainly the ambient tracks that create the atmosphere of the map you inhabit. Set the game up on 5.1 speakers and crank up the volume and you will be jumping like a disco king as explosions pound all around you. You hear the distant crackle of gun fire, the booms of a bombing run, the faint sounds of war never seemed so close. All I will say is that the dev team, mostly the map makers, really should have tried harder on the D - Day maps. The sound is basically a loop of Saving Private Ryan with the yells of Tom Hanks scaring everybody. That, and fighting alongside players named "Cpt. Miller", oh and "Private Ryan", and your soon be thinking your in Saving Private Ryan. Infact, I'm surprissed Dreamworks haven't got involved here.



Summary



Pros

Intense action, very immersive, incorporates great teamwork.

Cons

Old Half-Life graphics engine can seem dated at times, too many grenades!


8.6/10

The best things in life are free


by The Critical Alien
© 2003

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