Be Excellent To Each Other

Day of Defeat began as a modification for the game Half Life, before being updated to run on Half Life 2’s Source engine. It is a multiplayer first person shooter set in World War Two. Players are on either the Axis or Allied team and the object of the game is to secure objectives. These objectives can be as simple as running over a flag, turning it to your sides colour, to planting a bomb on an installation, be it a tank, radio mask flak gun. Some flags take a longer time to capture, and some require two people to do so. There are many, many different maps.

Each map is well designed, with several objectives and several routes to each objective. Players will find themselves fighting uphill to take control of a town, fighting in narrow streets in the rain or enjoying the sunshine in a small hamlet. This creates for fast and flowing game play, with central objectives changing hands many times over the course of a round. Players can choose which side they wish to be on, but there’s an "Auto Assign" to keep the teams balanced in numbers at least, although, somewhat predictibly, this tends to put you on the Axis side. Some maps appear at first to favour one side over the other but this doesn't detract too much from the fun factor in the game play. The design of the maps make for fierce fighting over areas that allow an obvious tactical advantage, and taking and holding one of these is a fun and engaging challenge.

If you end up dying, you respawn back at your base in a short time. The respawn counter constantly ticks down, from about 20 seconds or so, meaning many people respawn at the same time, adding a feeling of waves of reinforcements appearing. Players score points by capturing these objectives, or preventing the capture of the, and these are more important than a good kills to death ratio. A typical round can be over in seconds or last the whole of the, usual, 20 minutes until the map changes.

There are classes of soldier to play, from accurate, powerful but slow loading rifles like the K98, to heavy machine guns like the MG44 which is useful to provide covering fire over an area to prevent access. Overall, the classes are fairly well balanced, and with there being nothing that is obviously overpowered, the limits on the number of each class per team helps this greatly. The difference in classes also changes how the play plays the game. In the Assault classes (MP40s and Thompson guns) running forward to capture points is your job, being the first one through a door way whilst the machine gunners and snipers are covering the flanks and the riflemen follow you to mop up and hold position until you respawn. Players also get grenades, which either explode or create smoke. Which grenades you get does depend on your class. A fun option is to choose the "random" class and return with a different weapon new each time you respawn. Aiming is the now standard “expanding Crosshair” device, whereas if you are running, your shots will be less accurate than if you were standing still, crouching or lying down. Deploying some weapons onto a biped is possible, giving great accuracy but a limited field of fire. Also, this makes the user vulnerable as they cannot move until they have un-deployed the weapon, which takes time, and as a fizzing grenade lands near them, time is an issue. Grenades can be thrown back, as they have a five second fuse. However the player can choose to ‘cook’ the grenade but holding it for a time before throwing it, making it explode sooner.

Graphically, it is beginning to show its age now, however, the speed of the game means you don't often notice this, as you are more concerned where those shots are coming from, does your machine gunner have the alleyway covered and where’s the backup? However, the smoke grenades do cause a bit of slowdown on your correspondents computer, but this is probably due to the age of the hardware, rather than the game itself. The different maps do have a varied visual style, and the Source engine handles objects thrown about by explosions and gunfire well. Sound is useful, as you run about there's a satisfying "clump" sounds which changes according to which surface you are walking over. Players can use these audio cues to get an early warning of an approaching enemy, and get ready for him as he comes around the corner. Shooting off a clip from an M1 carbine makes an appealing "PING!" sound, which is a nice touch, and the heavier machine guns are very loud and very bassy.

Overall, despite the game showing its age in both the graphics and the declining playerbase, it’s a solid enough shooter which you can play for short bursts, and those that play it do seem to be more mature than the titles dealing with more modern warfare (Servers tend to have their own communities with websites and take their admin roles seriously), and I would recommend it for both the causal and hardcore FPSer.

(Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I dunno where it stores the screenshots..)

EDIT: Here's my stats from one server. I'm always first over the top and into the line of fire. "Forwards, men! You didn't want that pension anyway!"