Day of Defeat

Day of Defeat is a really cool Half-life modification. It features fantastically detailed World War II maps, weapons and Playerclasses, one-shot-kills, Stamina guages, among other things.

It's one of the best Half-Life modifications, consistently rating in the top five multiplayer lists on Gamespy and WON.

A haven for counter-strike refugees, it is favoured because of its realistic playstyle and gameplay mechanics... Players can be gunned down in an instant upon leaving cover, so everyone is always crawling along prone, strafe-jumping past corners, etc. Bunnyhopping is disabled by a stamina-counter, which (fortunately) only measures jumps, not running or anything else.

It favours newbies more than Counter-strike, as respawn times are usually in the 15 second range, as opposed to 5-minute waits. However, many, many kills are achieved through camping, sniping, and "cheapshots". While this does sort of echo reality, it can be frustrating to be sniped by someone with their torso embedded in the cliff-side.

Games are highly tactical... Rushing is frowned upon, and often leads to low kill-counts. Allied and Axis teams have completely different player classes with different guns, grenades, etc. Often, the Allied light-infantry will rush with their fast-reload, one-shot-kill rifles, while the superior Axis Snipers and Machine gunners will hang back. Grenades play a very important role, as campers will often have their backs covered by team-mates.

The settings are immaculately detailed. Most maps are command-point based... Each side is trying to capture as many flags as possible. Staples such as dod_Caen and dod_Oslo are favoured considerably. However other maps can be more interesting... dod_Omaha includes allies storming a beach, while being sniped at from pillboxes. Player models vary from traditional Blue vs. Red skins, which can be difficult for newbies. Each class has different camouflage, although the Allies tend towards lighter garb, while the axis stick to navy and dark green cammo. A nice touch is that all the axis voice-bindings are in German.

The game is extremely fun, after the first hour or two of play, which can be difficult.

It can be downloaded from any good gaming site, or http://www.dayofdefeatmod.com/

Day of Defeat was really cool until some suit tried to package the game to be more commercially viable. DOD is a classic case study of how enhancements ruin a good game.

The original game had uncertainty. You did not have great big signs above the heads of soldiers so that you knew if you were firing on friend or foe. It did not have a bloody GPS thingy map that told you were all your friends are. Now we have no fog of war to make the game exciting

My biggest gripe is with the insufferable dogs wearing military helmets (a Bulldog for allies, a Dachshund for Axis) that come out telling you have spotted a friendly soldier, or "good work you have killed an enemy", or the bleedingly obvious when you have been shot (no pun intended). We are talking about a real war where real people were killed. I have no problems playing a third person shooter based on historical events, but if we are going to remove the horror of war in a game, let us not replace it with banal cuteness. Unfortunately you have to remember to deactivate auto help before playing, or disconnect from the server after the dogs annoy you to buggery 4 hours into the game.