Day of Defeat Evaluation
One of the best Half-Life mods around comes under the spotlight.
Mod making is becoming serious business. Browse through Amazon and you'll find Counter-Strike, Gunman Chronicles and Tactical-Ops all for retail, and all of them started out as free to download, community developed software. It’s becoming a serious avenue for amateur coders to get into the industry and become professional coders. Obviously by its very nature there are going to be more mods that miss the mark than those that go on to become well established and highly polished gaming experiences. However when one does get it right it deserves as much attention as any game produced by a professional development company, and its this tortuous link that brings us to Day of Defeat (DoD).
Related
It's worth bearing in mind that this is a total conversion of the Half-Life engine. DoD has to work within the confines of a four year old (and the rest) engine, so with UT2003 possibly just round the corner those obsessed with graphics should probably look elsewhere. Those that do so are missing something a bit special though.
What DoD sets out to achieve is class structured, team-based first person fun. Set in WW2 with one team comprising of the Axis and the others being the Allies. Although these are currently represented by the Germans and Americans other nationalities (favourites being the British) are likely to be included in a future release. Being multi-player-only there is no plot other than what is set out to accomplish on the map. Capture the flags, capture the fuel truck, blow up specific map objects such as AA guns, shoot the other team, I'm sure you get the idea. Sturmbot is available to download and is a competent bot but the game is perfectly playable across a 56k connection.
One of the key aspects for this type of game is how player deaths are handled. You can either have the player respawn after they die or they have to sit out the round until the objectives have been completed or everyone else is dead. The new release of DoD covers both types. Most maps use the respawning of players to create waves of reinforcements creating a relentless and fast paced style of play. Para maps (as in parachute regiment for you non-military types) use the one life per round system and are new to this release. It's the same gameplay mechanic as Counter-Strike but comparisons between the two are unfair, they offer completely different experiences to the player. In DoD it also offers a refreshing change from the standard game, although three Para maps are included only two really seem to hit the mark. Hopefully it will be part of the game that gets expanded in future releases.
Comments
I have to agree completely with the review. The only reason I bought Half-Life was due to a personal recommendation by Dan Savage. After installing the software, I quickly downloaded the DOD mod and haven't looked back since. Even if you're not part of a clan, you soon start to meet other players time and time again. Beginners will become frustrated at the ease which more experienced players inflict death upon them almost as soon as they walk around the first corner, but give it a couple of weeks and you'll know the maps well enough to know the danger areas, and pretty soon you'll be clawing your way up the score board. DOD is brilliant.
Obviously a man that knows how to review a game. Excellent, and I hope to see you on.
Bang on.
DoD has stayed on my hard drive all the way through its evolutions, and will do for as long as its supported. RTCW and Medal Of Honor have long been deleted :-)
This mod is fantastic, I cant recomend it enough. Its worth buying Halflife for by itself :-)
TimDog
The grenade-bug is the only fault in the game. They could just make the func_wall entity in VHE make the wall unblastable. They stop all explosions.
Is that the bug where you can get damaged from a gren through a wall? If so then it happens on counterstrike as well... must be a half life problem
My number one addiction, great review man and very true to the game.
My personal favorite part about DoD is the community. In game the people are friendly (albeit for a multiplayer game) and there are many great modellers and mappers to keep custom goodies rolling out.
Check out the forums for some good times!
I must be missing the obvious. I bought the retail version and haven't given it more than 15 minutes plan time. The textures used throughout the game are horrible and I have very, very nice game machine running most of my game at 1280x1024 or above I still can't see the appeal that you folks have spoke of.
Worst yet... My opinion of the levels, well... just plain boring. I have never seen a game which features maps that are so damn linier. Each map has small paths that you must follow. Unlike BF1942, WTCW and even MOH where you can just about travel the globe.
I read all of ya'lls (I'm from Tennessee, i can say "ya'll") good to great reviews and I believe I will actually give it at least an hours worth of game play so maybe I can have a change of heart.
HELP !!!
I and my friend have tried loading every version/download/mod for DOD and every time it goes searching for servers and comes back with nothing. Blank screen only - can someone please help with this its driving me up the wall.