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RETRO: DAY OF DEFEAT SOURCE

Reviewed on PC. Developed and published by Valve

The original Day of Defeat was a free WWII mod for Half Life and after Counterstrike was one of the few mods to be successful enough to be bought up by the makers of the originating game (as happened with Counterstrike and Left 4 Dead). In 2005, the game was ported with semi upgraded graphics to the Source Engine, though with only 4 maps at launch though others were added intermittently. At some point, spurned on by the success of Team Fortress 2, DoD: S received a mini makeover with a film grain effect and killcams straight out of TF2 (yes Call of Duty did them first but these are literally the same as TF2′s down to the sound effects and the ability to take screenshots). Now you have nemeses and can gain revenge on those who kill you too much.

The game is a really simple class-based game with two teams  (one German,  one American). Most maps are simple capture the flag deals, but with a very fast paced capturing system compared to the eternity it takes to capture a control point in a  Battlefield game. Other maps involve demolishing enemy installations (tanks, anti aircraft guns, etc) but basically its a “shoot and respawn until the map runs out of time” game. There’s a simple, yet deep game here that’s been keeping a loyal band of people still playing in this PC shooter environment ruled by the trio of CoD4, TF2 and L4D. People use grenade launchers and there’s no nasty n00btube comments like there would be in CoD4.

It doesn’t hurt that the Source-engined version of this game is over four years old and will run on almost any PC still in circulation. On a modern machine it looks ok but you may be missing the graphical OMFG you get with Crysis. Call of Duty 1 and 2 were bigger sales successes yet I can’t find a game on my ISP’s servers. There’s that typical Valve feel to the way it works and sounds, with the nasty touch that when you lose a round, the winners have about 10-15 seconds where they can kill any enemies still alive with impunity. Ouch!
So here’s the question- why has there never been a sequel to this and why not a console port? CoD WaW’s success proves there’s still a large market for good shooters, even WWII ones. I guess the new Wolfenstein will just have that Nazi-hunting FPS market to itself this year.