Day of Defeat

"Counterstrike + WW2 + (camper) squared"

Note: my reviews' scores use 5 as an average score, rather than 7 -7.5 as an average as most people and schools do. Therefore, 1 is terrible, 3 is bad, 5 is average, 7 is good, and 10 is amazing.

Day of Defeat

Summary: World War II CS-style game; except slow paced and very campy.

Graphics 7/10 (good)
Considering when it came out, and compared to other HL-engine games, these are some nice graphics. Everything looks real; the towns are very remniscent of Europe; the only gripe I have is some painted-on windows that look ridiculous. The weapons suit the time period as well.

Mechanics/Controls 6/10 (above average)
It's like any other FPS, but it tries to take the realism a little further. Repeated jumping and sprinting drains your stamina. You can't shoot while sprinting, jumping, or climbing. Grenades are like time bombs, and to get them to explode when you want involves throwing it at the ground, then picking it up and throwing it again. These things can get annoying..

Sound/Music 6/10 (above average)
No music in the game. Ambience is very annoying but can be stopped with stopsound in the console. Sounds are fine, but what really cracks me up is the voice commands. Brits yelling "alright lads, let's get on with it" in a very typical British accent, or Germans yelling some... well... German.

Storyline/Depth 3/10 (poor)
It's based on historical battles.. kind of. Not really a story present, but not really needed.

Creativity 5/10 (average)
Meh... not too much to say here.

Gameplay 7/10 (good)
Depends on your style of play. The machine guns in this game are massively overpowered and well-suited for camping. But any other class also has an easy time camping just because of the layout of most maps; thin narrow "line"-like connecting the two teams, with multiple buildings and dark corners around the edges. However, it's not that hard to take out a camper either from behind, or by suprise-speed if you know where they are. Running around is still fine, as there are many weapons that function like your run-of-the-mill fast-spraying submachineguns. My favorite weapons, the Enfield (brit) and Kar98 (german) are one-shot bolt action rifles; essentially like railguns.

Balance 6/10 (above average)
The guns are somewhat balanced. Bolt-action rifles easily get one-shot kills but are slow; semi-auto rifles MAY get one-shot kills (but usually 2) and have terrible recoil; submachinegun-style weapons function as you would expect them to but are somewhat underpowered compared to the other guns; sniper rifles are not as bad as in CS because they "float" and take time to zoom in; machine guns when undeployed are horribly inaccurate but perfectly accurate when deployed (ie, lying on the floor, still) making it a camper's dream weapon; the rocket weapons are powerful but difficult to aim. If the MGs weren't so powerful, and the Germans didn't (for the most part) have access to the better weapons than the Allies, this would get a better score.

Replay 8/10 (good)
Well, if you like the game, you'll play it lots. I find it okay once in a while, but I would go nuts with all the campers if I played for a prolonged period of time. Still, it's fun to play it every now and then.

Tilt 5/10
As much of a change as it is, CS is still better.

Overall 6/10 - ABOVE AVERAGE

Worth playing?
It's fun and differnent, worth giving a shot at the least. I play it when I get bored of counterstrike and natural selection, but those are still better IMO.

Worth buying?
If you have a Steam account, own Half-life, CS, or anything, this game is available to you. Don't go out of your way JUST for DoD though.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/16/06