Surprisingly addictive entertainment
The most compelling thing about the game is its team based nature and realistic game mechanics. I have never been a huge fan of first-person shooters as an online experience because of quake, which I found to favor lightning fast reflexes over tactics. I also found the death-match concept to be somewhat lacking in long term satisfaction. DOD:S has you work as a member of a team, combining the advantages and disadvantages of your respective equipment setups, to achieve the objective. It is a very satisfying experience to help cover your team mate with suppressive fire while he charges the objective. The penalty for death is not as steep as in some other shooters such as counter-strike. I have spent many hours waiting for a round to end because I was gunned down in the opening shootout of a match. Ok this may be because I am lame, but in DOD:S you are back in the fight sooner to learn from your mistakes. And to any other keyboard gumbys out there you do improve eventually with this game.
The thing I like most about DOD:S are the guns. Unlike some games, where everyone uses (or wishes they were using) the same 1 or 2 guns, each of the weapons in DOD:S has their own strengths and weaknesses. Which you choose is often dictated by the map you are playing on or the problem you are currently presented with. I feel this reflects real life, and is a refreshing change from games like counter-strike (or quake) where everyone seems to use either the sniper rifle or the AK/M-16 (lightning or rail). There are times, on open free flowing maps, when it is better to have a bolt action rifle over the sub-machine gun. Weapon balance is great as are their animations and sounds.
The graphics in DOD:S do not disappoint. While they are not as impressive as Half-life 2, which is surprising considering they share the same basic graphics engine, they are still very nice. Light and dark are handled very well and take their place as strategic factors. It is possible to hide out of sight in a darkened doorway in order to surprise the other team. And your muzzle flash will give you away when you shoot. The physics are good, but the environments are not as interactive as I was expecting. Perhaps this is a limitation of the graphics engine but a little more debris flying would only add to the realism.
On the music front there is not much to report, there is very little music other than a victory anthem when a match reaches its conclusion. I personally don’t think this is a problem because sometimes I find the use of music in games intrusive. That said many of the servers out there play tracks constantly. Sometime this is great, other times annoying.
I have noticed one of the greatest criticism of DOD:S has been the lack of maps. There are only 5 or so official maps. That said there are literally oodles of community made maps. Some of these are remakes of old Day of Defeat (DOD) maps, others are new. Some are serious, some are hilarious. I have played one where the map was a massive toilet and the players were the size of gnomes running around all over it. Some of these custom maps a terrific, many are lame. I don’t know why but I seem to encounter a lot of sniper friendly maps and very few assault friendly maps. I think this may be because they are much easier to make. The point is if you don’t like the map you can always switch servers.
If you are looking for a fun shooter that rewards teamwork then it is not hard to recommend DOD:S. If the sight of a hyperactive 13yr old running and jumping backwards and still making head shots from the other side of the map does not impress then perhaps DOD:S is for you. It is a slower style of play and it has a more realistic edge. It does not have any offline mode, and does lack official maps but this has not made the game repetitive in my experience and the price tag is commensurably lower.