Last week I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that, even though they had just updated Team Fortress 2, Valve had put out an update for Day of Defeat: Source which added a new map plus 53 achievements.  Day of Defeat is a pretty classic multiplayer game - it's been around for ages, first using the original Half-Life engine (a modification of the Quake engine known as GoldSrc) and then later when Day of Defeat: Source was released.  Day of Defeat: Source, as you might expect, is a remake of the original using Valve's very popular Source engine that has been used for their most recent flagship titles (Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, and so on).

DoDbox When Day of Defeat: Source was announced I was pumped because I played the original to get away from Counter-Strike back in the day.  I remember hearing that it was pretty weak, but honestly I became enamored with its play style.  The game works like a lot of multiplayer games do these days, basically two teams (Allies and Axis) trying to control a certain number of points on the map.  The major difference is that once one team controls all points they win.  This becomes increasingly difficult as you work your way towards the enemy's base because they spawn close to their point and are readily available to defend it.  There are different classes you can choose to play who use different weapons and perform differently strategically as a result, and basically you need to work as a team to win the round.

With that being said this post wasn't really supposed to be a Day of Defeat review.  Instead I simply wanted to comment on the fact that Valve was able to breathe new life into the game by adding these achievements.  Because Day of Defeat: Source came out long before achievements started being incorporated into Steam, I never thought it'd be eligible for achievements.  That's why I was surprised by the announcement I guess.  This is one area where PC gaming still has an edge over console gaming, I think.  Not only can these older games be refreshed with updates like this, but the updates are usually free and I don't have to worry about the conversion rate for MS points to real money when acquiring the goods.

GabeNewellBefore this announcement I had absolutely no drive to play Day of Defeat: Source again.  Like I said, it's one of my favorites, but with all of the new games coming out it was hard to justify going back to it.  With that being said, since the update it has consumed the bulk of my game time.  Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, recently spoke about the state of the PC gaming industry and how it still has the most potential out of any of the gaming platforms.  During his discussion one of the things he mentioned was that Valve's ability to continually market to PC gamers via their Steam client was very powerful.  He also mentioned that Blizzard is making enough cash on World of Warcraft to create a new blockbuster film every month, but that's beside the point.  Valve ran a promotion this past weekend which let people play Day of Defeat for free.  They've done this in the past and it's a very powerful form of marketing.

First they release the update which everyone on the gaming news sites talks about and it generates buzz, then they make the game free for a few days so people who haven't played it can try it out.  Obviously the chance of some folks wanting to play more when their 3 day trial expires is pretty good, so it boosts the sales of Day of Defeat: Source not just from Steam (Valve's digital distribution and PC gaming community platform) but in traditional stores as well.  It's so much different than your normal console release which gets a ton of advertising leading up to its release, but then all but dies off once the game is out.  So really Valve is able to keep their games relevant to newcomers and fun for early adopters.  Nothing wrong with that.

I still need to jump into Team Fortress 2 to try and earn some of the Pyro weapon unlocks, but Day of Defeat has distracted me from that.  It's also making me wonder which other classic Valve franchises will see achievements in the future...maybe Counter-Strike: Source?  Could be interesting.  If you haven't tried Steam I suggest you go check it out.  When it came out the service was pretty bland and basically just gave you access to your games without needing to insert the media.  All you needed was your CD-key to install them from the disc.  That's still the case for older games (the original Half-Life for example) but since then it's become more convenient to just download their new releases instead of purchasing them from a store.  I believe Half-Life 2 was the last Valve game I bought from a store, everything since then I've downloaded through Steam.  There's also friend support like Xbox Live has, which is nice.

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Day of Defeat: Source