Deathmatch Classic

Aww man, I fired up Deathmatch Classic for the first time in years the other day and actually got into a game and it made me smile the whole freaking time! This is a real love letter to old school fps games and it is one that I wish more people played. Me and my buddies plan on dedicating one of our online gaming nights to playing just this and I honestly could not be any more excited about it, at the very least, I know there will be other people online at the same time as me to actually play with!

A Real Love Letter

Deathmatch Classic is actually made by Valve and it started its life as a mod for the original Half-Life. What is neat about this is that Valve made this game to be a love letter to the classic ID Software game, Quake. Who remembers playing team deathmatch on Quake back in the day? I had to make do with the Nintendo 64, version, but I had so much fun with it. Anyway, this gives you a pretty faithful representation of what it was like to play a multiplayer game like this back in the 90s.

Running And Gunning

What I love about Deathmatch Classic is that it is so old school in its game design and while you may argue that modern first-person shooters have a bit more substance when it comes to map design, objectives, and so on. I would argue that DMC is so much fun because it is scaled back in comparison to what we have these days with a modern Call of Duty, Battlefield, or whatever kind of game. This is a game that is just all about running, gunning, and trying to make sure you have more kills than you have deaths as you do not want your buddies ripping on you for a lame KD ratio! The thing is, even if you do have a bad game or round, this is so much fun, you will not care!

A No-Nonsense Kind Of Arsenal

I am a huge Call of Duty fan, but sometimes the amount of options thrown your way in regard to your loadout can be quite daunting and intimidating. With Deathmatch Classic, you do not have to worry about that as you have by today's standards what is a rather basic assortment of weapons ranging from a somewhat traditional shotgun to a rocket launcher. I did get a huge kick out of Valve having the melee weapon be the Half-life crowbar! Overall, it makes for a more “structured” kind of experience where every player is kind of on the same level. I will say that I think if you are a younger gamer who has grown up with the likes of a modern COD game or a Battlefield game, you may find things here a little limited, but those of us who did grow up on this stuff will find it awesome and charming.

Power Up!

There are some power ups you can get in Deathmatch Classic, but there are only a handful of them. You can get your hands on a quad damage power up which makes you dish out more damage. There is the invincible power up and also one called, the ring of shadows which makes you invisible. These are fun and add just a little more element of danger and unpredictability to the matches. One of the things that is both equal parts fun and frustrating is when you come across a player who clearly has thousands of hours playing Quake back in the day and you see them using all these tricks like “bunny hopping” to move around the map quicker.

Pros:

• This is like classic Quake, but on modern PCs
• It is so much fun if you have people to play with
• Those who played Quake back in the day will get a massive kick out of this
• I like how smaller scale it is compared to modern fps games

Cons:

• I do think this should be free to play
• It can be hard to get into a game sometimes