Half-Life 2: Deathmatch

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Developer(s)	Valve Corporation
Series	Half-Life
Engine	Source
Platform(s)	Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X
Release date(s)	November 30, 2004
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
System requirements 1.2 GHz Processor, 256MB RAM, DirectX 7 level graphics card, Windows 2000/XP and Internet Connection (broadband or better recommended).

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation. Released on Steam on November 30, 2004, it uses many of the assets from Half-Life 2, and the same Source engine. It features unique levels, optimized for multiplayer arena play, and a few new weapons. Also included are portions of the game's source code, which were the basis for many early Source-based multiplayer modifications. The game is the successor to the popular multiplayer component of the original Half-Life, but is offered as a separate product from Half-Life 2. Deathmatch, like Half-Life multiplayer, does not develop any part of the plot or story of the Half-Life series.

Valve's Orange Box collection does not include Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. On May 30 2007, Valve made an announcement that the game, along with Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, would be made available as a free promotional deal for all ATI graphics card users. The offer initially included the Source SDK, allowing players free access to mods, but this unintentional feature was later removed. Valve also announced another free promotional offer on January 10 2008, which allows NVIDIA graphics card users to download and play Half-Life 2: Deathmatch along with Portal: First Slice (the official demo of Portal), Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, and Peggle Extreme. Because of the large market share between ATI and NVIDIA, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is now free for almost all graphics card users.

Gameplay

Deathmatch

Gravity gun in "Half Life 2: Deathmatch

The Deathmatch mode includes most of the features seen in other games that can be played in deathmatch mode, such as Quake, Doom or Unreal Tournament. The most notable of these features are: instant respawn; weapons that have specific spawn points; and special abilities (sprint, flashlight, etc.).

The aim of the deathmatch is simple: the player must kill other players to score points. If the player accidentally self-kills, they lose points. If a player is killed, they will respawn with 100 health points and the default spawn weapons, but will lose all the weapons and ammunition acquired before being killed.

Team Deathmatch

In the Team deathmatch (commonly abbreviated as TDM) mode, players are organized in two teams, Rebels (Red) and Combine (Blue), both of them with different characters that appear exactly as they do in Half-Life 2. In the gaming aspect, TDM has almost the same rules as deathmatch mode, except for:

• Instead of only one player winning the round, the team with the higher score wins.
• If friendly fire is enabled, one point is deducted each time a teammate is killed.
• If the player selected a Rebel model for his character, and they are taken to the Combine team, they will get a random model from the list of Combine models. Nevertheless, if the player dislikes that character, they are able to choose another one from the list.
• If the teams are unbalanced, the team with fewer players won't get players from the other team, instead, they will get new players connected to the server.

Reception

Half Life 2: Deathmatch received highly positive reviews with IGN giving it 9.7/10 and Gamespot giving it 9.2/10; however they both stating that the game was prone to lag at somepoints but they also praised the inclusion of the gravity gun.

See also

• Deathmatch Classic
• Half-Life 2: Capture the Flag
• SourceForts

External links

• Half Life 2: Deathmatch Official SteamPowered Forum
• Half-Life 2: Deathmatch University
• Clans-United | Active Half-Life 2: Deathmatch League
• More information about the weapons found in Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
• Tips, Tricks and Custom Maps