• The secondary button while holding a Thomson will make the player punch. Something a little funny at first but when I finally got to try it out found it is probably a little too powerful. I snuck up on a sniper and killed him with only two punches to the head. It's fun nonetheless.
• The support weapons--the BAR and the MP4--now give the player the option to change the rate of fire from automatic to single shots. I haven't played very much as a support soldier, but when I did, this new option seemed good. Support players now have two grenades in lieu of a pistol.
• Smoke grenades are now available with some classes
• The Kar 98k no longer has a bayonet attached, something that was a bit disappointing to me. This weapon is also not as powerful as it used to be. You can still kill someone with one shot but not as often. I found that once I got used to it this rifle was just as effective as it had been, it just takes practice to re-master.
• As a rifleman you now have the option of using a grenade attachment in place of the old hand grenades – it goes directly on your rifle. It took some getting used to but after I while I really enjoyed using this. The iron sights as I mentioned above are used with the secondary button. Something that disappointed me with this class was the fact that there is no longer a pistol in the rifleman's arsenal.
• The RPG class no longer has a pistol but they do have other weapons now. On the U.S. side you'll find an M1 Carbine, and on the Axis side a C96 automatic pistol. I believe that the damage that the RPG's mete out has been increased. I found them annoying in servers that didn't limit the number on each team.

The HDR lighting really makes a big difference in the game but you really need a high end machine to appreciate this new effect. It looked nice on my rig but I you could say I'm due for an upgrade. Either way I'm glad Valve was able to include it in the update.

As far as the rest of the graphics go, all I can say is that everything looks great. You really get the feeling that you're venturing through European towns in these maps. The player and weapon models look excellent even though I would like to see some variety among the player models. I don't know if this is a problem with the Source engine but all of the player models are the same on each team. This issue is also present in Counter-Strike: Source, so it makes me think that there's an overall issue. Objects such as plants, rocks, signs, wires, barrels, furniture and the like all look great. There is a huge amount of detail put into Day of Defeat: Source for which the dev team deserves a lot of credit.

At first I didn't think much of the sound in DoD:S but then I put headphones on and it really changed my opinion. All of the background noise is really incredible. From wind to planes to distant machine gun fire, it really brings the mod together. The new MG42 sound really sounds great from a distance, similar to the sound in (for example) Band of Brothers. You can hear players coming with headphones but I wasn't able to as much without them.--perhaps the footstep noise could be fractionally raised. Otherwise, all of the sound is perfect.

Physics, physics, physics. Wow, I think the new DoD has done the best job of utilizing the Source physics engine! I was camping out in the top buildings in Avalanche when a grenade went off in the area below and a soldier's helmet went flying by me. Some other examples of the physics engine in work: when a sniper takes an enemy soldier out the enemy's body will fly leading with the part of the body that got hit – something that really looked realistic. Using grenades will really get things and bodies moving – who doesn't love priming a grenade?

In concluding, I have to say that I am very impressed with the new Day of Defeat. I really think Valve pulled everything together quite nicely and I know that it will provide hours upon hours of entertainment for me and others.

- The overall score is a bit lower than you would have guessed by looking at the other categories. The reason for this are the issues presented above – in time I think things will be tweaked to perfection and more maps will be added but in its present state this is what I believe it deserves.