Winning Half-Life 2 User-Created Deathmatch Maps
Voodoo Extreme has the news that the winners of a recent design contest held by Valve will now see their Deathmatch maps added to the Steam repetoire. From the article: "Three Half-Life 2: Deathmatch maps are now available via Steam. These maps were created by the three players who won our recent HL2:DM mapping contest. If you have HL2:DM installed in your Steam games list, you will receive the new maps automatically."
fileplanet is hosting some of the ones that were in the top 10, free to download
When you have a group of people acting as a unified squad, each aware of the other's actions, it's completely engrossing!
:-)
Natural Selection can be pretty cool for this, especially when playing as Kharaa (aliens). With all the hive-sight and whatnot (basically a wallhack to locate all your teammates and enemies they can directly see) there can be some amazing, unspoken teamwork emerging - it's great when a horde of skulks burst from cover without warning and annihilate a heavily-armed bunch of marines, without a single word spoken or prompt typed...
I'm not a very good multiplayer gamer - I usually get shot within seconds by some hyperactive twelve-year-old with ultra-fast reflexes. But add a bit of teamwork, and I can actually become useful.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
I really, really dig HL2DM. Much more than Counterstrike, call me crazy.
I really like the new maps. The one (can't remember which it is!) that's the fairly small map, with a fairly enclosed area for the rocket launcher and a balcony overlooking the area with a shield terminal an excellent field of fire... yeah, that one's absolute mad joy in a 6v6 team deathmatch. Both teams tend to set up around two separate defensible points and lay into each other.