Counter-Strike

Counter-Strike (CS) is a popular team-based mod of Valve's first-person shooter Half-Life. The game pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in rounds of competition won by completing an objective or eliminating the opposing team. The latest incarnation of the game, Counter Strike: Source (CS:S), is based on the Source engine developed for Half-Life 2.

CS has been the most widely played online FPS for the past few years. In 2002 there were over 30,000 Counter-Strike servers on the Internet (second place was Unreal Tournament with about 9,800). In 2004, GameSpy statistics show that there are frequently over 85,000 players simultaneously playing Counter-Strike at any point in time, accounting for almost 70 percent of the online FPS audience. According to statistics gathered by Valve's content-delivery platform, Steam, these players contribute to over 4.5 billion minutes of playing time each month, making it the most popular online FPS in history. CS was originally played online through the WON gaming service, but WON shut down in 2004, forcing players to switch to Steam, Valve's online authentication and content delivery system.

Gameplay

Counter-Strike is a team-based game in which players join either the Terrorists (T) or the Counter-Terrorists (CT). Each round starts with the two teams spawning simultaneously; usually they are given a few seconds before the round starts to buy equipment (weapons, ammunition, armor, etc.). Also, they can buy more equipment in the first 90 seconds after the round starts, depending on the server settings, and provided they are in a designated "buy zone" for their team (see Counter-Strike equipment). The goal of the game is to complete the level's objectives (e.g., the Terrorists may have to plant a bomb, or the Counter-Terrorists may have to rescue hostages) or to eliminate the opposing force within the given time limit. The round ends when a team wins the round or when the round's time limit is reached. The game tracks how many players each player has killed, how many times they have died, and gives players money for killing enemies or completing team objectives. It also tracks how many times each team has won. Both teams receive additional money at the beginning of the next round, with the winners of the last round receiving more money than the losers. Surviving players retain their equipment but those who have died must buy new equipment.

Any players killed before the round is over become "ghosts"; their chat/voice messages cannot be seen/heard by the players still alive, they become invisible, but they are able to watch the rest of the round. The developers of Counter-Strike have added several restrictions to this system over the years to prevent spying ghosts from communicating with those still playing. For example, ghosts cannot change their names until a new round begins because in early versions, dead players could communicate with the living by changing their names (e.g., Mr_He_Is_behind_you). Depending on server configuration, ghosts may or may not have possibility of floating freely anywhere on the map. The default in early versions was to allow the ghosts to float freely, but this default was changed later because dead players spied on the living and could communicate through alternative media (most notably voice in case of Internet cafes).

The game is a very fast-paced and addictive shooter. Pacing is fast, in the sense that players die in one or two hits from some guns, though gameplay is not nearly as fast-paced as Unreal Tournament. The game is considered a semi-realism shooter because of certain inconsistencies between realism and gameplay. One known example is how the game treats players who have been injured. A player with 1 health point is just as effective as a player with 100 health points. The 1 HP player suffers no consequences from prior injuries sustained, such as leg shots which realistically would not let someone stand up much less run around. It was meant to be a tactical shooter, which it, at times, is, but it has evolved to more of a arcade shooter set in current times.

History

The Counter-Strike team was formed by Minh Le ("Gooseman") and Jess Cliffe ("Cliffe") in 1999. Counter-Strike Beta 1.0 was released in June that same year, followed by a relatively quick succession of the beta releases (by the end of 1999, beta 5.0 had been released). CS gained in popularity just as rapidly. The Counter-Strike team was acquired by Valve to turn the fan-created mod into an official mod for Half-Life. In November 2000, Counter-Strike 1.0 — the first non-beta, official retail version of the game — was released. The newest version of CS is 1.6 and was released in September 2003 through Valve's new distribution platform called Steam.

Valve has also been attempting to cash in on the game's popularity by producing more Counter-Strike games. Valve released a version ported to the Xbox game console in November 2003. It features basic single-player gameplay against bots, but it focuses on multiplayer online play like the original. However, the Xbox version of the game (playable on Microsoft's Xbox Live online game service) has proved less successful than its PC counterpart.

A long-awaited single-player version of the game called Counter-Strike: Condition Zero was released on March 23, 2004. Condition Zero includes multiplayer bots as well. Though still very similar to CS 1.6, this game contains several graphical, sound, model and map changes. Condition Zero was developed by Turtle Rock Studios. Condition Zero was often criticized for not being up to par in terms of quality and did not sell as well as the original or the newest sequel.

Today, Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Source servers produce more internet traffic than all of the country of Italy.

Counter-Strike: Source

In 2004, original Counter-Strike developers Minh Le and Jess Cliffe, along with members of Valve and the Day of Defeat team, brought Counter-Strike into the Source engine as an obvious choice for the multiplayer component of Half-Life 2.

Counter-Strike: Source (CS:S) has been released for use by ATI Voucher holders, in Half-Life 2 bundles available on Steam, and with the boxed retail version of the game. Changes include the improvements inherent to the Source engine (such as better graphics and physics) as well as updated models, animations, maps, sounds, and some small gameplay changes. The riot shield introduced in 1.6 is gone and dead players now drop grenades just like other weapons (as was introduced in Condition-Zero). The popular maps, such as de_dust and de_aztec, have the same layouts and size, but are revamped with many aesthetic additions such as glass bottles and 50-gallon drums.

For what Counter-Strike and its popularity is concerned the new Source engine heralds a new beginning for the most popular first-person shooter in history, a game which has been played throughout the world for more than five years. Finally, a small amount of vitality has been granted to what is now considered a dying game; although previous predictions of CS's demise have been premature.

The players of CS:S use the new engine for strategic purposes. Since objects in a map can be moved and have realistic properties this provides greater gameplay flexibility. For example in the map cs_office, the Terrorist players will "camp" in a room and barricade the doors with cabinets or chairs. The ragdoll physics are remarkable in that no two player deaths will be played out the same way. In one event, with the gravity function set to low, a ragdoll propelled by a shotgun bounced off two walls, wrapped several times around a pole, hit the ground, hit the skybox ceiling, and fell back to the ground.

At the moment there are only 14 official maps available, and most of them are remakes of popular maps from earlier versions. In a recent update the map cs_compound was added, and it is the first original official map to be released for Counter-Strike: Source. On May 13, 2005, the second original official map, de_port, was released along with an updated version of de_inferno. While Valve may continue to create new maps, Turtle Rock Studios continue to remake classic maps, although it is not known which maps they are working on. Below is the list of official maps for Counter-Strike: Source.

List of Official CS:S maps

Weapons and equipment

See the Counter-Strike equipment article.

Map types

See the Counter-Strike maps article.

Culture

Counter-Strike is infamous for the variety of players it attracts. Cases have been reported of players taking the in-game conflict too far and inflicting violence on their opponents in real life. [1] Furthermore, a large portion of the Counter-Strike audience is stereotyped as being young pre-teen males that seek to vent their aggression through the game. Players are sometimes viewed as being crude, using Internet slang such as leet, and prone to arguing over being fragged with accusations of cheating or camping as well as name calling ("awp whore") and similar remarks. These stereotypes do apply to a lot of people, as many players you find are rude, unhelpful and arrogant. However, many people are not, and this kind of trend is only apparent in CS because it is a popular, old game with many players.

When accused of cheating, one is often said to be using "hax" or "H4X," the leet/1337 variation of 'hacks.' This is an insult generally used by people of lesser skill against people of greater skill; it is not often viewed as a legitimate complaint, and occasionally is used as a compliment for an excellent shot. Most players hate cheaters, but some players use hacks because they enjoy winning at any cost. Sometimes hacks are employed merely for the purpose of annoying other players or to seek revenge for getting "pwned". Hacking usually means that players have downloaded a separate program that hooks into the graphics engine that powers Half-Life. When the hack hooks in it affects the game play, perhaps allowing the player to see other players behind walls or make it so the player automatically aims for the head on other players, allowing instant kills. Valve will ban hackers if they are caught, they revoke their account so they can't play or have to buy a new one. Even other hackers hate hackers, if only because of the competition, though there is a whole hacking community, they put together/add on to hacks and post them on web-sites. Hacks are becoming ever-more elaborate and harder to identify and catch. Some hackers are more obvious, as they will have the tag [myg0t] or some variation.

Important Players

Part of the counter-strike culture includes a cult-following of master players, commonly referred to as "pwnage" in slang. For example, current reigning champions include clan |3oost, known for their creative playstyle, and player Radical_Dreamer, known for his legendary mouse movement.

Mods and scripts

Even though Counter-Strike is itself a mod, it developed its own community of script writers and modders. There have been many different mods and scripts to:

1. Improve gameplay
2. Remove features of the games which players felt were annoying
3. Make the game more funny
4. Create different modes of play
5. Control players not following set rules
6. Keep track of player statistics and scores

See Metamod for more information.

Related topics

• Counter-Strike equipment
• Counter-Strike maps
• List of firearms in first person shooters
• Counter-Strike console commands
• Cheating in online games
• Cheating in Counter-Strike

• Half-Life
• Steam
• List of Half-Life mods

External links

• www.counter-strike.net – The official Counter-Strike website
• Steam: Valve's online client required to play Counter-Strike
• The official Counter-Strike: Condition Zero website
• HLDS 101 – How to create your Counter-Strike server
• 17Buddies – World leader in custom maps (More than 10000 maps for Hl1, HL² and Mods)
• CS Nation The Official Unoffical Counter-Strike News site
• Camperstrike – CS parody game using Flash
• The Very Basic Counter-Strike War Strategy Guide
• The first review website to post the Counter Strike Source Review