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Counter-Strike (video game)

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Counter-Strike, commonly abbreviated to CS, is a series of team-based, tactical first-person shooter games which originated with a total conversion mod (Counter-Strike), created by Minh "gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe, of Valve Software's first-person shooter, Half-Life. The series now also includes Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source.

Counter-Strike
Developer(s)Valve Software
Publisher(s)Vivendi Universal (PC)
Microsoft Game Studios (Xbox)
Programmer(s)
Series
EngineHalf-Life engine (GoldSrc)
Platform(s)PC, Xbox
ReleaseJune 19 1999 (Original Half-Life MOD)
November 8 2000 (PC)
March 25 2004 (Xbox)
Genre(s)First-person shooter
Mode(s)multiplayer
For other uses, see Counterstrike.

Counter-Strike pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in rounds of competition won by completing an objective or eliminating the opposing force. The latest incarnation of the game, Counter-Strike: Source, is based on the Source engine developed for Half-Life 2. Counter-Strike is widely acknowledged as the most successful and popular of the tactical shooter genre. Signs of Counter-Strike's wide influence can be found in mods for games such as Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament, and other standalone shooters such as Global Operations.

As of May 2006, Counter-Strike is still the most widely played online first-person shooter and has over 19.5 million legal owners.[citation needed] In 2002 there were over 30,000 Counter-Strike servers on the Internet (second place was Unreal Tournament with about 9,800[citation needed]). In 2004, GameSpy statistics showed over 85,000 players simultaneously playing Counter-Strike at any point in time, and in 2006, Steam regularly shows over 200,000 players for Counter-Strike[1] (this includes Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike). 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,[1] solidifying its position as the most popular online first-person shooter in history. Counter-Strike was originally played online through the WON gaming service, which was shut down in 2004,[2] forcing players to switch to Steam (to which a section of players responded by creating their own WON network, dubbed WON2).

Gameplay

Counter-Strike is a team-based first-person shooter in which players join either the Terrorists or the Counter-Terrorists. Server settings may automatically balance teams when one team has more players than the other. Each round starts with the two teams spawning simultaneously, as one of eight different default character models (four to choose from for both Counter-Terrorist and Terrorist. Counter-Strike: Condition Zero added two extra models, bringing the total to ten). Each player generally starts with $800, two magazines of ammunition, a knife, and a pistol: a Heckler & Koch USP .45 Tactical for Counter-Terrorists, and a GLOCK 18c for Terrorists. Players are generally given a few seconds before the round begins (known as "freeze time") to buy equipment, during which time they cannot move in any direction or attack. Players may buy equipment whenever they are in a buy zone for their team (some zones can be for both teams, depending on the map) provided the round has not been in session for longer than a specified time (90 seconds is default). Once the round has ended, surviving players retain their equipment for use in the next round; those who have died begin the next round with the default pistol and knife.

File:Counterstrike-comparison.jpg
Picture of a Terrorist using a Desert Eagle on the map de_dust in the original Counter-Strike (left) and Counter-Strike: Source (right).

Standard monetary bonuses in the game are:

  • Win a round: $3250 (awarded at the beginning of the following round)
  • Lose a round: $1400 + $500 per round lost over 1 (to maximum $3400) (awarded at the beginning of the following round)
  • Kill an enemy: $300 (awarded instantly)
  • Instruct a hostage to follow: $150 (awarded instantly. Only works once per hostage, per round)
  • Rescue a hostage: $1000 (awarded instantly)
  • Plant the bomb: $800 (awarded at the beginning of the following round)

The scoreboard shows team scores plus data for each player: name, score, deaths, and ping(in milliseconds) on the map. The scoreboard also shows whether each player is dead, carrying the bomb (in bomb defusal maps), or the VIP (in assassination maps), although the player must be dead during the round to obtain this information about players on the opposing team.

Players killed become "ghosts" for the duration of the round; they cannot change their names, text chat cannot be sent to or received from live players; and, while voice chat can still be received from live players, it cannot be sent to them. (unless the cvar sv_alltalk is set to 1, in which case voice chat can be freely exchanged between dead and living players). They are generally able to watch the rest of the round from multiple selectable views, although some servers disable some of these views to prevent dead players from relaying information about living players to their teammates through alternative media (most notably voice in case of Internet cafes and players in the same rooms of their own homes, playing on the same server). This technique, known as "ghosting", is considered cheating in many tactical shooters.

Counter-Strike is meant to be more realistic than futuristic first-person shooters such as Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament, but is also built to keep the action flowing faster than more realistic tactical shooters such as the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon series. For example, relatively few shots will kill a player, and shots to different parts of the body inflict varying amounts of damage, but damage has no permanent bearing on ability to run or jump, allowing a player with just a few hit points remaining to keep fighting just as well as any other player. Movement, however, is restricted while taking damage from gunfire, and a player cannot run at full speed whilst taking damage. Counter-Strike is known for controlling the recoil of weapons and less dependent on aim.

There are several game types in Counter-Strike which define the objectives of each team in the game, and rules which determine which team wins. Each map is of a single game type.

Bomb Defusal

File:Cs-bomb.jpg
In bomb defusal missions, a member of the terrorists plants a bomb while counter-terrorist members attempt to prevent its detonation.

In bomb defusal, one randomly selected Terrorist begins the round carrying a bomb of Composition C-4 plastic explosive. The Terrorists' objective is to plant the bomb at a bomb site (of which there usually are two in a map, Bombsite-A and Bombsite-B, commonly referred to simply as "A" or "B"), and ensure its detonation, or eliminate all Counter-Terrorist forces. If the bomb has not been planted, and if all the members of one team have been eliminated, then the surviving team wins. If the bomb has been planted and proceeds to explode, the Terrorists win, but if a Counter-Terrorist defuses the bomb (Counter-Terrorists can purchase an optional kit to speed up defusal times), the Counter-Terrorists win. When the round time expires without the bomb being successfully planted, the Counter-Terrorists win. Deaths due to the detonation of the bomb do not increment the player's death count. Maps of this type are prefixed with de_ (e.g. "de_dust" and "de_inferno"). Professional tournaments are normally only played on Bomb Defusal maps. Despite the game default time required for the bomb to explode being 45 seconds, some tournaments decided to set it to 35, CPL in particular. As CPL was the first international event to make professional CS tournaments, it soon became a standard, then almost every server running the game in the internet decided to follow them, changing the bomb timer to 35s.


Hostage Rescue

Hostage rescue maps have hostages (usually four) that are generally placed near the Terrorist spawn point. The Counter-Terrorists' objective is to escort the hostages to a hostage rescue point on the map. If all the members of a team have been eliminated, the surviving team wins. If all the surviving hostages have been rescued, and that number is at least half of the initial hostage count, then the Counter-Terrorists win, and each Counter-Terrorist is awarded $2400. When round time expires, the Terrorists win. Therefore, the game may effectively become a timed 'Terrorist hunt' if enough hostages are killed; in order to prevent this from happening, servers can be set to automatically disconnect a player after they have killed a certain amount of hostages. When a Counter-Terrorist instructs a hostage to follow them, the Counter-Terrorist is awarded $150. Upon successfully escorting a hostage to a rescue point, $1000 is awarded and each of the rescuer's teammates gets an additional $1000 at the start of the next round. Killing or injuring a hostage incurs a penalty of $2250 times the fraction of the hostage's health that was taken away, up to a maximum of 1. Maps of this type are prefixed with cs_ (e.g. cs office).

Assassination

In this mission, one Counter-Terrorist member becomes a VIP, a player with 200 units of Kevlar and nothing more than the Counter-Terrorist standard-issue USP pistol with one extra magazine. The VIP may not pick up dropped weapons other than the VIP's own pistol. The VIP's objective is to reach an extraction zone (one, normally), in which case the Counter-Terrorists win. If the VIP dies, the Terrorists win. As usual, if all Terrorists die, the Counter-Terrorists win. When time expires, Terrorists win. The lack of ammunition for the pistol means that a VIP should not expect to escape without the team's assistance; however, the pistol in conjunction with the special armor provides adequate protection. Maps of this type are prefixed with as_. Assassination maps are the least played of the three types of Counter-Strike. There are several assassination maps for Counter-Strike: Source, and a VIP mod has been produced by the community. Members of the community who dislike the scenario argue that the Terrorists would just camp at the VIP's escape destination, shooting the VIP dead as he attempted the run to the exit. For this reason, auto-sniper rifles are often banned on VIP maps.

Escape

Discontinued in the late-beta releases of Counter-Strike, this gameplay style put Terrorists against Counter-Terrorists in an escape-before-the-clock-expired mission. The Terrorists started in a position relatively far away from the Counter-Terrorists, armed with only knives and Glocks and unable to purchase additional weaponry or equipment. Weapons, armor, and grenades were placed in hidden locations near or around the spawn point of the Terrorists; the objective was for the Terrorists to secure weapons at the hidden ___location and then have all living members of the team reach an escape point before the clock ran out; eliminating all Counter-Terrorists would not complete the mission by itself. The Counter-Terrorists' objective was to prevent the escape of the Terrorists. Escape was discontinued because such maps gave an edge towards Counter-Terrorists. Maps of this type are prefixed with es_. While not included in the current Counter-Strike distribution, this mode can still be played. The most popular maps of this type are es_jail, es_riverside, es_frantic, and es_trinity. This mode is not found in Counter-Strike: Source.

History

Version history

The Counter-Strike team was formed by Minh Le ("Gooseman") and Jess Cliffe ("Cliffe") in 1999. Prior to Counter-Strike, Le had gained a lot of experience with modeling and textures while working on the 1997 Quake mod Navy Seals the earliest precursor to Counter-Strike, it featured modern day weapons, body-armour and tactical gameplay. When Quake II was released he worked on another highly successful mod called Action Quake2, again with modern weapons and tactical gameplay, this time set in a world of SWAT vs. gangsters. However, the time was not right for global internet gaming just yet, the online community was still relatively small. No cost-effective broadband and in most countries paying for access by the minute limited the audience somewhat. With the massive global success of Half-Life, the premature death of the large Quakeworld and Quakeworld Team Fortress scenes and the widespread adoption of "unmetered" internet access, Counter-Strike's timing was perfect. Beta 1.0 was released in June 1999, followed by a relatively quick succession of the beta releases (by the end of 1999, beta 5.0 had been released). Counter-Strike 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 retail version was a standalone alternative that does not include or require Half-Life; alternatively, existing Half-Life owners can download the Counter-Strike mod free. Later, Counter-Strike was bundled with Half-Life and several other expansions in the Platinum Pack. The most recent version of Counter-Strike was labeled "Counter-Strike: Source," released in November 2004 through Valve's new distribution platform called Steam. Counter Strike: Source was developed using the new Half-Life 2 enhanced graphics and physics engine (Source).

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 for obvious reasons; the online Counter-Strike audience for Xbox is well outnumbered by the existing Counter-Strike PC community, a subscription cost required to play online on Live (playing the PC version online is free), and mediocre graphics (only texture upgrades to original Counter-Strike models) which are below what is expected for the Xbox. Possibly for similar reasons, Valve made no attempt to have Counter-Strike ported to the PlayStation 2.

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero

Main article: Counter-Strike: Condition Zero

A long-awaited single-player version of the game called Counter-Strike: Condition Zero was released on March 23, 2004. It had been plagued by numerous delays, most notably when Valve dropped Gearbox Software (which had developed the highly acclaimed Half-Life: Opposing Force) as developer in favor of Ritual Entertainment,[3] and when Ritual Entertainment in turn lost the project to Turtle Rock Studios partway through development.[4]

Though still very similar to the original Counter-Strike, Condition Zero contains several graphical, sound, model and map changes, as well as including bots. However, the game was criticized for not being up to the standards of graphical quality expected of current commercial releases, due to the limitations of 1998's GoldSrc Half-Life engine.[5] It sold poorly compared to the original.[citation needed]

The benefit to Counter Strike: Condition Zero is that gamers can choose to either play the single player missions or create their own LAN game using bots. The single player missions range in a variety of difficulties, but most CS enthusiasts found that the aforementioned changes were the best part. The other positive change was the LAN upgrades. Gamers can now play on newly textured "_cz" maps which were also modified for the release of Condition Zero.

Counter-Strike: Source (CS:S)

Main article: 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. Following a period when the game was available to select "beta" testers, the alpha version of the game was released on October 7, 2004.

Counter-Strike: Source was released to ATI Radeon 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. It is available today for download over Steam, bundled with Half-Life 2, or purchased in a stand-alone retail box along with Day of Defeat: Source, another game converted to the new graphical engine.

Counter-Strike: NEO (CS:NEO)

Main article: Counter-Strike Neo

Counter-Strike Neo is a Japanese arcade adaptation of Counter-Strike. It is published by Namco. According to a recent article, significant changes in this version localized for the Japanese market include moving away from the traditional Terrorist versus Counter-Terrorist scenario, using more culturally-compatible player models (i.e. anime), and incorporating a "karma system" which rewards players when they confront enemies head-on and punishes players who snipe, hide, and camp - typical tactics of traditional Counter-Strike players.

Map types

Main article: Counter-Strike maps

There are three official types of maps in Counter-Strike, along with many more user-created types. The three official types include "cs_" (Hostage rescue), "de_" (Bomb defusal), and "as_" (Assassination). In earlier beta versions of the game another official type called "es_" (Terrorist Escape) also existed. There are also "aim_" (Aiming practice), "fy_" (Fight Yards), and "awp_" (sniper war) maps which are simplistic, and usually large, maps which provide only certain weapons already available at the spawn area. These maps allow players to practice aiming with the provided weapons.

Official Counter-Strike 1.6 maps

Main article: List of Counter-Strike maps

Commonly played unofficial maps

For detailed information see Counter-Strike custom map types
  • cs_bloodstrike
  • de_rats
  • fy_pool_day
  • fy_snow
  • scoutzknivez
  • awp_map
  • fy iceworld
  • aim_ak-colt
  • de_scud
  • de_cpl_fire
  • de_cpl_strike
  • de_cpl_mill
  • de_clan_mill
  • "surf " maps, where players manipulate a glitch in the game to "surf" down long ramps.
  • "kz_" maps, where players try to climb to the top of the level before anyone else.
  • "ka_" maps, where players can only use knives.
  • "he_" maps, where only knives and grenades can be used.
  • "zm_" maps, where zombie games are played.

Player models

Corresponding player models for both Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists have appeared through development. The following eight are the original models which were to be (or are in the process of being) reproduced in Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source. Condition Zero also added two additional models; the Midwest Militia for Terrorists and the Spetsnaz for Counter-Terrorists.

On the matter of the best model for competitive play in Counter-Strike, Whisper's Wiki recommends that:

Firstly, all players on one team should choose the same skin. As Terrorists you should choose the Elite Crew model. And as Counter-Terrorists, the GIGN model. "5 guys popping in and out 1 at a time will look like the 1 guy if you all have the same skin. Elite Crew is the skinniest and hardest to see model most of the time, and the GIGN model has the smallest head for Counter-Terrorists."

Counter-Terrorist models

All names are taken from real groups.

  • SEAL Team 6 - First appeared in initial Counter-Strike beta - "ST-6 (to be later known as DEVGRU) was founded in 1980 under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Richard Marcinko. ST-6 was placed on permanent alert to respond to terrorist attacks against American targets worldwide."
  • GSG 9 - Added in Counter-Strike beta 6 - "GSG 9 was formed out of the tragic events that led to the death of several Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, Germany."
  • SAS (Special Air Service) - Added in Counter-Strike beta 5 - "World-renowned British SAS was founded in the Second World War by a man named David Stirling. Their role in WW2 involved intelligence gathering behind enemy lines and executing sabotage strikes and assassinations against key targets."
  • GIGN - Added in Counter-Strike beta 3 - "France's elite counter-terrorist group, the GIGN, was designed to be a fast response force that could decisively react to any large-scale terrorist incident. Consisting of no more than 100 men, the GIGN has earned its reputation through a history of successful ops."

Terrorist models

All (understandably) fictional.

  • Phoenix Connexion - First appeared in initial Counter-Strike beta - "Having established a reputation for killing anyone who gets in their way, the Phoenix Connexion is one of the most feared terrorist groups in eastern Europe. Formed shortly after the breakup of the USSR."
  • Elite Crew (L337 Krew prior to Counter-Strike version 1.6) - Added in Counter-Strike beta 3 - "Middle Eastern fundamentalist group bent on world domination and various other evil deeds."
  • Arctic Avengers - Added in Counter-Strike beta 6 - "Swedish terrorist faction founded in 1977. Infamous for their bombing of the Canadian embassy in 1990."
  • Guerilla Warfare - Added in Counter-Strike beta 6.5 - "A terrorist faction founded in the Middle East, this group has a reputation for ruthlessness. Their disgust for American lifestyle was demonstrated in their 1982 bombing of a school bus full of Rock and Roll musicians."

Other models

  • Hostage - used in maps prefixed 'cs_' (eg: cs italy).
  • VIP - Used in maps prefixed 'as_' (eg: as oilrig).

Culture

Main article: Counter-Strike culture

Counter-Strike is famous for the culture surrounding it, which includes everything from professional gamers and leagues, to excessive cheating and disruptive behavior. Certain professional teams (such as SK, Team 3D and Team NoA) and players (Ksharp, and HeatoN, for example) have achieved a measure of fame, and have come to earn a living out of it.

Legacy of Counter-Strike

The success of the game among both casual and competitive players highlights the wide appeal of Counter-Strike's simple game model. Counter-Strike has had a colorful and dramatic history which reaches far beyond what this document could hope to cover, and still remains extremely popular to this day. There are currently professional online leagues that support Counter-Strike, such as Cyberathlete Amateur League and CyberEvolution a pay-to-play league. There are various LAN tournaments that happens throughout the United States and Europe, the two biggest being the CPL Cyberathlete Professional League and the ESWC (France, not Counter-Strike specific, but with a large Counter-Strike tournament under its wings) that is held twice annually. In later years, many other professional tournaments have been held annually, even several times a year. Most notably the WEG (World E-sport Games) and the WCG (World Cyber Games). WEG is held in both South Korea and China; it is considered by many to be the most professional tournament as only the cream the crop are invited to play, while additional available spots are gained through qualifications. Games are televised with commentary and analysis.

Half-Life and other contemporary games took full advantage of the advent of hardware graphics acceleration in the late 1990s, replacing earlier software-rendered games such as Quake. Likewise, gamers were expected to abandon the DirectX 5.0 Half-Life and its mods in favor of games utilizing the hardware T&L capabilities of DirectX 7.0 graphics cards such as the Nvidia GeForce and ATI Radeon. However, the universal shift to the DirectX 7.0 level and beyond has not happened, and the continued popularity of Counter-Strike has given older video cards such as the 3dfx Voodoo 3, ATI Rage 128, and Nvidia RIVA TNT2 continued usefulness. Indeed, one possible reason for Counter-Strike's continued popularity is that almost any PC made since 1997 can play it since the game does not need the powerful CPU and video card required of many current first-person shooter games.

But as the criticisms of Condition Zero showed, many players feel that the GoldSrc engine has reached its limits in its capacity to evolve and to stay updated. Counter-Strike was realistic for its time, but is dated in comparison to more recent first-person tactical shooters. There is a growing frustration that the developers are unwilling to make official changes or add new features, maintaining the same map layouts and weapons to appease longtime Counter-Strike players.[citation needed] Even Counter-Strike: Source has been criticized for not progressing the gameplay enough and failing to take full advantage of the Source engine.[citation needed]

There have been a multitude of games claimed by their developers, reviewers and fans to be "Counter-Strike killers," but none have seriously been able to dent its overall popularity. Server statistics in 2002 showed that Counter-Strike servers outnumbered their Battlefield, Unreal Tournament 2003 or Quake III first-person shooter counterparts at least 3 to 1.[citation needed]

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. Add bots to make a LAN game multiplayer although there is only one computer
  2. Improve gameplay
  3. Remove features of the games which players felt were annoying
  4. Give players superhuman powers
  5. Make the game more humorous
  6. Create different modes of play
  7. Control players not following set rules
  8. Keep track of player statistics and scores
  9. Provide options for weapon improvement (AKA Skinning: Affects the way guns look and sound to the user but remain unchanged to anyone else in the game. Only the user sees the differences. The weapon's attributes remain the same.)
  10. Give server administrators more flexible and efficient control over his/her server. "Admin plugins", as they are mostly referred as, have become very popular. For example, "Mani Admin Plugin", is met on many Counter-Strike:Source dedicated server nowadays. Features include: varieties of teamkill punishes, auto-kick by certain triggers, rank system, advanced map changing and voting etc.
  11. Give server administrators the ability to moderate their servers, sometimes making players gaming experience less enjoyable. For example, the infamous 'slap' is a feature on nearly all admin plugins which allows the server administrator to make players jump around the map. Sometimes this is done as a punishment for a perceived wrongdoing, but sometimes it is not. When done for no reason, it is called "admin abuse."
  12. Run commands on the client without their permission to annoy the player and making their gaming experience more stressful and difficult and in some cases closing the players game or even crashing it. Rarely this is used to aid the player by setting useful variables, such as enabling the developer console.

See Metamod, AMX Mod and AMX Mod X for more information.

Criticisms

Counter-Strike was originally conceived as a realistic shooter, and was novel in that respect. However, recently it has been criticized for its lack of realism in comparison to other games. While it falls squarely into the tactical shooter category, the mod features some inaccuracies. The weapons are also notably inaccurate for the ranges they fire at: most engagements in Counter-Strike occur at less than 100 meters. The M249 SAW's rate of fire is much too slow, and many of the game's weapons have artificial sound effects. Perhaps the most notable criticism is the fact that weapons firing the same round (for instance, the MP5 and Glock 18 both fire a 9mm round) do vastly different damages (though in real life, a bullet's power is also affected by factors such as muzzle speed, which due to varying barrel lengths changes from weapon to weapon, and the fact that some weapons are more sturdily built and hence are capable of firing more powerful versions of the same cartridge, for example +P (overpressure) ammunition). Also, when a player wields the M4 Carbine, the player is shown pulling the forward assist instead of the charging handle on top of the rifle. Pulling the forward assist is impossible.

Another subject that has been debated severily over the years is of stamina. In earlier versions, it was possible for players to jump repeatedly without losing speed in a straight line allowing them to advance a lot faster than running by using the strafe jumping technique. This was fixed in further patches to restore balance in the game by adding a short stop when the jump is landed thus rendering the strafe jumping technique unworkable. Which, in its own sense, is also very unrealistic since the player is able to run and jump indefinitely without a loss of stamina. It must be noted that there is another strafe jumping technique called bunny hopping that is possible by jumping in half circles without the use of the forward key which in combination to perfectly timed jumps allows the player to gain a small amount of speed. Yet, it has been considered to be acceptable as is it more difficult to execute the new bunny hopping technique than the old strafe jumping technique in Counter-Strike.

However, these objects of criticism of realism are, concerning weapon abilities and stamina, accepted in the community as necessary sacrifices that promote balance in the game.

Also, various weapons are "mirrored", giving the impression that case ejection ports and cocking levers are on the left side, when in reality they are almost always found on the right. This is because the weapons in beta versions of CS were held in the left hand, due to Gooseman's preference while modeling them, as he was a left-handed person. When, during later beta versions, gamers began to call for right-handed weapon models, rather than remaking the weapon models, they were simply mirrored so that the ejection ports erroneously appeared on the left sides of the guns. This trend stuck even in Counter-Strike: Source, and has been responsible for the inaccurate modeling of many real-world weapons in other subsequent games. It especially affects the animation of bolt-action rifles, as in normal practice the bolt handle is on the right side of the weapon and is cycled using the right hand, but in modeling a right-side bolt being fired from the left hand, an animation in which the firer's right hand cycles the bolt was used. When mirrored, the impression was formed that normal bolt-action rifles have bolt handles on the left side and that bolt handles are operated with the left hand.

Another point of criticism has been the weapon purchasing system. Although it is one of the things that makes Counter Strike unique, some have criticized how the winning team receives more money and can buy better weapons which further unbalances the teams. However, it must be noted that after a losing streak the losing side is given more money to balance the weapons.

Server

 
Screenshot of HLDS running Counter-Strike
Main article: Half-Life Dedicated Server

A Counter-Strike game can be hosted in three different ways:

  • Inside the Windows Counter-Strike client, using the "New Game" button
  • Using a Windows dedicated server (HLDS)
  • Using a Linux/FreeBSD dedicated server (HLDS)

Most high-performance servers use the two latter cases. The Windows Dedicated server can be run in both GUI and CLI mode. The Linux version runs only in CLI mode.

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Valve Software's official Steam gaming charts". Retrieved June 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ "WON gaming service shut down". Retrieved June 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ "Counter-Strike: Condition Zero developer changed to Ritual Entertainment". Retrieved June 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "Counter-Strike: Condition Zero announced to be "gold," Turtle Rock Studios developer switch detailed". Retrieved June 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ "Counter-Strike: Condition Zero review at IGN". Retrieved June 3. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

See also

Official websites
Third Party Add-ons
  • HLSS — Half-Life Sound Selector (HLSS) is a program that allows users to play .wav files over the microphone.
Community Sites
  • CS-Nation — Longest running Counter-Strike News site
  • Counter-Strike.com — Provides Counter-Strike server related forums, FAQ's and guides.
  • FPSBANANA — The largest CS customization website.
Competitive Counter-Strike
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