Game Library: <em>Counter-Strike: Source</em> Review
[Image: cs review]Counter-Strike: Source
Valve Software
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Where to start?
I’ve been playing Counter-Strike in some form or another since it was an independent Half-Life mod with “beta 3.1” attached to the end of the name.
It’s changed a lot over the intervening years, but at it’s core it still remains the same straightforward, amazing game. It was one of the first games to introduce round-based multiplayer gameplay to first-person shooters, and the basic format has been copied and elaborated upon many times in mods like Day of Defeat - now also a stand-alone game - and Firearms.
Counter-Strike pits a team of Terrorists against a team of Counter-Terrorists in a variety of urban and rustic real-world locations. At the beginning of each round, each player is awarded an amount of money, based largely on the success of their team, with which to buy weapons, grenades, and armor.
Although adventuresome map-makers have come up with a variety of game-types (mods, almost) within Counter-Strike, there are two ways to win either of the two basic gameplay modes, which are represented by the map prefixes “cs_” and “de_.”
In a “cs_” map, the technical objective is for the Counter-Terrorist team to rescue the hostages being held in the Terrorist spawn point. In a “de_” map, the technical objective is for the Terrorist team to successfully plant an explosive at one of two designated targets. If the bomb explodes before a Counter-Terrorist can defuse it, the Terrorists win.
In any map type, killing everyone on the other team wins the round.
Are you ready for the best part? That’s it. Those are the game mechanics.
If that made sense to you so far, you’re ready to play Counter-Strike. It’s so easily accessible, so damned simple, that it’s hard not to play it.
Of course, the mechanics really only scratch the surface of game. There are a million subtleties and nuances about the different maps and the way weapons are fired that have kept me interested for years. Not to mention the fact that you’re always playing new, clever, human opponents, and strategy counts.
Balancing and maintaining a game like Counter-Strike is hardly a simple task. Much like the original Halo multiplayer, Counter-Strike has managed to ride the edge between weapons that are overly-powerful and configurations that provide options for some variation in play style.
The Steyr TMP,* sometimes called the “Pea Shooter,” is a rapid-fire automatic pistol that holds 30 bullets in a clip. It packs a lot less punch than the Colt or the AK-47, but it fires extremely fast and very accurately. Plugging someone with a TMP when they’ve got a bigger gun is also extremely fun. So is knifing a sniper who isn’t paying attention.
While some people might complain that Counter-Strike: Source is a bastardization of the original Counter-Strike, I think that’s patently false. The upgrade was fantastic - aside from making a game that’s much more visually appealing and physically realistic, it also reintroduced the game to a whole new set of players, which is always a good thing.
It’s also fair to complain that in order to play Counter-Strike each gamer is required to install Valve’s Steam game client, which validates the game against cheating and piracy, but also tries to sell you more games and has been known to bog down system resources.
I myself am a big fan of Steam, as anyone who reads regularly will know. I think digital distribution is the way of the future and the Steam is the future of digital distribution. But only time will tell if I’m right or wrong.
The Bottom Line
The Good: Counter-Strike: Source has the same great gameplay that has kept this mod going for years, and the frequent updates it gets through Steam keep it fresh and interesting, as well as technically at the cutting edge. It would be hard to find a better way to spend your time online.
The Bad: Much like golf, Counter-Strike: Source can be incredibly frustrating. Its easy to hit a wall and put the game down in favor of something with a little more complexity and a little less direct, brutal competition.
The Score: 96%
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* When Valve bought Counter-Strike and started charging money for it, they were forced to abandon the real weapon names for made up ones. I’ve never bothered to re-learn them.