Counter-Strike (video game)

Counter-Strike
Developer(s)	Valve Software
Publisher(s)	Vivendi Universal (PC) Microsoft Game Studios (Xbox)
Series	Counter-Strike
Engine	GoldSrc (Half-Life)
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows and Xbox
Release	June 12, 1999 (1999-06-12) (Original Half-Life Mod) November 8 2000 (PC) March 25 2004 (Xbox)
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Counter-Strike (commonly abbreviated to CS) is a tactical first-person shooter video game which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe, and features real-world weapons. The game has been expanded into a series since its original release, which currently includes Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Anthology and Counter-Strike on Xbox.

Counter-Strike pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds. Each round is won by either completing the mission 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.

The game has both individual and multiplayer options. Bots can be added into the game. The online-multiplayer option is activated via Steam.

Popularity

As of August 2007, Counter-Strike is still the most widely played online first-person shooter in the world . In 2002 there were over 30,000 populated Counter-Strike servers on the Internet (second place was Unreal Tournament with about 9,800). 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 (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 collectively contribute to over 6.177 billion minutes of playing time each month, as of February 5, 2007, solidifying its position as the most popular online first-person shooter of all time.

Version history

File:Cs early CT.jpg

Early screenshot of the Counter-Terrorist player model

On 24 March Planet Half-Life opened their Counter-Strike section. Within two weeks, the site had already received 10,000 hits.

18 June 1999, saw the first public beta of Counter-Strike, followed by numerous further "beta" release. CS1.0 was released around Christmas 2000.

On 12 April 2000, Valve announced that the Counter-Strike Team and Valve had teamed up.

Beta

Beta 1

First public beta of Counter Strike.

Beta 2

Beta 2 saw the addition of several new weapons: AK-47, SG552 Commando and Desert Eagle. Silencers also appeared on the USP and M4A1 for the first time. Night-vision goggles, previously only available to G3/SG1, was now a separate item of kit available for purchase.

Beta 3

BETA 3 added the knife, helmet and P90 sub-machine gun. The MP5 had always been the weapon of choice, but was soon replaced by the P90. A 50-round magazine and high-accuracy meant it dominated the game for months. Also, gun running was removed from the game. In previous versions guns from dead players stayed on the ground after the round was over allowing players to pick up the guns the next round. As a result players would run all the guns from dead players back to their base by continuously picking up and dropping the guns. In turn this gave their team an advantage when the next round started.

Beta 4

Beta 4 added a new gameplay type, Defusal. Gooseman had always had an interest in making a C4 mission, as well as a car bombing one (which never made it into the game). Beta 4 also added the P228, HE Grenade and the Scout Sniper rifle.

Beta 4.1

The SAS model appeared in the 4.1 release. The Sig 552 Commando's accuracy was also greatly improved, leading to a phenomenon known as "whoring". This greatly unbalanced Counter-Strike, until Beta 6 smoothed out the problems.

Beta 5

Beta 5 spearheaded by a Barking Dog Studios came with numerous new bugs and server instabilities. The xm1014 shotgun appeared in Beta 5.

Beta 6

Beta 6 added the MAC-10 and AUG weapons, Snow (terrorist) and GIGN (counter-terrorist) player models, and an updated MP5 with a retractable (A3) instead of fixed buttstock (A2). There was also the addition of the Escape and Assassination game types. Assassination (where the CTs have to escort a player-controlled VIP to an exit point) and Escape (terrorists had to escape to a certain area). Both game modes were removed for Counter-Strike: Source.

Beta 6 also included both right-handed and left-handed weapons.

Until BETA 6.5, the Colt M4A1 had a scope and a non-removable suppressor.

Release

Version 1.3

Jumping and shooting pistols were 100% accurate. Many cheats or "hacks" surfaced during this era of Counter-Strike.

Version 1.4

A short lived version. Players could hear radio commands from players on the other team. Jumping now would make shots inaccurate. Lasted 2 months and was then replaced by Counter strike 1.5.

Version 1.5

Generally the most popular release of Counter-Strike. Radio commands were changed back to only audible by teammates. A delay while landing from jumping was incorporated to discourage "bunny-hopping."

Steam version

This version added "cheap" assault rifles such as the Galil and FAMAS; they were less expensive than the M4 and AK-47rifles.

The Counter-Terrorists had the option of giving up their main weapon to purchase a tactical shield. This item was often banned by servers, since a CT with the shield in crouch position is impervious to firepower, and certain hacks would allow players to use an assault rifle or submachine gun with the shield.

Condition Zero

Main article: Counter-Strike: Condition Zero

The graphics were significantly improved and made more realistic. The weapons (and their costs) remained the same, but the weapon specifications varied from the other versions. Quickswitching was re-introduced, radio commands were edited, and the voices were made uniform for all the players and AI bots.

Source

Main article: Counter-Strike: Source

The original Counter-Strike recreated with a new engine, Source.

Distribution and service

Sierra

When Counter-Strike was published by Sierra Entertainment/Vivendi Universal Games, it was bundled with "Team Fortress Classic, Opposing Force multiplayer, and the Wanted, Redemption and Firearms mods."

Steam and the WON gaming service

Counter-Strike was originally played online through the WON gaming service, which was shut down in 2004, forcing players to switch to Steam. While the non-Steam version of Counter-Strike (version 1.5) can still be downloaded from sites such as FilePlanet, with the absence of WON, it can only be played on a LAN. Part of the player community responded to the closing of WON by creating their own WON network, dubbed WON2.

Addition of in-game advertising

In March 2007, Valve implemented mandatory advertisements through Steam in official maps and in the game's GUI overhead. Customers have expressed frustration with the ads, including an over 200 page thread on Valve's official forums, saying that they violate original terms of service and distract from the game. The thread was later deleted by an unknown moderator.

Gameplay

Counter-Strike is a first-person shooter in which players join either the terrorist or counter-terrorist team. Each team attempts to complete their mission objective and/or eliminate the opposing team. Each round starts with the two teams spawning simultaneously, usually at opposite ends of the map from each other. A player can choose to play as one of eight different default character models (four for each side, although Counter-Strike: Condition Zero added two extra models, bringing the total to ten). Each player generally starts with $800 (although this amount can be modified), two magazines of ammunition, a knife, and a pistol: a Heckler & Koch USP .45 Tactical for counter-terrorists, and a GLOCK 18 for terrorists. Players are generally given a few seconds before the round begins (known as "freeze time") to prepare and buy equipment, during which they cannot attack, be attacked, or walk/move. They can return to the buy area within a set amount of time (90 seconds is the default) to buy more equipment (some neutral "buy zones" can be used by both teams). Once the round has ended, surviving players retain their equipment for use in the next round; players who were killed begin the next round with the basic default starting equipment.

File:Counterstrike-comparison.jpg

Screenshot of a player using a Desert Eagle on the map de_dust in the original Counter-Strike (left) and Counter-Strike: Source (right).

Standard monetary bonuses are awarded for winning a round, losing a round, killing an enemy, instructing a hostage to follow, rescuing a hostage or planting the bomb.

The scoreboard displays team scores in addition to statistics for each player: name, score (kills), deaths, and ping (in milliseconds). The scoreboard also indicates whether a player is dead, carrying the bomb (on bomb maps), or is the VIP (on assassination maps), although information on players on the opposing team is hidden from a player until his/her death, as this information can be important. Killed players become "ghosts" for the duration of the round; they cannot change their names until they spawn (come alive) again, text chat cannot be sent to or received from live players; and voice chat can only be received from live players and not sent to them (unless the cvar sv_alltalk is set to 1, which is the standard among public servers). Many of the new FY (fun yard; basically team deathmatch) maps allow dead players to communicate with living players. Ghosts 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 the case of Internet cafes and Voice over IP programs such as TeamSpeak or Ventrilo). This technique, known as "ghosting", is considered cheating in many tactical shooters.

Player skins

Before a player may join a match, he or she must first choose a faction (either Counter-Terrorist (CT) or Terrorist (T)) and select one of the following player model skins, a visual representation of the player in-game.

Counter-Terrorists: Counter-terrorist player skins are based on real-world international counter-terrorist forces.

• SEAL Team 6 (DEVGRU) – Counter-terrorist unit of the United States of America. Olive drab camouflage, suitable for woodland maps.
• GSG 9 – Counter-terrorist unit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Cerulean uniform with desert camouflage helmet. Camouflage suitable for urban maps.
• SAS – Counter-terrorist unit of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Black camouflage and gas mask, suitable for any dark areas or night-time maps.
• GIGN – Counter-terrorist unit of the French Republic. Navy blue uniform (with a riotsquad helmet in Counter Strike: Source), suitable for urban maps.

Terrorists: Terrorist player skins are based on fictitious terrorist cells.

• Phoenix Connection – Terrorist cell formed out of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during its fall. Based in and around Eastern Europe. Dark blue shirt with ski mask and ballistic vest, with winter camouflage trousers. May be mistaken for Counter-terrorist from afar, suitable for urban maps.
• Elite Crew – Mysterious terrorist cell. Claims to have "world domination" as its objective and is based in and around the Middle East. Green jacket, khaki trousers, moderately suitable for desert maps, but more for woodland and jungle maps.
• Arctic Avengers – Terrorist cell based in the Kingdom of Sweden. Winter camouflage, very suitable for snow maps, unsuitable for everything else.
• Guerrilla Warfare – Terrorist cell based in South America and the Middle East. Dressed like a Rambo Impersonator, with a green vest and a red bandanna, suitable for woodland and jungle maps.

A former terrorist skin was the Irish Republican Army. The old SEAL was similar to the current GIGN model, though the SEAL had a darker uniform and thicker vest.[1]

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Realism

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. Relatively few hits are required to kill a player, and shots to different parts of the body inflict varying amounts of damage. However, 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 and running speed, however, are momentarily restricted for about a second after taking damage from enemy attacks.

Maps

The maps in Counter-Strike determine the gameplay and mission objectives. There are three official types of maps in Counter-Strike:

• Hostage rescue maps, identified by "cs" before the name (eg. cs_militia, cs_office), where the counter-terrorist team's objective is to free four non-player characters that are present near the terrorist base
• Bomb defusal maps, identified by "de" before the name, (eg. de_dust, de_aztec), where the terrorist team must try to plant explosives at specific sites in the map and protect it for a set amount of time while the counter-terrorists attempt to defuse it. Counter-terrorists can purchase a kit to cut the bomb defusal time in half.
• Assassination maps, with an "as" prefix, (eg. as_oilrig), in which one member of the counter-terrorist team becomes a VIP, and must be protected from assassination until he reaches an escape zone. This game mode is also present in Counter-Strike: Source, although rarely played.

Terrorist Escape maps were tested in the beta, where the terrorists' started in a jail and had to reach a checkpoint within a time limit, finding better weapons along the way. It was discontinued as it gave the counter-terrorist side too much of an advantage. During beta, player-controlled vehicles were tested on a racing map which was also discontinued.

Professional tournaments only involve bomb defusal maps. The Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Source map de_dust2 is currently the most played first person shooter map in history.

There are hundreds of unofficial prefixes in Counter-Strike now, including:

• AWP Arena maps, with an "awp" prefix, are small arena-type maps where players fight using Arctic Warfare Magnum Sniper Rifles only. In earlier versions of the game, the weapon was named Arctic Warfare/Police, or AWP for short.
• Frag Yard or Fight Yard maps, identified by "fy" before the name, (eg. fy_iceworld), are also small arena-type maps with various weapons lying around at the spawnpoint. The players must use these weapons to beat the other team, however the weapons have limited ammo. These maps usually have a buy zone somewhere in the middle instead of the spawnpoints, at a fair distance.
• Surfing maps, prefixed with "surf", (eg. surf_legends, surf_graphia), are maps where players use their strafing keys to "surf" special ramps. These maps are sorted into two categories – skill maps where players need extreme skill to complete the map and gun games where shooting each other gets a bigger role. These maps usually have a "jail" where players who fall off go. Those who beat the map often get the privilege to execute the prisoners.
• XC or Extreme Climb This type of map is not a tactical shooter, the goal is to figure out how to maneuver your character further up the map by doing complicated jumps. There are maps that are slotted to be easier than other maps and they come in varying degrees of avg Time. At the top is normally a button that indicated how long a player took to arrive at the summit and displays that time for all to see.
• AIM A map type in which weapons are positioned on the ground prior to round start. Purchasing items is thus a rarity. The map layout is typically symmetrical, resulting in fairest possible gameplay. Standard objectives are nonexistent.

Players also have the ability to create their own maps using the Valve Hammer Editor.

Weapons

One of the features of the original incarnations of Counter-Strike was that it did not feature fictional weapons like most games, instead using only existing firearms used the world over by real terrorist cells, counter-terrorist squads, armed forces, and law enforcement units.

The weapons are, however, only semi-realistic; many of them are incorrect in small details such as the caliber of ammunition or in their naming. Part of the reason for straying from realism is to balance the game; the Glock 18 pistol for instance lacks the auto fire mode as that would have given the player a potent submachine gun, the Five-seveN and P90 lack Kevlar piercing capabilities, the Colt M4A1 Carbine had its scope removed since it was positioned as a closer-range assault rifle in contrast to the Steyr AUG, and SIG 552 is not used by real terrorists (because of its high price). The Beretta Elite 96G dual pistols (the game incorrectly lists the ammunition as 9 mm instead of .40 S&W) and Desert Eagle are not practical weapons for special operations and were added as a homage to popular movies.

Others do not operate their firing movement quite as their real-life counterparts do, and many of them are inaccurately 'mirrored', wherein the spent cases are ejected from the wrong side of the weapon. This is attributed to the fact that one of the designers was left-handed, and modeled the weapons being held in the left hand. They were then mirrored to the right side, resulting in these inaccuracies. The Counter-Strike team acknowledges that "not every weapon will be perfectly accurate or realistic".

When early versions of the mod were released, the weapons were presented in the menus with their actual names and manufacturers such as Colt M4A1 and AK-47, but versions from 1.6 on featured fictional manufacturers (and some models) instead, such as "Maverick M4A1" and "CV-47" respectively. Fictional names had to be made up as the actual weapon names were trademarked by their respective manufacturers. However, the internal names used by the developer's console, key bindings and macros were not changed and thus often preserve the original designations; for example, the "Bullpup" (Steyr AUG) is still named "aug" internally, and so is the M4A1.

Players are permitted to carry a pistol as a sidearm and primary weapon, whether it be a shotgun, submachine gun, rifle or machine gun. Shotguns are useful in a handful of maps for ambush situations. Submachine guns are affordable and moderately effective at medium and short ranges, but ineffective against armored players at longer ranges. Rifles are generally the most expensive weapons, however they are long-ranged and can penetrate crates and doors.

With the exception of the Steyr Scout, sniper rifles will significantly weigh down a player's movement, so one member of the team will perform a sniping role. The most popular is the AWM (often misnamed the AWP) which is much feared since it can kill an enemy with one shot, with the Steyr Scout being a less powerful but lighter and cheaper alternative. The G3SG/1 and SG 550 are less powerful than the AWM but are semi-automatic and have the option of full-automatic fire, thus giving room for error. (The G3SG/1 and SG 550 Sniper are classified as sniper rifles in the game, but they are properly named battle rifles due to their large size and auto fire capabilities.)

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 Gaming, Complexity, Team 3D, 4Kings and fnatic) have come to earn a living out of it, while other clans and community based groups neither lose nor earn money via member donations which are self sustaining in return for administrator rights in servers involved in the community.

Legacy

Counter-Strike remains extremely popular to this day. There are currently professional online leagues supporting Counter-Strike, such as the Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL), and CyberEvolution, a pay-to-play league. Various LAN tournaments are held throughout the United States and Europe, with the largest being the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC), the World e-Sports Games (WEG), and the World Cyber Games (WCG). Championship matches in these events 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. The continued popularity of Counter-Strike has meant that older video cards such as the 3dfx Voodoo3, ATI Rage 128, and NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 remain useful.

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, America's Army, Call of Duty, and many more. 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.[2] The popularity of Counter-Strike has generally been higher and has not dwindled like that of newer generation games.

However, as criticism of Condition Zero showed, the GoldSrc engine has already been surpassed by several generations of newer engines. Even Counter-Strike: Source has been criticized for not progressing the gameplay enough and failing to take full advantage of the Source engine[3]

Mods and scripts

Though Counter-Strike is itself a mod, it has developed its own community of script writers and modders. Some mods add bots, while others remove features of the games which some players found annoying, while yet others create different modes of play. Some of the most popular mods give server administrators more flexible and efficient control over his or her server. "Admin plugins", as they are mostly referred as, have become very popular (see Metamod, AMX Mod and AMX Mod X). There are some mods which affect gameplay heavily, such as Gun Game, where players start with a basic pistol and must score kills to receive better weapons, and Zombie Mod, where one team consists of Zombies and must "spread the infection" by killing the other team (using only the knife). There are also the Superhero and Warcraft III mods which mix the first-person gameplay of Counter-Strike with an experience system, allowing a player to become more powerful as they continue to play. Other mods provide new weapon skins.

Cheating

Counter-Strike has been a prime target for exploitation by cheaters since its release. In-game, cheating is often referred to as 'hacking' in reference to program or 'hack' executed by the user.

Typical cheats are:

• Wallhacks, which allow the player to see through walls. These work by altering the display driver to display objects that are normally obscured.
• Speedhacks, which give the player increased speed. These work by sending false synchronisation data to servers.
• No recoil, which keeps the players gun shooting straight on the x axis without a kickback by removing gun physics. No spread is used to make a players gun shoot straight along the y axis.
• Aimbots, which helps the player aim at enemies. These work by moving the player's view to anticipate an enemy's position.
• ESP, which shows textual information about the enemy, such as, health, name, and distance
• Barrel hack, which shows a line that depicts where the enemy is looking
• Anti-flash and anti-smoke, which remove the flashbang and smoke grenade effect.
• Grenade Dodger, which moves player farther or closer to a grenade, depending on settings.

Valve has implemented an anti-cheat system called Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC). Players cheating on a VAC enabled server risk having their account permanently banned from all VAC secured servers.

With the first version of VAC a ban took force almost instantly after being detected, and the cheater had to wait 2 years to have the account unbanned. Since VAC's second version, cheaters are not banned automatically. Rather, they are banned according to a delayed banning system, and bans are permanent. Many cheats are still not detected by VAC, and often the only effective anti-cheat device is a human administrator watching an online game; however, it can be very difficult to differentiate between skill, luck and cheating (however, there are some obvious signs – for example, if a player's screen shakes all the time while being spectated, they are most certainly using an aimbot) and server admins only have the power to ban users from their server. VAC, while being effective in some ways, has also provided a boost in the purchasing of private hacks. These hacks are updated frequently, as to prevent detection, and are available to those who pay to use them and those that don't pay.

In popular culture

The ever-growing popularity of Counter-Strike has resulted into being referenced or being parodied extensively in popular culture.

• The online Mockumentary Pure Pwnage features an avid Counter Strike: Source fan, fps_doug, who is often shown "pwning n00bs" with headshots, in which he yells "BOOM! HEADSHOT!" after achieving them. The catchphrase has since become popular in internet forums, chat rooms, and by the players on Counter Strike.
• The web-comic Concerned which is based on the adventures of Gordon Frohman in the world of Half-Life 2 has a recurring gag involving Counter-Strike: Source.
• On an episode of the TV show "Mythbusters" exploring a myth involving firearms (whether it is possible to shoot out a floor to escape enemies), one of the co-hosts (Grant) joked that "Now [co-host] Tory can live out his Counter-Strike fantasies."
• The German musician Jan Hegenberg calls himself "the first German Counter Strike singer"
• Only a few hours after the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, Florida lawyer Jack Thompson blamed the shootings on Counter-Strike, despite the fact that Seung-Hui Cho had not played the game since he was in high school.
• At the 2003 Toy Fair in New York, Counter-Strike 12 inch action figures were displayed at the In The Past Toys booth. These figures were based on the 1.6 model skins. [4]
• Devoted players have created real life parodies featuring and portraying characteristics of Counter-Strike gameplay. The short videos, frequently hosted on video sharing sites such as YouTube or Google Video, range in quality and comprehensiveness in terms of similarity to the Counter Strike settings, gameplay, costume and props. [5]

See also

• List of Half-Life mods

External links

• Steam
• Valve
• Videos and Discussion at the iVirtua Community Counter Strike Real Life Parodies demonstrating a devoted fan-base.