It's Still THAT Good!
Counter-strike has been, and probably always will be, one of the most popular online first-person shooters available (Phew, got that said). Now that I got that out of the way, I can talk about the game. For those who have never played Counter-strike before, it is a round-based shooter with emphasis on staying alive and teamwork. Each round you are basically given one life, and some cash. That cash is used to buy weapons and equipment to kill the opposing team.
Counter-strike Source plays with two teams: the terrorists and counter-terrorists. The terrorists are given the objective to plant a bomb in a set location or defend the hostages from rescue, while the counter-terrorists are tasked with defusing the bomb or rescuing the hostages. It is pretty straight forward, however, there are many aspects that set it apart from most other military shooters. For instance, the snipers, assault rifles, sub-machine guns, and other weapons each have their own feel and recoil. In this way, each weapon feels very different and controls very different from other guns. The game is also very fast paced, and action packed with an emphasis on head-shots.
Counter-strike source features amazing graphics and sound. Each weapon looks and sound like it packs a punch. The player models and maps also look fantastic. Also, for the first time ever, Counter-strike Source adds in Valve's new source engine which adds realistic physics to the maps and models. So, in some cases players will see bodies explode into the air, tumble as they die off of cliffs, or even use the engine to their advantage via barrels and other entities.
Counter-strike Source does not have a singleplayer campaign or story mode as the game is heavily a multiplayer game. Instead, the game offers AI bots that are playable on any map for practice or to fill in for human opponents when there aren't enough. The bots are fairly smart and can adapt to most maps they are placed on. In fact, bots can even adapt to user-made maps via automatic navigation path creation. Overall, the bots are very fun to play against, but multiplayer is where they game truly shines.
Counter-strike is also a very customizable game. There are mod tools provided by Valve that allow users to create their own player models, maps, weapon models, and even gameplay modes. Some popular modes include: deathmatch, zombie, and warcraft 3. These modes are easy to get into as players do not have to exit the game to download them. They are already installed on the server so players do not have to install them manually. Thousands of user-made maps are already available, and more are always popping up every minute. Each mod and map add a little more to do in Counter-strike Source, making it that much better.
If you are looking for a fast-paced, military, team, round-based shooter that can be enjoyed for years, Counter-strike Source will surely satisfy you. There are always thousands of players online with 400-500 servers running constantly, so finding a game is only hard if you're picky. The game is lots of fun and the phenomenon that is Counter-strike should be experienced by everyone at least once.
