"A game that lives up to its namesake"

To tell you the truth when Valve announced they would be remaking Counter Strike on the source engine I thought the game would be like Counter Strike Condition Zero. A crappy remake to get money, I was never more wrong...

This game lives up to the name of Counter Strike, and then some.

Graphics 9 out of 10
I could honestly just stare at the effects of this game for hours. You can move almost everything in the game; cs_office is a perfect representation of this. You can shoot the individual parts out of it (RAM, video card etc), you can tip over trashcans and shoot the individual pieces of trash. Ragdoll physics is the single most entertaining thing in this game, once you play this game for a few hours I will guarantee you will find a few deaths funny. I've seen people fly superman-like into walls, fall dozens of feet on their heads, and people slide across the floor on their forehead after a particularly nasty grenade (They got served). The only downside is that you will need a good computer to run this with all its eye candy. But get with the times people!

Sound 10 out of 10
The sounds in this game are well done. It balances out the sounds well, footsteps are no longer are loud like in 1.6, and they are quiet and almost unnoticeable unless you have your sound up high. Everyone within hearing distance can hear every sound you make. I've kill countless people because I heard them reload their gun, or found that AWPer because I heard the scope sound. Not much more to say about it.

Gameplay 9 out of 10
This game is just like 1.6, just without walling. Now you can't shoot through 5-foot thick stone walls like in 1.6. But you can still shoot through, say boxes in Dust and the double doors in Aztec. The AWP is back in all its quick scoping glory, well its not quite quick-scoping. But it's significantly faster than in 1.6. The weak guns in the game have gotten more damage or more accurate, even the TMP is a good gun in CS:S. The strong guns have remained as they were. Although the game is a week old today at the time I'm reviewing this I'm still going to deduct a point because of some bugs.

Replay Value 10 out of 10
This is a major issue in most games; some games are very fun but get boring quickly. But Counter Strike Source is very and fun and hasn't gotten boring yet. I played the original Counter Strike for almost a year and it never got boring, I don't think most people will be tired of this for a long, long time.

To end this review I'd like to say buy this game now, if you have a decent computer you can run this game a drool over at its eye candy. If not your can run it at low details and it still look good.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/18/04