Counter-Strike

"One of the best PC games get's the box-treatment"

The story behind counterstrike is a weird one. What started as a free downloadable modification for Halflife, soon grew into one of the biggest gaming legends of the 20th century. Microsoft and Valve grabbed the game by the balls, gave it some freshening up, and Boxed it. Cheap, or a blessing?

Graphics

Well, the PC version looks horrendously dated, and apparently, Valve thought the Xbox version should also. To say it simple: this is one of the ugliest games on the market.
Everything is edgy, to brightly colored, and...well...UGLY!
The thing is, this didn't stop the PC version from taking over the online gamingworld, so why should it here?
Besides, these simple graphics give the game some advantages: the game keeps pumping at a solid framerate, and the loading time between levels is completely neglectable (think somewhere around 5 seconds).
And although the overall graphics suck, the game has some nice features, like when you come from the outside and enter a dark cave for example. When you enter, you'll see pretty much nothing, but slowly your eyes will adjust to the darkness, so you'll start seeing better.
So the graphics are somewhere between psone-ps2 quality, are graphics the most important factor in a game?

Graphics: 6/10

Gameplay

The idea is simple. There are two teams: terrorists and counter-terrorists and two gamemodes: hostage rescue and demolition. In demolition, the terrorists have a bomb, and must plant it at one of two spots on the map. After plating it, they must make sure the bomb goes off by guarding it from counter-terrorists. The counter-terrorist must defuse the bomb if planted before it goes off.
In Hostage rescue the terrorists have taken hostages. The counter-terrorists must locate these hostages and escort them to safety. The terrorists function ofcourse is to make sure this doesn't happen by killing all counter-terrorists.
Besides completing the main objective, each team can also win by eliminating the entire opposing team. When the round is over, it starts all over again.

At the beginning of each round, you have some time to buy weapons using the money you earn by killing enemies, planting/ defusing bombs, or rescue hostages. This way, the team that keeps winning will only get more money and will be able to buy better weapons where as the losing team will be forced to do better, cause they are stuck on buying the more cheaper, less powerfull weapons.
These weapons come in a small variety: shotguns, handguns, machineguns, pistols, grenades and rifles. Besides the standard arsenal, both teams (terrorists and counter-terrorists) have a small number of weapons the other team doesn't. However, one of the things that made the PC version such a blast is still intact: although both teams have different weapons, both teams are extremely well balanced. Also, you can only carry three weapons (of which one space is always taken by the knife, on top of which you can buy a pistol, and a heavier piece of lead-spreading delight like a shotgun, rifle or machinegun)Additionally you can buy up to three types of grenades and a small variety of additional equipment, like bomb defusal kits, which speed up the process of disarming bombs for counter-terrorists, or bullet-proof vests which will keep you alive longer.

Unlike games like Unreal Tournament or Quake 3, you only have one life. If you get killed, you'll have to wait for the next round to begin. Besides this, the game is a lot more realistic then previously named games. You can only take a few shots and you're out. The controls have mostly been copied from Halo's, so shooter fanatics wil feel right at home.

Ofcourse this game can be played online, but it also has an excellent singleplayer. Don't think to much of it, it's basically multiplayer, but instead of real flesh and blood humans, bots (computer controlled characters) take up the empty places. These bots come at 4 difficulty settings. On the easiest ones they're really having a hard time aiming. On the harder ones, they are extremely alert and shoot like five-star marksmen.
What I'm trying to tell here is that their AI is very impressive. They act very, very human like. For example: when a round begins, they often switch to the knife, so they can get a faster running start towards a good camping spot. Also, they always take different routes each time, camp when they feel like it, go of on their own when they feel heroic, camp near bombsites, etc. There is no ''iron discipline''. When a bomb is planted, they do not automatically go to the right bombsite, but sometimes 'accidently' go to the wrong one first, before going to the right one, and when you hide behind a crate for example, they often don't see you when they run by, like bots always do in most other games. In other words: even without Live or system link (the game has no splitscreen, so either you get Live, or get 16 people and 4 Xboxes together) this game is great.

Gameplay: 9/10

Sound

Not much to be said here. The music is good just like the weaponsounds are good. One of the nicest features to be found here is the fact that you can hear footsteps of incoming teammates/ enemies. So when you start camping, you'll be able to hear people coming while hiding behind a crate or something.
However, some sounds are not really to my liking. The sound of a firing silenced-M4 for example sounds more like a mechanized peashooter then a rifle. But these are small things that in no way stand in the way of this game's greatness.

Sound: 8/10

Replay

Some people may complain about the absence of a real singleplayer campaign, but that's a matter of personal taste. If you want a game with a deep digging singleplayer campaign buy Rainbow Six or something. The present singleplayer is fantastic, so don't let other people discourage you into believing it is crap. The singleplayer is great for practice and will keep you coming back for a long time. If you have Live however, the replay value is practically endless.

+ Positive

Excellent bot support

Intuitive gameplay

Indestructible framerate

The ultimate Live realistic warfare

- Negative

The graphics (ugh)

Some soundeffects seem not very thought through

Overall: 8/10

Final word: it may have a high money ripoff feeling to it, since Counterstrike is downloadable for free on the internet, but if you detest playing games on the PC, or you're computer can't keep up, this is an extremely sexy alternative.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/03