Counter-Strike
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Counterstrike.
Counter-Strike

Developer(s)
Valve Software
Publisher(s)
Vivendi Universal (PC)Microsoft Game Studios (Xbox)
Engine
GoldSrc (Half-Life)
Release date(s)
June 12, 1999 (Original Half-Life Mod)November 8, 2000 (PC)March 25, 2004 (Xbox)
Genre(s)
First-person shooter
Mode(s)
Multiplayer
Rating(s)
ESRB: Mature 17+ELSPA: 14+
Platform(s)
Microsoft Windows and Xbox
Media
CD or Steam download
System requirements
500 MHz processor, 96 MB RAM
Input
Keyboard, mouse
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.
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, True Combat Elite and many more.
Contents[hide]
1 Popularity
2 Complaints
3 History
3.1 Beta 1
3.2 Beta 2
3.3 Beta 3
3.4 Beta 4
3.5 Beta 4.1
3.6 Beta 5
3.7 Beta 6
4 Steam and the WON Gaming Service
5 Gameplay
5.1 Realism
5.2 Maps
6 Weapons
7 Culture
8 Legacy
9 Mods and scripts
10 Cheating
11 In popular culture
12 History
13 Notes and references
14 See also
15 External links
//

[edit] Popularity
As of May 2006, 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[1] (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[1], solidifying its position as the most popular online first-person shooter.

[edit] Complaints
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, saying that they violate original terms of service and distract from the game [2].

[edit] History

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.

[edit] Beta 1
First public beta of Counter Strike.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 (the largest in the game) 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.

[edit] Beta 4
Beta 4 added a new gameplay type, Defusion. 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.

[edit] 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.

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

[edit] Beta 6
Beta 6 added the MAC-10 and AUG weapons, Snow (terrorist) and GIGN (counter-terrorist) player models, and an updated MP5. 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) carried on through the releases (and also made a welcome return in Counter-Strike: Source), but Escape (terrorists had to escape to a certain area) was later removed.
Beta 6 also included both right-handed and left-handed weapons.
Until BETA 6.5, the Colt M4A1 had a scope and a silencer which could not be removed.

[edit] Steam and the WON Gaming Service
Counter-Strike was originally played online through the WON gaming service, which was shut down in 2004,[3] forcing players to switch to Steam (to which a section of players responded by creating their own WON network, dubbed WON2).

[edit] 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.

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). 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