Posted: 18-05-07 In: Reviews By: Munro2 |


Imagine the scene: You wake up one morning and everything is just better than it was the day before. Instead of clambering out of bed in the morning in last night’s clothes, still smelling of vomit from the night before, you’re wearing the finest silk pyjamas. The bed you clamber out of? A four-poster bed with hand sown blankets, not the bunk bed you share with your reprobate of a flat mate. You walk gracefully down the marble steps and into a large, fully fitted kitchen only to find a maid, as opposed to your next door neighbour trying to steal your shoes again. Rather than re-heating last night’s curry and drinking out of that lager can with cigarette butts in it, you get served a full English breakfast with three fried eggs, four rashers of bacon, beans, sausages, mushrooms and coffee made with freshly ground beans. Finally you set off for your day at work as CEO of a major corporation, instead of having to go down to the Job Centre to pick up your Job Seekers Allowance cheque – you walk out into a blissful environment with children frolicking in the sun in place of the little bastards trying to steal the wheels from your car. Imagine that and, no, it isn’t the comparison between the double lives you lead on The Sims 2, it’s more like the perfect analogy of Valve’s recent upgrade from Counter-Strike 1.6 to Counter-Strike: Source - a whole new lease of life.

For those of you that haven’t been following Counter-Strike: Source (read: those of you that have been living under a rock for six months), Counter-Strike: Source is simply Counter-Strike, however, it has been directly ported from the Half-Life engine to the fantastic Source engine which is responsible for the technology behind Half-Life 2. So what does this mean? Well essentially, with the same game being on a brand new engine, you get all the superficial benefits that you’d expect from any other new game release at the moment. Most of the levels have been re-modelled to include 3D sky boxes to make the environments look like they go on forever, the textures have all been re-done to include high quality bump mapping to give the textures some… well, texture. On top of all this the 3D artwork has all been re-done to a much higher standard than we’re used to. Couple all this extra artwork with a fantastic physics engine that realistically simulates objects moving around, colliding with each other, and those goddamn satisfy moments when someone hurtles through the air after being caught in a grenade attack. The physics engine is so good you’ll often see me finding new ways and new angles to blow myself up with grenades. Oh the fun, try it, it’s great! So, you might think it’s all just a bit more of the same but it’s not. It’s five and a half year old game play but it’s all completely fresh. And not to mention that with the Source engine the scope is absolutely amazing. Realistic vehicles anyone?

At this moment in time I have very few problems with Counter-Strike: Source. The load times are quite a bit longer on some occasions (as you would expect), there are some bugs in the engine, it can be very intensive on your hardware unless you’re using the latest tech and it’s bloody distracting. 'Bloody distracting' in the sense that with Munro playing CS:Source to death now it doesn't look like we'll see the rest of the site any time soon? Or 'bloody distracting' because the graphics and physics looks so amazing it takes the focus off the game and you often get shot as you're admiring the scenery? Well, both... etc. Well, both to be honest, though in some respects you still can’t call it a bad thing because CS: Source is simply awe inspiring. The levels are absolutely littered (literally in some cases) with physics props. Whether it be cinder blocks, metal buckets, barrels, or even the occasional computer there’s plenty of fun to be had just by running into or shooting things. They react in the most realistic way possible, and all while keeping the cost to your bandwidth down to a minimum. As all of the physics calculations are done on the client’s side, everything will be calculated through your own processor and minimal information needs to be sent through the server. It only makes you wish you had a manipulator in there; you’d really appreciate how fun this might be if you’ve seen a lot of HL2 (read: if you’ve not been living under a rock for 18 months). As for the bugs, the game as a whole is a lot more stable than it was back when I did the Hands On preview recently. There are still some small issues there, but certainly none you’d lose sleep over. Valve has even left in the Report Bug feature too, so they should quickly fix anything that causes a big problem.

As most will know by now, the Source engine is capable of running on rather low-end machines all the way back to DirectX 7.0 technology, but to fully enjoy the graphics in the game you’re going to be needing to make sure some components in your rig are up to scratch. The recommended requirements for CS: Source are:

• 2.4 GHz Processor
• 512MB RAM
• DirectX 9 graphics card
• Windows 2000/XP

Going by today’s standards you can build your own for about £500 (and a rather good guide on doing so can be found in November’s edition of PC Gamer UK) but I’m willing to bet some parts of your computer will be fine, and it might just be a case of spending a bit of cash on that lovely new ATi x800 or a bit more RAM.

Bananas!

I’ve not wanted to mention this one major downfall though. This is most likely the one that is going to devastate more people than ever. Yes, even more people will be devastated than when Icarus went on a banning spree and wiped out half of the United States. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there is no chicken in Italy. Nothing used to cheer me up more than the healthy slaughtering of a chicken in Italy. But, alas, it has gone and we may or may not see it ever again. You can all find consolation though in the fact though that the market place area at Italy is full of physical objects to muck about with, including lots of bananas. Apart from the chicken atrocity, the maps have stayed brilliantly true to the originals and every one is instantly recognisable, though more disappointment has been met with the fact that there are classics missing such as Assault, Militia and Back Alley but it’s surely only a matter of time before these are re-added.

Most people have now likely played the BETA version of CS: Source so most will have been playing Dust 24/7 for a while – because of this, the appeal has worn off and their attentions have been turned to Office. Office has been done with a complete stroke of genius, no longer is it something that slightly resembles an office, but it is an office, now complete with an atmospheric alley way, realistically lit car park and filing cabinets that topple over. From what I can tell, the team at Valve have worked the hardest on this map. It’s completely heaving with physical props and there are some very clever posters on the wall. They seem to be in the form of little messages from Valve, such as: “CRUNCH - Hang in there… it’s almost over!” and “SNIPING - Feel like a player without actually joining the game”. It is little touches like this that are giving CS: Source a bit of an edge on its predecessors.

I’ve told you quite a bit about physics, but there is a bit of a flaw with the system at the moment. They're too ‘bouncy’. Even though the objects do react with each other realistically, as do the rag dolls, the problem is how they react to the player. Rag dolls can just be walked through (simply to save on bandwidth and processor power), but the biggest issue is all of the physical objects simply bounce you away from them. They seem to have a resistance against them which will shove you backwards if you try to run into them. This has been changed since we first started hearing about CS: Source, as in a video preview of the game it was shown that someone was able to knock over a table and use it to block a door way. This certainly isn’t possible in CS: Source anymore. I’m sure there’s some reason behind it, but as of yet I’m not sure what this might be. If I’m honest though, the physics are still fantastic and it doesn’t sound as if many people are being too fussy over it. Except me of course.

Speaking of sound, that brings me nicely to the audible aspects of the game. The sound has been, as you’d expect, as expertly ported and re-mastered as the rest of the game. Yep, mostly it sounds exactly the same, but the sounds have definitely all been re-recorded and if you’re lucky enough to have a nice 5.1 surround system on your computer (like me, hahaha!) you’ll certainly notice an improvement in this department. Along with the Source engine’s capability of doing “soundscapes” that make the ambient sound changes a lot more dynamic, it isn't just your eyes that are in for a treat.

Most people now have broadband connections and will use these to play Counter-Strike: Source. However when HalfLife2.net had the opportunity to beta test the CS: Source BETA before it was released to Condition Zero and ATi voucher holders, I was on a 56k connection temporarily and I was surprised at how well the net code performed. I often had problems even playing CS 1.6 on a dial up connection but Source seemed to handle it a lot better. This may not be the same experience that other dial up users experience, but even so, I was impressed that with all of the physical props in the game how well Source handled the network traffic. The net code certainly appears to be an improvement over GoldSrc that powers the Half-Life network code.

So, five years on, what have we had? It all started with an incredibly bug ridden first BETA, followed by a very colourful history up until Valve took over the project, up to the major cheating problem that arose and ending up somewhere with a much enjoyed game on a very aged engine. CS has had more face lifts than I care to remember, and I have seen quite a few over the last five years, of course not excusing Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. And, just when we all thought it couldn’t get any better, Valve have once again breathed a new lease of life into a game that has origins going back to 1999. And have they succeeded? Without a doubt. And we all know Valve, right? We know full well that this certainly isn’t the end of Counter-Strike: Source. They still have a lot more to show us and in true Valve style the game will carry on getting updated all for the better, but at the moment, all I can say is – unbeatable. Buy this game as soon as you can – you won’t be disappointed.

PROS:

• Classic Counter-Strike game play with a brand new look
• Fantastic and hilarious physics
• Most of your favourite maps are back and better than ever
• Bananas

CONS:

• Some engine bugs and compatibility errors
• Some of your favourite maps aren’t back
• No chickens
• The physics can be 'bouncy'

Our Rating: 89%