Counter-Strike

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Counter-Strike is an awarded multi-player commercial modification for Half-Life. Its gameplay revolts around terrorists having a target and counter-terrorists preventing the terrorists from achieving that target. It can be purchased over Steam together with Condition Zero for $9.95.

History

Work on Counter-Strike begun in early 1999 as a fan-produced mod. Mihn Lee and Jess Cliffe, the creators, had created a Quake mod named Navy SEALs, played similar to Counter-Strike. they teamed up on making a mod for Half-Life.

In June the same year, Beta 1 was released. That release saw simple Deathmatch play in teams using mostly the same weapons as Half-Life. There was only one model for Terrorists and one for Counter-Terrorists, similar to the Counter-Strike Source beta.

By 2000, there were more people playing Counter-Strike than any other Half-Life based game, drawing the attention of Valve. Lee and Cliffe were offered jobs at Valve to work on their game full-time. They accepted and are since hired by Valve.

Characters

When a player joins a server, he or she gets the choice of what team to join - Terrorists or Counter-Terrorists. If the chosen team is not full the player is allowed into the team and gets to choose his or her model. The models of every team will be handled below.

Counter-Terrorists

All Counter-Terrorists teams in Counter-Strike are taken from the reality. There are four by default, five if playing Condition Zero multiplayer.

Seal Team Six

A Seal Team Six member, as seen in Condition Zero.

Seal Team Six is distinguished from the other models by its bright green uniform, giving good camouflage on maps such as de_aztec and de_chateu. In reality, ST-6 is an American anti-terrorist organization formed in the late 80's. Their assignment is to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States.

GSG-9

A GSG-9 Counter-Terrorist.

GSG-9 wear dark blue uniforms that are good as camouflage on maps such as de_aztec and cs_office. In reality, they were formed after the 1976 deaths of seven Israelic athletes in Munich.

GSG-9 are seen in the background of the main menu of Condition Zero. The likeness between their uniforms and those of Nova Prospekt Combine Soldiers is minor but should still be noted.

A SAS CT as seen on the model picking screen.

SAS

SAS wear dark grey uniforms that work well as camouflage on night-time maps and in dark corners. SAS is in reality a British Counter-Terrorist squad formed during the Second World War by David Stirling.

In-game the SAS wear full-face covering gas masks, being the only model in Counter-Strike that doesn't show at least the eyes.

GIGN

A GIGN Counter-Terrorist in-game.

The GIGN wear uniforms similar to those of the GSG-9. In reality GIGN (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale) is a French rapid response force created to handle Counter-Terrorist around the world. GIGN consists of no more than a hundred men, significantly small for a country the size of France.

Spetznaz

A Spetznaz as seen in Condition Zero.

Spetznaz is the russian anti-terrorist squad. Equipped with bright gray uniforms, perfectly camouflaged for snowy environments such as cs_office, the Spetznaz can only be played in Condition Zero.

Spetznaz is a word for, simply, Special Forces in Russia. The team is sent out around the whole of Russia to handle internal matters.

Terrorists

All the Terrorist classes in Counter-Strike are fictional. There are, as with Counter-Terrorists, four models by default, five if playing Condition Zero multiplayer.

Phoenix Connection

A Phoenix Connection member.

Phoenix Connection (Phoenix Connexion in-game) members wear dust coloured clothes, giving camouflage in maps such as de_dust or de_dust2. They wear face-covering ski masks, being completely black, these ski masks give enemies a target for headshots.

The Phoenix Connection is in fiction a Eastern European terrorist group, formed shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union. They have a habit of "killing everyone that gets in its way".

Elite Crew

Elite Crew terrorist..

Elite Crew members wear clothes coloured similarly to Phoenix Connection members, however the ski mask is missing, giving a flawless camouflage for de_dust and de_dust2.

Elite Crew is a joke concerning leetspeak (1337 Kr3w). Graffiti tags containing the terrorist factions name in leet can be found on certain maps. In Counter-Strike Source, the mesh for the head of the Elite Crew model is based on the discarded model of Gordon Freeman. In both Counter-Strike and Condition Zero the model lacks any likeness with Freeman.

According to the model picking screen the Elite Crew is a middle-eastern terrorist faction.

Arctic Avengers

An Arcic Avenger.

Arctic Avengers wear white camouflage uniforms including a hat. This gives perfect camouflage for snowy maps such as cs_office or fy_iceworld.

The fictional backstory about the Arctic Avengers is that they are a Swedish terrorist faction known for bombing a Canadian embassy in 1990.

Guerilla Warfare

A Guerilla Warfare terrorist.

Guerilla Warfare are a slightly Mexican-looking terrorist faction. Their clothes give moderate camouflage for darker maps and de_dust.

Fictionally they are, like the Elite Crew, also middle-eastern terrorists. Their "disgust for the American lifestyle was demonstrated in their 1982 bombing of a bus full of Rock and Roll musicians".

Midwest Militia

A Midwest Militia terrorist.

This terrorist faction is only available in Condition Zero.

Midwest Militants wear dark grey clothes that work good as camouflage for most situations. Their tendency to dark jackets gives trouble on maps such as de_dust, however.

A right-wing political American terrorist group. They were fictionally founded in 1993 after a fictional stand off in Waco, Texas.

Weapons system

Unlike Half-Life multiplayer, where weapons are found on the ground, and Day of Defeat, where weapons are static and depend on the class of the player, weapons of Counter-Strike follow another system - they are bought by the player. When the player either saves a hostage, kills an enemy, plants or disarms the bomb, they gain a sum of money. At the start of the next round, the money stays, allowing the player to make purchases of weapons. To prevent overbuying weapons, only one weapon of every slot in the inventory can be carried (excluding the Inventory slot)

Weapons can also be obtained by picking up weapons that have been dropped by other players - either dropped from the player obtaining a better weapon, the player clicking the "drop weapon" button or the player dying. Obtaining a weapon does not allow the player picking up the weapon to get any ammo it.

Gun Game

there are server plugins that disable the purchasing system and instead give players increasingly good weapons depending on kills. Such a Counter-Strike game is popularly called a Gun Game.

FY_ maps

Fy maps, usually carrying a fy_ tag before the map name, handle weapons in another fashion - buying weapons is disallowed for either team at start, and instead weapons are found on the ground. Popular fy_maps are fy_iceworld and fy_pool.

Official map types

There's a lot of custom made maps for Counter-Strike. Some invent rules of their own, some follow the rules that are in the official maps - the official map types will be taken care of below:

Demolition

The Terrorist team is issued with the task of planting a C4 bomb at any of the bomb sites - the Counter-Terrorist team must prevent that from happening, either by killing the entire Terrorist team or defusing the bomb if it has been planted.

Popular maps are de_dust and de_dust2.

Counter-Strike

The original game mode of the game that has the same name, Counter-Strike issues terrorists with protecting hostages and Counter-Terrorists with saving them. The Terrorist team must kill the entire CT team to win, and the CT team can win by either killing the entire terrorist team or rescuing the hostages to a Rescue Zone. If a terrorist kills a hostage, the terrorist loses a large amount of money.

Popular maps are cs_office and cs_italy.

It should also be noted that cs_ maps don't have to contain hostages - many custom maps use the cs_ rules as a basis for simple deathmatch play.

Assassination

Assassination turns one of the Counter-Terrorist players into a VIP - the other CTs must protect the VIP from dying. If the VIP is assassinated, the Terrorists win. If the VIP reaches the extraction point, CT's win.

One of the few official maps is as_oilrig.

Escape

Escape, a no longer existing game mode, revolved around a sort of reverse Assassination game mode - the Terrorists were tasked with escaping the map to an extraction point while the CTs were tasked with stopping them from doing that.

Escape was removed from the official map pack in 2000.

Counter-Strike: Source

Main page: Counter-Strike Source

Counter-Strike was ported to the Source engine of Half-Life 2 in 2004.