n00b unfriendly

Counter-strike. That name probably rings a bell for most gamers, it being the most popular online action game in the world. After a while, I decided to try it out to see what the fuss was about. I didn't know where to actually buy the game in a stand-alone package until I found it at a game shop.

Now Counter-strike source is team-based online first-person shooter. The concept sounds pretty simple on paper, Terrorists must plant a bomb and Counter-Terrorists must diffuse it or eliminate the terrorists. Besides the slight differences in the arsenal of weapons each team gets, there's not much difference between them.

While it sounds easy, go out and shoot the other team, the game is actually one of the most difficult games to get into.

First of all, friendly fire is always on, no matter what, so naturally people just getting in the game will shoot at anything they see. This doesn't go over well with your teammates as you'll be facing an onslaught of just about any and every swear word you can think of. It also doesn't help that there's no username or color identification on anyone so you'll inevitably mistake your teammates for the enemy countless times. However when you do finally kill someone, it's a great feeling and it makes you feel like you accomplished something...on your computer for the past two hours.

Determined to improve, I eventually learned to quickly differ my team from the enemy. Thinking the game couldn't get anymore user-unfriendly, I noticed another horrible feature. You only have one life. Suffice to say, if your just trying to get a feel for things, it makes it alot harder. For those that are saying "Well it forces you to work as a team" let me say this. THERE IS NO TEAMWORK. Every round is you going off, either 1.Following everyone else 2.Your already dead. There's something I like to call the "shootout phase". Basically there's a couple spots on each level where the two teams confront eachother. Usually after the shootout phase there's about four or five survivors and the rest of the match is you watching them, or being one of them. If your the guy with the bomb and looking for help, you'll be sorely mistaken. It's also funny how people call this a "fast-paced" shooter, but really I think it slows down the pace of the game for obvious reasons. The communication is awful and usually has one Eisenhower wannabe saying "Do this, do that" (with alot more swearing) or a lunatic that just escaped from an insane asylum screaming random crap like a banshee. Getting called names isn't a rare occurance in Counter-strike, and after a few rounds you'll be begging for a mute button.

One unique thing that Counter-strike does is the buy menu. Before each round you're given the opportunity to buy whatever primary, secondary, grenades or other tools like faster bomb diffusers or armor you want. Of course making money means you have to kill more people. And if you don't have money, you get the cream of the crap weapons which means you can't kill anyone...get it? There's also a couple of other small, innovations like being able to leave a "tag" which is basically just a small picture, anywhere you want. Of course people thought this was a great opportunity to make pornographic tags...can't say I'm surprised really.

Speaking of weapons, You'll learn VERY quickly which one's are good, and which one's aren't. For example, there's an infamous sniper rifle that kills people in one shot. It's very hard to master of course, but don't worry, there's plenty of people that have mastered it...and then some. It's annoying when you have a pea shooter and some guy has a sniper rifle that kills you with one hit. Do I have to remind you, you only get one life per round?

The graphics are well done. CSS uses the "source" engine used by Half-life 2 so naturally the physics are great and the character models are top notch.

After all is said an done though, Counter-strike proved to be a really fun action game. After all, no one said it would be easy to get into, just fun. To say it takes practice is a serious under statement, to be anywhere close to decent requires alot of hours. It'll no doubt turn some people off instantly who just want to play here and there.

While being titled "Counter-strike: source", the box actually contains two more games. "Day of Defeat: Source", which is basically counter-strike in World War 2. I actually preferred Day of Defeat to counter-strike because
1.You respawn after every death. 2. There's more strategy involved because you have to take over certain points of the map. 3. There's classes instead of the dumb buy menu. Day of Defeat is definitely the game for those people who want a REAL fast paced shooter and don't have to worry about waiting for rounds to end.

I found the maps in DOD to be more up my alley as well. There's more places for you to hide and overall are more expansive and free-roaming. Again, it's by no meens easy, but it's much easier and funner to get into.

The last game and probably the least appealing is "Half-life 2:Deathmatch". Don't get me wrong, Half-Life 2 was one of my favorite games of all time and it was like a dream come true "Finally, I can use the gravity gun in multiplayer!" but for some reason it just wasn't as fun as I had hoped.

If you can picture Half-life 2, with multiplayer, than you know exactly what to expect. You're all humans, using the weapons from the Half-life universe, nothing more, nothing less.

Overall, Counter-strike source is a fun and cheap package. Day of Defeat:Source is enough for me to recommend it but you still get two more half-decent games. You've been warned though, all of the games will be frustrating initially. However I was simply just an average gamer who liked first-person shooters and ended up enjoying all of the games.