|  Counter-Strike
The megahit modification for Half-Life hits store shelves -- but is there enough here to warrant your cash?
By - Sal "Sluggo" Accardo MOST PEOPLE READING THIS REVIEW probably belong to one of two groups - (a) you don't often play Counter-Strike (you may not even own Half-Life -- gasp!) - and are simply wondering what the fuss is about; (b) you're already a Counter-Strike If you're in category B, let's dispense with the formalities and skip down to what you need to know - what's new and what's included. For everyone else, however, a little background... What The Heck Is Counter-Strike? IN CASE YOU'VE BEEN LIVING under a rock, Counter-Strike started out as a hugely successful modification for Half-Life. The premise is simple: two teams - terrorists and counter-terrorists - battle it out in a series of matches, in which teams either try to accomplish an objective (e.g. planting and detonating a bomb, rescuing hostages, etc) or eliminate the entire enemy team. Part of the success of the game comes from the popular "realistic weapons / damage" formula so prevalent in the gaming community these days - military-style weaponry abounds, players rarely survive more than a few wounds and shooting accuracy is affected greatly by whether you're moving or not. Part of the fun is choosing which weapons to buy at the beginning each round, and it's these weapons (which are done extremely well) that are really the biggest star of the game. | It should come as no surprise that the driving force behind Counter-Strike is Minh "Gooseman" Le - veteran of other popular mods such as Navy Seals for Quake and Action Quake for Quake II. With some help from Valve and Barking Dog Studios, Counter-Strike evolved from a simple add-on for Half-Life to arguably the most popular action game on the Internet. Recent updates to the game interface make it really easy to jump into a game and also make setup a snap. The game itself is simple enough - pick a team, buy weapons, kill enemies, help your team win the round. The game is based on the ever-evolving Half-Life engine, so the graphics still stand up to today's competition. |
| The retail version contains 14 maps of differing scenarios and just about everything else Counter-Strike fans have come to know and love from the Internet version. If you enjoy action games (especially multiplayer) and you've never played Counter-Strike, you really owe it to yourself to check it out. Easy to learn, hard to master, it's easily one of the most addictive games around - you can play for five minutes or five hours, depending on how much time you have to kill (literally). | 
