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2 months ago
Look, competitive Counter-Strike is nice and all, but on the 20th anniversary of v1.0 I do find myself consumed with dreams of a wholly different CS skill: surfing. It's the freestyle skating to proper CS's baseball, using a movement glitch to skid, glide, and soar through maps filled with abstract shapes. It is stylish as all hell. And people race surfing! Or you could go…
It was 20 years ago today that version 1.0 of Counter-Strike launched, boasting iconic maps like Dust and Italy. But what about the maps that didn't make it out of beta? CS had over twenty which bounced around betas but were cut by the full release, including all the maps representing one entire mode. I revisited the cut beta maps today and was surprised by…
Happy 20th birthday to Counter-Strike, the first live service game
On the 9th of November, 2000, Valve released version 1.0 of Counter-Strike. The tactical shooter had started as a Half-Life mod in beta the year before, originally created by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe, and became the star of the scene. It's weird to say now, but a twitchy teamplay FPS with a grounded paramilitary setting and realistic style really did stand out. V1.0…
5 months ago
Years of CS:GO replays will be investigated for coach exploits
Coaches eh? They're meant to be a great help for improving your game, but it seems some sneaky Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams have taken that to mean peeking where they're not allowed during high-stakes competitive games. Now, the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) is raking through years of demos to find these meddlesome cameramen, with the suggestion that they might go easy on folks who own…
9 months ago
Feature: And what does fy_ stand for?
I frequent a Counter-Strike level design forum called Mapcore. There, a Dutch teenager who goes by “RD” (“RealDespair”) has long claimed to have been the original author of fy_iceworld. His now defunct portfolio site went on a lengthy rant about it:“Yes, you read it right. I am the creator of this unholy monster. When i created this map i had absolutely no idea how popular…
Feature: According to designers at Valve, Digital Extremes and more
The legacy of fy_iceworld, Counter-Strike’s divisive and hugely popular custom map
I remember playing a Counter-Strike map in 2001 called fy_iceworld. It was a small simple grey killbox of a map that virtually anyone could’ve made within the first few hours of downloading the editor tools.fy_iceworld quickly became one of the most popular and divisive CS maps at my school. I was, of course, one of the haters. I tried to convince my friends to vote…
11 months ago
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive hit a new record high playercount this weekend
While Counter-Strike has long seemed one of those games that might just have found its final form and will now be around forever, I am surprised that it's still breaking its own records. Over the weekend, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive set a new record for the number of people in-game online at the same time, beating a record set in April 2016. That was back before…
1 year ago
Counter-Strike’s creator will reveal MMO shooter PLAN 8 next week
The dramatically named Korean developer Pearl Abyss has three new games whirring away on their development PCs. The developers of Black Desert Online are working on three new MMOs: one shooter from the creator of Counter-Strike, one child-friendly jaunt, and one fantasy game. The three games have a proper reveal planned for on November 14, during Pearl Abyss Connect at G-STAR 2019. For now, we…
3 years ago
The beta for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s shiny new UI, Panorama, is now available to players who fancy a preview. Valve is touting it as “the most substantial change to the look and feel of CS:GO since the game was released in 2012.” Every part of the UI has been updated, so it might take a bit of time to get used to.
4 years ago
A new mod for Dark Souls mixes the brutal action-RPG with Counter-Strike's mod Gun Game (or CS:GO's Arms Race mode, if you'd rather). Much as Gun Game rewards Counter-Strikers with new weapons for killing other players, the DaS_GG mod gives the Chosen Undead levels and fancier weapons for whacking folks. Oh, but it takes them away as you get hit. Even if you know Lordran…
Though Half-Life [official site] is almost nineteen years old and its sanctioned fan remake Black Mesa is nearing completion, Valve have launched a wee patch for their pretty okay or whatever vintage FPS. The patch fixes a few crashes and exploits, and hit other Half-Life engine games too, such as classic Counter-Strike. Given how much of modern PC games history connects to Half-Life and its…
Feature: Dedicated to you
I've been a member of many games communities over the years - clans, guilds, forums - but the one I remember most fondly was a server.
Feature: Tracing back Tracer, among others
Developers imitate each other, as do writers, musicians and artists, and Blizzard are the best in the business at it. No other company is so good at distilling the sweat of another’s brow and refining it into pure, unadulterated joy. Yet, while it’s easy to see in Overwatch the objective-based gameplay of Team Fortress 2, the team dynamics of League of Legends or the creative…
Happy 20th birthday, Valve! Yesterday. Happy 20th yesterday. Sorry, I only just saw the Facebook notification. On August 24th, 1996, ex-Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington made a beautiful baby who was mighty eye-opening.In the dreamy game of "What if...?" one curious hypothetical is: what if Valve never existed? There can't be many companies who've had nearly as much impact. Steam (eventually) revolutionised digital…
5 years ago
Feature:
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every weekday of the year, perhaps for all time.Not the original mod. Not Global Offensive or Condition Zero. I'm talking about Counter-Strike: Source, the remake that brought terrorists and counter-terrorists to the Half-Life 2 engine - and for some reason, was never fully embraced by the audience.
American media conglomerate Turner Broadcasting and talent agency WME/IMG plans to show 20 live Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site] events on US television next year as part of a league series after brokering a successful deal with Valve.
Feature: The original, that is
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.Not Global Offensive. Not Source. I'm talking the original Counter-Strike. The Half-Life mod; the game that was more popular than its online competitors combined; the game that in many ways pioneered both games as services and games as playable alphas; the game that spawned…
Feature: RPS Chat v0.86
Early Access games are here to stay, but is that cause for concern or celebration? We gathered to discuss whether early access benefits developers or players in its current state, and how we'd make it better. Along the way, we discussed the best alpha examples, paying for unfinished games, our love of regularly updated mods, Minecraft and the untapped potential of digital stores.
6 years ago
Feature: Pop Flash #2
In Pop Flash, a series of insights into Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site], Emily Richardson looks past the amazing clutches and crushing defeats to understand the culture and meta of Valve’s everlasting competitive FPS.This week, I’ll be discussing abuse and toxic behaviour in the CS:GO community. Before we get to it, let me reiterate that I am madly in love with Counter-Strike. It’s simply one…
If I close my eyes and think of childhood memories and the spaces that contain them, my mind might touch upon a bedroom, a school playground or a muddy playing field, but it might just as easily come to rest upon Q2DM1, Q3DM17 or de_prodigy. The angles and textures and travel times of certain multiplayer maps are seared into my brain through repetition, their tiny…
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