The
History of Counter-Strike
Possessing such 1337 skillz, it’s hard to believe that
this individual didn’t actually start playing CS until
about 1.3. I remember it like it was yesterday, the
entire structure and gameplay of CS had been implemented
and the thing was at a prime for giving people a break
from the monotony of single player games. All the
weapons were there, the game didn’t crash that much and
if it did, it was usually down to the users PC being
crap! But anyway, I don’t want to be starting this
article in the middle of the development of CS, I want
to start in the most obvious place; the start, cue
nostalgic distorting wiggly lines and let’s go go go!
CS BETA 1.0 [6.19.99]
Ahh Beta 1.0, where it all started, the beginning of a
franchise that not only changed the world in terms of
multiplayer gaming, but induced small quantities of
malicious acts within the community members, but we’ll
talk about THAT later!
Now, I must tell you that I haven’t actually played a
lot of these versions, I may know about them, but I
definitely have not played them so first hand experience
is somewhat of a dream right now!
You’d be surprised at how little the original (but not
best) version of CS included as opposed to its current
state. It sported very little maps, very little weapons
and crashed more than a pissed woman in a car with
greased tires. It didn’t even have any defuse maps so
all you could do is rescue the stupid hostages on maps
like ‘siege’ and ‘Manson’ which might I add, are pretty
bad. I’m not going to lie to you; it plain sucked.
Despite this though, the game was of a considerable
threat to single player games and developers across the
globe were wetting their pants at the fear of being
out-done by a bunch of bedroom coders.
What more can I say? Although being the basis, the
foundation for glory, the beginning of a mighty game, it
sucked, I mean, it really sucked. In terms of stability
and overall features I mean, but then again, it was only
the start, I’m not knocking that!
CS BETA 1.1 [6.27.99]
It wasn’t that long until beta 1.1 was released (you
probably got that with your ability to read the
headers), a mere 8 days in fact, and although there
weren’t many exterior differences, those of the interior
simply blew your mind, metaphorically speaking of
course!
To the pleasure of all those who beat the crap out of
their systems as a result of the game crashing after
they obtained a l337 score, the stability of the game
was increased MASSIVELY and gamers could play ‘til their
eye balls crusted over and their hands fell subject to
random arthritic-based diseases! And they did! Don’t be
fooled though, they didn’t stop the crashes totally,
then again, give me a game that never crashes ever!
One thing that surprised me was that there weren’t
actually any added weapons in this patch, you’d think
that they’d be one of the development focal points, but
to be honest, new weapons weren’t added until beta 2.0.
The only thing related to weapons in this patch was the
extra firing mode added to the Glock, not that it made
much of a vast improvement. You bag yourself a Glock and
face a guy with a USP and we’ll see who wins, then
again, you could be l3370R… Ah well.
We also got the usual extra maps and fixes added, but
there’s STILL no sign of anything but hostage rescue, it
must’ve got boring after a while. But “FEAR NOT!” I told
them, and they didn’t. In time to come extra gameplay
modes were added, but that’s a subject for later! One
map that you’ll no doubt recognize is cs_siege. You may
know it because it’s a really crappy map that has a
brain-crippling echo in it, or you may know it because
the author killed himself shortly after making the map.
There’s some other crap in there that you’re probably
not interested in like the addition of the friendly fire
command for server admins. There, I told you anyway,
despite being heavily vague about it!
CS BETA 1.2 - [7.20.99]
Unfortunately, this version once again didn’t deliver
any diversity in game modes, it was a very upsetting
time and I for one cried myself to sleep on several
occasions. In fact, there’s almost nothing to say about
1.2, it didn’t add any new maps, it didn’t add any new
weapons, all it did really was refine what was
previously there! What more can I say? No really?
CS BETA 2.0 - [8.13.99]
I’d like to point out (no doubt you already noticed)
that there has been a substantial jump between updates
(1.2 to 2.0). No, I wasn’t cutting some out to decrease
my workload because I’m not that dishonest, in fact, the
reason there’s such a gap is because the releases that
fill the gap weren’t actually betas, they were just
versions, so I thought it’d be better to separate them
in order to avoid confusion which may result in offence
or violent outbursts towards me!
Now THIS release was very exciting, I’m struggling to
keep my trousers dry over it all. Not only did 2.0 have
extra weapons (Sig SG-552 Commando , AK-47 , Desert
Eagle), it also adding some things that you don’t know
how you’d live without in CS, like the round timer, how
on earth did we live without that? Before we were simply
stumbling around in a disorganized and untimely manner
probably knocking into walls and shooting everything but
the other team.
From what I believe, the M4 originally had a scope on
the top of it bound to secondary fire, but
unfortunately, this was replaced with the silencer in
2.0. Now, despite popular belief, the silencer on the M4
doesn’t make it more accurate. Many a time have I had
arguments with people who will remain anonymous who
claimed that they were shooting more accurately with the
M4 after being silenced when this is actually quite
stupid. Although, in real life and in theory the gun
SHOULD be more accurate with the silencer on purely
because the barrel is lengthened, in CS, this type of
logic doesn’t apply for some reason unbeknownst to me.
Follow me carefully, go into CS, bag yourself an M4 and
stand still with the weapon still as well. Take a good,
long, hard look at the crosshairs for the M4 with the
silencer off, and then put it on. If you have vision
atleast slightly better than a moles, then you’ll no
doubt notice that the crosshairs separate ever so
slightly meaning the gun is getting less accurate! In
your face!
Going back to the things that we just couldn’t live
without in CS now, the other thing I was intending to
mention was the round win score. When you hit tab in CS,
you probably know that to the right of the
‘Counter-Terrorist’ or ‘Terrorist’ labels, there is a
number showing the amount of rounds the specific team
has won! How DID we live without that one? I for one
have NO idea! That splendid contraption known as the
night vision goggles was also introduced in this update.
They opened up a whole new world of buying them on
perfectly lit maps and turning them on and off just to
hear the funky noise they made, well, I thought it was
fun.
Other than that, 2.0 once again just updated the
existing things, making improvements and/or changes
where they felt necessary to gain a better performance
or experience for the player.
CS BETA 2.1 - [8.17.99]
Well, Beta 2.1 was about as exciting as the Myst games,
not only did it add hardly anything of interest, it took
something out that I think is pretty funny! Now, for you
people who’ve played Unreal Tournament (UT) or any other
game that involves some sort of user-enabled
teleportation device, you should be familiar with what’s
known as ‘telefragging’. For those ‘n00bs’ out there
though, I’ll just fill you in. Basically, (using UT as
my example), if you get the Translocator, you can
teleport yourself around the map by firing this little
disc thingy. It’s normally used for getting to high
places in a map or for getting your busted-ass away from
some Flak-sporting monkey! In this case though, if you
fire the little disc thingy (technical name) between the
legs of your foe, then hit the teleport button, you get
zapped inside your enemy and they exploded in a shower
of red mist and giblets! Beautiful! You see, you’re
fragging, with the teleportation system! Tele-fragging!
Yeah? Yeah? Well anyway the terrible map cs_alley used
to do this. It wasn’t actually telefragging because
you’ve probably noticed that there isn’t a teleportation
system in CS. This is how this one works, in the mapping
process, you have to lay down certain functions that
show where the player will spawn and if you get a map
that telefrags, it simply means two of these functions
have been placed in the same vicinity and we all know
that two beings can’t exist in the same space at the
same time don’t we? Therefore one of them dies, leaving
whatever team it happens to with one less player, and
that’s just plain unfair! So yeah, they removed that
from cs_alley.
Once again there was also some additional fixes, AK
price, assault sky texture etc. Stuff that’s not that
interesting!
CS BETA 3.0 - [9.14.99]
Now 3.0 is the stuff that dreams are made of. Also, you
know that feeling you get when you wake up thinking
you’ve got work/school/college etc, then realize it’s
the weekend, turn over and go back to sleep? Yeah, 3.0
is made of that!
Here’s a little story for you; One time, not so long
ago, I was having a whale of a time bangin’ around on
CS. The map was Italy, the team was Counter-Terrorists,
and the situation? Well, let’s just say we were 0wning
them! The terrorists had taken a beating and were down
to about 2 people so I took advantage of the situation
and thought I’d head over to the house and bag me some
hostages who, in the long run, will mean money and guns
for me! I ran along the side and jumped up the crates,
crouched in the window and ‘used’ the hostages (my
hostage skins are naked women so saying I ‘used’ them is
greatly amusing! For me anyway!) I tore away from the
building with little dollar signs rolling in my eyes and
hands clenched tightly around the mouse ready to make
sudden movements if some punk-ass terrorist comes along
with the intent of ruining my money making scheme. For
those of you who will understand, I went through the
house part and came out at that window thingy that some
people find it hard to get into if they’re playing as
CTs. Making a full-on leap out the building I legged it
down the path towards CT spawn running over all the
different things I could buy, when I turned round, only
to realize that I was being followed by none other than,
well, no-one. My hostages had gone. “Someone’s killed
them” I thought as I stormed deeper into the map with a
murderous rage burning within me. I back-tracked the
path I had taken that I thought was going to seal my
victory, and it would’ve done, I soon realized, if the
hostages hadn’t got themselves caught on the wall just
behind the window I had previously leaped through. I
jumped into the window and poked and prodded the
hostages until they noticed they had functional legs and
began following me again. “This is it Adam”, I thought.
“This is where you get loads of money and buy M4s, and
Shotguns, and Paras”. I jumped down from the window,
this time actually being followed by the hostages and
before I knew what had happened, some ‘punk-ass’
terrorist managed to nail me from 20 yards away with a
rather sweet, but rather annoying headshot. The moral of
this story is, don’t trust terrorists… Only joking;
Don’t go get the hostages unless you know damn well that
you’re going to make it back to the rescue point because
unless you want a little escapade resembling mine, I
suggest you let someone else take the downfall!
Now THAT story was in the later stages of CS, and as
you’ve probably worked out, the hostage paths were
terrible, and still are, and before Beta 3.0, the paths
were even WORSE which no-doubt resulted in a few
suicides among the Counter-Strike community. So THAT’S
why 3.0 is made of the things stated within the first
few lines, because it made improvements on the hostage
AI and although it’s still pretty damn ghastly, it’s
workable… Sometimes!
Hmm, yes! Remember how satisfying it is to kill someone
with the knife in CS when you hear a clicking noise
emanating from your opponents gun? Well, if it weren’t
for 3.0, you wouldn’t be able to partake in such
‘lol-inducing’ events. It was only in 3.0 that the knife
was added and I don’t know about you, but I’m quite glad
it was!
Those are pretty much the main things that happened in
3.0, on to 3.1.
CS BETA 3.1 - [9.16.99]
Hmm, I must say 3.1 was a tad disappointing whilst being
quite good at the same time. Good for little annoying
tweaks that you don’t really care about, but bad for an
article being put on a popular Counter-Strike-based site
that requires information that people are interested in!
Yes.
CS BETA 4.0 - [11.5.99]
As you can probably see from the content in this
article, I’m a fan of new and exciting things in CS like
new maps and weapons. They make me feel warm inside!
That’s why I consider Beta 4.0 to be on par with cookies
and milk (full fat milk that is, the creamiest of them
all). “Why?” I hear you ask? But yes you’ve guessed it,
more weapons, more maps and one word: ‘w00t’!
Now, I’ve always been a hater of AWPs (AWMs to be
meticulous), they’re too powerful, one shot kill, and
they ruin some maps like Militia for example. I
personally believe that they require no real skill, you
have to hit them once in the chest, head or abdomen to
kill them, and once in the legs or arms to cripple them
to just over 10hp. This is where Beta 4.0 comes in, yeah
okay, it gave us Dust, yeah okay it added the defusal
scenario, but the most prominent thing it did was add
the Steyr Scout, probably second most skill-dependant
weapon in CS (first being the Glock on Semi-auto firing
mode). You see, with the scout, it takes TWO hits to the
chest to kill, meaning if you want to remove someone
without them pummeling you a bit first, you have to get
a headshot and that isn’t possible unless you’re highly
skilled with it. See? SKILL!
As I mentioned earlier, 4.0 delivered us Dust, one of
two of the greatest maps out of the rather vast
selection made for CS. Some people consider it to be a
bit shitty now because it’s been over-played and now
deemed a ‘n00by map’, but a lot of people still love it,
that’s why a Paintball arena is being made out of it,
check out http://www.playdust.co.uk/. There’s going to
be C4 bombs and everything! Looks like a bunch of UK
geeks are at it again. What WILL they think of next?