When Counter-Strike (CS) beta 1 arrived on the scene back in 1999, a lot of us were too wrapped up in Team Fortress Classic, Ultima Online, and EverQuest to take much notice. One year later, even before the release of the first non-beta version of this free modification for Half-Life, it had come to dominate the multiplayer shooter scene, and was on its way to a level of popularity unsurpassed by any of its competitors to this day.
My first experience with it came at an Internet cafe in the summer of 2000, where so many people were playing that the whole place echoed with cries of "Fire in the hole!" It wasn't hard to get up to speed on the concept, but it was a definite challenge to keep yourself alive for more than a few minutes in a round. The move toward realism was a welcome one, and it started a trend which arguably still hasn't stopped. Counter-Strike was rough around the edges at the time. Many features had not yet been implemented, there were bugs and exploits, hostage pathing was terrible, and some of the maps were horribly imbalanced, but even in that testosterone drenched cafe, it was clear that none of these things would hold the game back.
Although developers have been trying to repeat the uncanny success of Counter-Strike ever since, it continues to garner more players than the Battlefield and Unreal Tournament series combined. There are many reasons for this aside from CS being a great game, not least of which was the popularity of Half-Life itself. The sheer momentum generated by a mod can go further than all the promotion money can buy, as a wide selection of servers and plenty of people to play with will in themselves make a multiplayer shooter more attractive. Nevertheless, CS obviously did something right to stay at the top of the genre in a rapidly growing market that is constantly offering more features, prettier graphics, better physics, and, in short, the next big thing.
Okay, it has a lot of players, but how do they really feel about the game? I've done a little research of my own by pitting CS against other leading multiplayer shooters in a series of polls. The results aren't scientific, but I wasn't expecting CS to perform quite as well as it has in the arena of public opinion.
Counter-Strike vs. Battlefield 1942
Currently 65 percent to 35 percent.
Counter-Strike vs. Unreal Tournament 2003
Currently 69 percent to 31 percent.
Counter-Strike vs. Halo
Currently 62 percent to 38 percent.
Counter-Strike vs. Call of Duty
Currently 58 percent to 42 percent.
Counter-Strike vs. Battlefield Vietnam
Currently 62 percent to 38 percent.
I'll try here to summarize some of the things to which Counter-Strike owes this high regard among gamers.
Realism
No more plasma guns, health packs, tombs of invulnerability, or spectacularly absurd rocket jumps. Not that some of those things aren't fun, it just doesn't happen that way in the real world. In the real world, you run out of ammo at a bad time, take one bullet in the head and die from it. Counter-Strike concentrated on providing a believable Terrorist vs. Counter-Terrorist experience, despite the fact that you knew you were coming back to life to fight the next round.
Realism can be a double-edged sword for game developers. On the one hand, people will approach the game with predetermined expectations based on the setting, meaning that if the AK-47 doesn't reload exactly like a real AK-47, someone is going to hear about it. On the other hand, it's easier for gamers to relate to an environment they are already familiar with.
Last Man Standing
Unlike most games that came before it, in CS everyone spawns at the same time, and when you die, you're out until the next round begins. This once very controversial approach has become one of the most treasured aspects the game, and any changes to it now would meet with formidable resistance. For starters, it makes the competition particularly intense. Dying has significant consequences - you can't just hit respawn and run back into the action two seconds later. It also eliminates the spawn camping many of us had experienced in earlier games, and which, ironically, plagues many newer titles to this day.
