Counter-Strike 1: Anthology (PC) > Reviews > Play your part in the War on Terror!

Author's product rating:   

Playability & Enjoyment	Excellent - very playable game
Graphics	OK
Sound	Good - relevant music & effects
Difficulty & Complexity	Quite a simple game not too complicated

Advantages:	Addictive, fun and will give you useful combat knowledge in the event of conscription
Disadvantages:	You may waste away your life playing this game

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I am only reviewing the game Counter Strike itself, as this is the only game in the anthology worth playing in my opinion. Also included in this is Condition Zero, which is essentially Counter Strike with cosmetically altered maps and a slightly different playing style. It does include a single player, which is fun the first time you do it, but fails to give you any satisfaction if repeated more than once. Definitly worth buying the anthology for Counter Strike alone, as this game is the dogs bollocks.

Counter Strike is essentially a terrorist/counter terrorist first person shooter based on the half-life 1 engine. It involves two teams who have opposing objections, either protection or rescuing of hostages or defusal or explosion of a bomb. These objectives are repeated throughout the game, but seem rather pointless at times, with terrorists trying to blow up a baron bombsite with nothing but a few measly boxes occupying it. The hostages you encounter all seem to be mentally challenged and will not move till you have made contact with them. God forbid that you should stray 10 metres from them, as they will invariably resort to standing round aimlessly whilst bullets whiz past them, again waiting to be rescued. Rounds are won by either completion of the objective or by brutally gunning down or stabbing all of the opposing team. For younger players gore can be turned down with a content lock, however in a game that is over 10 years old the gore is too unrealistic to cause any distress.

There are a number of maps available to play, some of which were created by valve (the people behind counter strike) and some that were created by members of the counter strike community. Maps range from the typical terrorist infested building to the bizarre, with one even being called fy_penisland and involving a large cock and balls on an island. The variety of maps gives the game longevity, but everyone is bound to pick favourites, with some obviously being better than others.

The game itself can be played either in a public server, where members of the public join an open server, or can be played as a match whereby two teams will play in a password protected server. This adds a new dimension to first person shooters, as in public servers the level of play if fairly low and involves a lot of people generally dicking about. In match servers however there is a lot more communication and strategy involved, which obviously makes for a higher standard of gaming. I have had endless fun playing in public servers (pubs) and in matches, both of which can be played around the clock.

A vice of the counter strike community is the cheater or hacker. Widely available for download are hacks or cheats, which will give you any number of advantages over your legitimate opponents. These start with the modest wall hack or esp, which essentially allows you to see your opponents through walls, thereby giving you a massive advantage. Note that it is possible for people to shoot through walls and kill the person who is unfortunate enough to be on the other side. Hacks then get a little more extreme, with say for example the aimbot, which will allow you to automatically aim on to someone's head and kill them with a single shot. Combine this with a speed hack, increases speed between 1.5 and 100x, and you can kill the entire enemy team in some 15 seconds or so. It then gets even more ridiculous with the spinbot, which essentially makes you spin round extremely quickly and can again be combined with other hacks to give you a godlike advantage over your enemies. I would recommend people to try hacking at some point, although not at the very start, as it improves your game and gives you a greater sense of where enemies tend to be. Please note that hacking can result in a permanent ban from all VAC secure servers and you will have the shell out the princely sum of $10 to buy another copy of the game. VAC is essentially a programme that can track people using hacks and once a hack is detected will give you a delayed banning, can be up to 2 weeks, from all VAC secure servers. Note that you can hack and not be banned, you just have to be sure that the hacks you are using are not yet detected by VAC. There is however no guarantee that hacks will be VAC secure, as with all underground or illegitimate elements in games there is no certainty that they will be secure or that they will even work.

Be aware than in order to play counter strike you will need to download steam. This is basically a programme which allows you to update the game, access game servers, buy more games and so on. This however is simple to do and will cost you nothing.

Essentially, counter strike is a game that will give you many hours of enjoyment and all at the bargain price of $10, the price of a large kebab. It will keep you amused for hours and is a great way of catching up with friends who may be hundreds or even thousands of miles away. The appeal and popularity of this game is clear, with it being over 10 years old and still being one of the most popular first person shooters around today.