As one of the remaining active players, you became a brief celebrity. You’re watching, tensely, to see if your team can pull out a win. As a spectator, the rest of the round becomes something akin to a sport. This penalty box was a “spectator mode” where you and the rest of the dead followed the remaining players as they finished the round.

When you died, you sat the rest of the round out. Each player only had one life per round, with no way to heal. Third, CS had a unique approach to teamplay. All guns were plenty lethal, after all, and a skilled player could kill someone with a pistol as easily as they could with a rifle or SMG. Money was then used for better guns, ammo, and armor – rewarding the victors and punishing the losers, while that intense damage model ensured the losers were never at an unfair disadvantage. Over the course of a match, the team that won rounds earned more money. Second, there was a mini progression system going on. Players used to running into gunfire and grabbing med kits later (like any late 90s shooter) got swatted down handily, while those who had refined their mouse skills to target enemies’ melons could pull off instant kills. First, the damage model was exceptionally unforgiving for the time, and especially favored headshots. The short answer is that it rewarded skill. With these qualifications in mind, allow me to briefly explain “the point” of CS to our non-multiplaying readers. Those four hostages you rescue may be the entire company.

I just realized that “Office” has no cubicles. That’s about two years worth of headshots, AWP whoring, and bomb planting. 1.6 became the new home for my clan when our previous game shut down, and though I was never particularly in love with Counter-Strike, the clan ties caused me to stick with it for about a year after CS: Source. I’m quite guilty of poo-pooing today’s kids with their foolish “Black Ops” and “Halos.” Who wants to spend time running around pretending to shoot each other all day in a game you can’t even complete? What a waste! Then along comes Counter-Strike: Global Operations, reminding me of the many hours of original CS I put in during my own misspent youth.

Game counter strike condition zero