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Counter-Strike: Source

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Counter-Strike: Source (commonly shortened to CS:S or simply Source) is a computer game developed by Valve Corporation. It is a complete remake of Counter-Strike 1.6 using the Source engine and taking several features from Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. As in the original, Counter-Strike: Source pits a team of Counter-Terrorists against a team of Terrorists in a series of rounds. Each round is won either by completing a mission (such as detonating a bomb or rescuing hostages) or by eliminating all members of the opposing team.

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[edit] Gameplay

Counter-Strike: Source inherits characteristics from both Half-Life 2, through the look and feel conveyed through textures and movement, and its predecessor, Counter-Strike 1.6, maintaining the gameplay style of its predecessor. The basic gameplay of two teams, terrorists and counter-terrorists, squaring off against each other in a series of rounds in which each team must either complete their objective or eliminate the opposition, has remained unchanged. The two most common types of objectives are bombing and hostages. In competitive play, only maps with bombing objectives are used, since the AI of the hostages has not been improved over previous iterations, and is prone to a number of problems.

[edit] Differences from CS 1.6

See: Gameplay differences between CS 1.6 and CS: Source

In addition to changes in graphics and sound, other aspects of gameplay have been modified. For example, the weapon recoil has been modified since its predecessor, and is noticeably different from that experienced in CS 1.6[1]. In addition, flashbang grenades have been visually modified to take advantage of Source, and are typically more powerful and effective than in previous games.

[edit] Customization

Because of the large fan-base that Counter-Strike: Source has accumulated, there are a wide variety of different customizations and add-ons that can be used with the game. There is a large fanbase for the game that creates customized sounds, textures, weapon skins, and player skins. However, under the rules of Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC), models for objects within maps cannot be edited, so that a player using a different model other than the standard does not have an advantage over another person.

[edit] Maps

Maps are frequently made by players for the game, and the easy-to-access Valve Hammer Editor allows anybody to create their own. The number and types of custom maps (and custom map categories) for the game is constantly rising[2], meaning that most people can find something to their taste.

[edit] Modifications

Like many other modern first-person shooter games, Counter-Strike: Source has been heavily "modded" by its developer community. Server-side gameplay customizations are typically implemented using Valve's Source SDK for Server Plugins, in the form of plug-ins. Server-side mods like SourceMod and EventScripts build on to the basic RCON commands as well as with the gameplay customizations.

The Quake Sound Pack is a popular game sounds pack available with SourceMod. The sounds includes clips such as "First blood!" and "Holy shit!", and are all from Unreal Tournament 2003 (in spite of its name, "Quake" Sound Pack). The only sounds from Quake are "Prepare to Fight!" and "Humiliation".

Unlike the normal game modes which are objective based, Deathmatch (DM) games are exactly as the name suggests - the only goal for the players is to eliminate as many opposing players as possible, although defeated players "respawn" instantly, as opposed to at the start of a new round. Players of Deathmatch maps are given the choice of guns, and can change them once per round.

[edit] Skins/Models

The ability to add new models and skins using the Source SDK to CS:S allows for a large amount of customization. Skins (or textures) refers to the actual images applied to parts of the game — the player models, weapon models, and even maps themselves can be "reskinned" (or "retextured") by anybody. Models refers to the actual 3D-elements displayed on screen - VAC offers a server side variable to ensure only certain models and materials are used (enabled by the console command "sv_pure 1") intending to stop material based wallhacks etc. however, not all servers use these limitations as they are optional.

Models can be changed either by the player by adding files to their cstrike folder, or by the server they are playing on using a server side plugin such as SourceMod. The difference is that if a player changes a model on their own machine, only that player will see the changes; However if the model is altered by a server-side plugin or tool, then the model that the player wearing is seen by everyone on that server at that time but the player can also edit those models too.

[edit] History

Counter-Strike: Source was initially released as a beta to members of the Valve Cyber Café Program on August 11, 2004.[3][4] On August 18, 2004 the beta was released to owners of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and those who had received a Half-Life 2 voucher bundled with some ATI Radeon video cards.[5]

On October 11, 2006, Valve released an experimental update, Dynamic Weapons Pricing. Under this system, item prices are determined based on their demand the previous week.[6][7][8] Even before the system was released there was vocal opposition from the community.[9][10] Other updates, such as an enhanced radar system, have been generally accepted as a positive enhancement.

[edit] References

  1. ↑ counter-strike Source beta guide - CS-Nation
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[edit] External links

v • d • e
The Counter-Strike series
GoldSrc
Source
Counter-Strike: Source · Condition Zero: Source
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