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View Full Version : Counterstrike Preview!



Brevity
06-06-2003, 06:36 PM
Source: Eurogamer


First person shooters, so the received wisdom of PC gaming goes, simply don't work on consoles. Take away the keyboard and mouse from a PC FPS ninja, shove a joypad into his hands, and you're left with a player who may not be able to stop staring at the ground and walking off cliffs, but could certainly moan about the rubbish controls to Olympic standards. To a certain degree, they have a point. If you're dealing with a "twitch" FPS game where reaction times and accuracy are vital, then the joypad is a cumbersome interface, and those rare FPS games which really work on consoles (GoldenEye, Halo, Metroid Prime) all work so well because they significantly rethink the weapon and interface conventions of the genre.

It's not surprising, then, that we approach Counter-Strike on the Xbox with a certain level of healthy suspicion. For those of you who aren't aware of it, Counter-Strike is the most popular online FPS game of all time, played by hundreds of thousands of people every night - and as hardcore FPS games go, they don't come much more hardcore. It's a far cry from the bouncy rocket-launcher approach of Quake-style games, favouring realistic weapons, fast kills and sneaky tactics - but when it comes down to it, it's the twitchiest of twitch games, requiring incredible accuracy and reaction times to place bullets exactly where they need to go - namely in the heads of your opposition, from about 200 yards away.

Translating that sort of game faithfully to the Xbox is, needless to say, a somewhat fraught proposition. There are other questions in our minds as well - for example, how will the complex purchasing system work on a console? In Counter-Strike, players receive money for their achievements and the achievements of their team - that money can then be used to buy guns, armour, ammunition and accessories such as grenades and bomb defusing kits at the start of the next round. The game is also unusual in that when you die, that's it - you're dead until the round ends (either because one of the teams is completely wiped out, or because an objective is achieved), and can only watch the rest of your teammates play. It works on the PC, but are console gamers so forgiving of tedium?

Let's answer the easy question first - namely, the purchasing system. Money in the game works exactly as it does in the PC version, with cash being allocated for kills, with a fat pot of cash for your team if you win a round, and a smaller pot for losing. You then buy weapons and other kit using a cunning circular menu system - push the analogue stick in the direction of the category of item you want, and press a button, then push towards the exact item you require and click to buy it. To speed matters up (so that you're not standing around forever buying guns at the start of a round), you can buy rifle and pistol ammunition with the triggers. It works very well, and we found that within a few rounds we could navigate to personal favourites like the Desert Eagle, MP5 and AK47 without even thinking about it.

The range of weapons available is broadly similar to the line-up of the PC game, but sports a number of additions. Some of these are weapons which will be seen in version 1.6 of Counter-Strike (coming any day now, honest!), but we're pretty sure there were some entirely new weapons in there as well, which is a nice addition. The balance of the weapons (in terms of firepower and accuracy) seems to be broadly similar to PC Counter-Strike as well - but the joypad control makes a definite difference to the weapons of choice. High-accuracy weapons become infinitely more difficult to score kills with, and we found ourselves switching from the likes of our beloved Colt M4A1s to weapons with a high rate of fire and decent spread such as the P90 or the Steyr Aug.

Their site (http://eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=52255)
http://eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a52255/1.jpg
http://eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a52255/2.jpg
http://eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a52255/3.jpg

Variation-XBA
06-06-2003, 06:40 PM
Other than Halo2 (duh), this is my most looking forward to game, all cause live and downloadable/makable levels :)

BigJosh359
06-06-2003, 06:42 PM
Guess what!

XBA has screenshots too! (http://www.xboxaddict.com/products/profile/product.php?Product_ID=650)

Does anyone ever look at the screenshots on XBA?

SPARTAN VI
06-06-2003, 06:43 PM
When does this come out Brev?:D

When we play, dont surprised if you see me and Koopa using 1337 5P34K on the mics, thatll be some funny crap. :D

Brevity
06-06-2003, 06:58 PM
Originally posted by Josh-XBA
Guess what!

XBA has screenshots too! (http://www.xboxaddict.com/products/profile/product.php?Product_ID=650)

Does anyone ever look at the screenshots on XBA?

I looked out there too, I put this here, cus its not yet here, "this" preview. I did not add those screens cus there was some here. So this being here has nothing to do with that being out there, cus I was told not to make threads including stuff from out there.:cheers:

sabca
06-06-2003, 10:21 PM
Wow, it's lost it's 1997/Half Life-esque look. I like it :D

Koopa
06-07-2003, 11:51 PM
Originally posted by SPARTAN VI
When does this come out Brev?:D

When we play, dont surprised if you see me and Koopa using 1337 5P34K on the mics, thatll be some funny crap. :D
w3 4123 90/\//\/4 PwN j00!

MerimacHamwich
06-08-2003, 12:11 AM
Man, it still looks like Half Life, the original. Why couldn't they have updated the graphics to Xbox standard?

SPARTAN VI
06-08-2003, 03:23 PM
Originally posted by Koopa

w3 4123 90/\//\/4 PwN j00!

][ L1|<3 Y09(_)127!!1!!1!!!

prakeem
06-17-2003, 04:31 AM
Counter strike, meet Xbox! Finally, CS without constant lag!

No Fear 23
06-17-2003, 09:12 AM
when is it coming out?:watchout:

Kraft
06-17-2003, 09:51 AM
Originally posted by MerimacHamwich
Man, it still looks like Half Life, the original. Why couldn't they have updated the graphics to Xbox standard?

They did actually. The character polygon count is up, and textures look a lot better from the original counterstrike. I wasn't planning on ever buying this game... but CS with upgraded graphics, no lag and no cheating? It's a tempting proposition.

Diddy
06-17-2003, 10:04 AM
Originally posted by No Fear 23
when is it coming out?:watchout:


FALL!!

Shadow20002
06-17-2003, 03:32 PM
Maybe i will just rent it...or else, don't even touch on it. :o

CALzinger
06-17-2003, 05:10 PM
It looks good...but wouldn't it be a bit harder to kill people with a joystick rather than a keyboard & mouse?

Yannie Boy
06-17-2003, 05:44 PM
ima mostly likely pick this up the first day......i love CS and i still do....talking about it.....i might just play right now

bretman1234
06-17-2003, 06:43 PM
Originally posted by CALzinger
It looks good...but wouldn't it be a bit harder to kill people with a joystick rather than a keyboard &amp; mouse?

i find it easier to kill peole WITH the joystick. It feels like you have TOTAL control.

cheedoh
06-18-2003, 01:18 AM
Originally posted by Chupacabra
ima mostly likely pick this up the first day......i love CS and i still do....talking about it.....i might just play right now

haha same here :D

CALzinger
06-18-2003, 12:48 PM
Originally posted by Chupacabra
ima mostly likely pick this up the first day......i love CS and i still do....talking about it.....i might just play right now

Really? I always found the mouse easier to aim with because its a bit more flexible. Depending on your controls, I find it a bit difficult to get precise aiming with a joystick. For that matter, thats why I practice aiming in Ghost Recon.

Stormlord
06-18-2003, 11:06 PM
Only the elite can precisely aim with a console's controls. Hell alot of PC gamers admitted to me that you must have skills to master a console FPS. :cheers: :hail: :wink:

CALzinger
06-19-2003, 11:50 AM
Originally posted by Stormlord
Only the elite can precisely aim with a console's controls. Hell alot of PC gamers admitted to me that you must have skills to master a console FPS. :cheers: :hail: :wink:

That's true. It does take a lot of skill to be good (and I mean good) at a console first person shooter.

cheedoh
06-19-2003, 04:08 PM
indeed.. like me! jk, i really suck. :cry:

CALzinger
06-19-2003, 07:11 PM
Originally posted by cheedoh
indeed.. like me! jk, i really suck. :cry:

Practice makes perfect. Even though some people have their limits to skill :D :D