Game Feed

Counter-Strike creator regrets not balancing the AWP

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Between 1.6, Source, CSGO, and Counter-Strike 2, the PC's favorite multiplayer shooter has been through innumerate changes in the last 25 years. Originally a mod for Valve's Half-Life, Counter-Strike has grown into the most popular game on Steam. But despite its myriad evolutions, there has been one constant: from its earliest days to its modern mega stardom, in CS, the most controversial weapon has always been the AWP. A bolt-action sniper rifle that deals serious damage, the AWP is Counter-Strike's high-risk, high-reward gambit gun. To some, it's a ballistic instrument that takes mastery and skill. To others, it's an overpowered menace used only by the lowliest players. Now, Counter-Strike's co-creator weighs in. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Counter-Strike and CoD players are getting random Steam ban notices CS2 has more players than the next top nine Steam games combined CS:GO gets a Halo crossover - check it out here

Counter-Strike co-creator says he's happy they sold the game to Valve—'They have done a great job of maintaining the legacy'

by Rich Stanton

Counter-Strike recently celebrated its 25th anniversary , and is more popular than ever. The original Half-Life mod became a standalone title after Valve hired co-creators Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jesse "Cliffe" Cliffe, and since then has iterated and grown into the most popular competitive FPS on the planet, with over 30 million monthly players... Read more.

December 12, 2023 Update

by benb

Fixes for joining games through invites and Steam friends list. Miscellaneous UI fixes for Dedicated Servers. Fixed an occasional crash when opening the scoreboard. Fixed camera movement after death in multiplayer. Fixed crash when creating a server if the server creator's Steam name was entirely non-ASCII characters.

December 1, 2023 Update

by benb

Fixed crash when modifying certain video settings in a multiplayer match. Fixed server browser issues after modifying video settings. Fixed local player not showing up in player count on a listen server using Steam Networking. Fixed rare corrupted lighting rendering bug in some maps. Fixed miscellaneous fog rendering bugs. Fixed pushable entity physics in Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Condition Zero.

November 29, 2023 Update

by benb

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Condition Zero: Deleted Scenes have been updated to support the Half-Life 25th Anniversary engine updates, including all related fixes from Counter-Strike. Fixed lighting rendering issues on some AMD GPUs. Added "Use shaders" checkbox for the video options. Servers can over-ride this setting with sv_allow_shaders. Miscellaneous Steam Networking fixes. Miscellaneous UI layout fixes. The Half-Life dedicated server application (app 90) which is used by Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Condition Zero has been updated with latest server code and updated windows and linux binaries. Updating is recommended.

November 22, 2023 Update

by benb

Counter-Strike has been updated to support many of the features from the Half-Life 25th Anniversary update. If you are still experiencing compatibility or stability issues, it is suggested that you install the "steam_legacy" beta branches of Half-Life and Counter-Strike (selectable in each game's properties page in Steam).

Counter-Strike and CoD players are getting random Steam ban notices

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Steam VAC ban notices are suddenly appearing for Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, and Team Fortress 2 players, despite the fact that - in some cases - they haven't actually played the game in years. CS 1.6, Modern Warfare 2, and TF2 players say they are getting Valve Anti-Cheat notices that are more than a decade old. One Counter-Strike 1.6 player has a notice from 17 years ago, while another Counter-Strike Source player has received a ban notice despite not playing the game in 14 years. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: CS2 has more players than the next top nine Steam games combined CS:GO gets a Halo crossover - check it out here Counter-Strike tops League of Legends as the second most-valuable esport

CS2 has more players than the next top nine Steam games combined

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Counter-Strike 2 is finally here, which means both long-time fans and newcomers to Valve's iconic shooter are already hopping in-game to play through the updated maps. CS2 arrived as a free update to Counter-Strike Global Offensive, replacing the latter in the process. Now that CSGO is officially dead and Counter-Strike 2 has taken over, an uptick in fans can be seen on Steam's charts. CS2 has a whopping amount of players after just one hour, sitting with more than the next top nine Steam games combined. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: CS:GO gets a Halo crossover - check it out here Counter-Strike tops League of Legends as the second most-valuable esport Counter-Strike co-creator Jess Cliffe charged with paying for sex with a minor

Counter-Strike's Dust2 is now in Alien: Isolation, thanks to new mod tools

by

A big new update to unofficial mod tools for Alien: Isolation has greatly expanded the range of mods people can make. Modders can now add custom models, materials, textures, and more to Creative Assembly's horror shooter. To quickly demonstrate the new capabilities, the toolmaker has whipped up a small example: importing classic Counter-Strike map de_dust2 into Isolation. You can see the xenomorph stalking Dust2's sandy corridors in a fun little video below. I imagine modders are already planning bigger, more complex, and less silly uses for these new capababilities. Read more

Counter-Strike 2 is real, coming this summer, and in limited access right now

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As the prophecy foretold (and by prophecy I mean weeks of teases and a bucket of rumours) Counter-Strike 2 is real, coming this summer, and a limited test is available right now for select Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players. The sort-of-sequel is being built on Valve’s Source 2 engine and will launch as a free upgrade to CS:GO, carrying over all of your unlocks and purchased items. Read more

Play Counter-Strike 1.6 in your browser

by Rich Stanton

Counter-Strike is one of the most important and influential PC games in history. It began as a Half-Life mod released in 1999 before Valve bought it out and hired the creators. The version of the game it released in 2000 would over time and tweaks become known as Counter-Strike 1.6, and to this day you will find purists who insist this is the best the game's ever been. Now, pretty remarkably, you can just play it in your browser... Read more.

This Twitter bot tours Half-Life skyboxes to brighten up your timeline

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The second-best way to make Twitter palatable (after simply unfollowing sources of bad tweets) is to follow a load of curated and bot accounts which trickle niceness into your timeline. Today I'd like to suggest adding Skybox Satellite, a Twitter account which shows glimpses of the skies wrapped around maps in GoldSrc games like Half-Life and Counter-Strike. It's sometimes pretty, sometimes nostalgic, and sometimes impressive. Read more

What game do you wish would get the WoW: Classic treatment?

by

I like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but I loved the original Counter-Strike. While CSGO is the prettier, more polished version of the same set of ideas, so many of the maps, so much of the feel that I loved, isn't present in the latest iteration. The original Counter-Strike is still available to play, but its final update, 1.6, isn't the version I want either. I want beta 5.2, or thereabouts, from back before Valve bought the game and its rougher edges got sanded away. That's me. But I'm here to ask you: what live service game would you like to see relaunch and preserve an older version of itself, as World Of Warcraft: Classic has? And what version would you want? Read more

Counter-Strike surfing is the esport we deserve

by contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)

Look, competitive Counter-Strike is nice and all, but on the 20th anniversary of v1.0 I do find myself consumed with dreams of a wholly different CS skill: surfing. It’s the freestyle skating to proper CS’s baseball, using a movement glitch to skid, glide, and soar through maps filled with abstract shapes. It is stylish as all hell. And people race surfing! Or you could go freestyle and hit cool tricks to wow judges! Maybe you could even do synchronised routines! Or, like with the X-Games, you could think it seems too much effort and just watch YouTube videos and coo approvingly. So let’s do that, for now. (more…)

Remembering Counter-Strike's forgotten beta maps

by contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)

It was 20 years ago today that version 1.0 of Counter-Strike launched, boasting iconic maps like Dust and Italy. But what about the maps that didn’t make it out of beta? CS had over twenty which bounced around betas but were cut by the full release, including all the maps representing one entire mode. I revisited the cut beta maps today and was surprised by quite how many I remembered, a lot of weird fond memories mixed in with a few moments of “Oh yeah obviously I see why this was cut”. Come, let’s revisit them. (more…)