UKTerrorist
You hear the drumming of the feet as they approach you, are they coming from the left or is it the right? They're getting close now, so many different directions in these new maps, all the doorways all the corridors and windows - you grip your mouse with tension aiming at the left most door you certain they have got to be coming that way…… You reach other to call for backup over your radio… then you remember they'll hear you! Closer, your AK is quivering - you know its aim is not how it was in 1.1 and its doesn't have the brilliance it once had - pushing those thoughts back the footsteps reach a climax, you steady your aim…. "Enemy spotted - behind you deeano!" With a quick nudge of the mouse I've turned to the other door and I'm aiming and firing a few shots into the body of one man and, with only a few bullets remaining and a split second, my crosshair goes towards the head of the next. Do or die moment but my aim is true and amazingly I've got both of them, "enemy down, thanks man" Wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead I ready myself for another action packed game of CS 1.3... Okay, so I've overdone it a little but I have to say CS 1.3 is beyond anything I could have hoped the CS team could have done. As I've said before CS needed something special to really keep it alive; and by jove they've done it. What am I getting so excited about? "The voice comms lag, the headshots are for newbs, the new maps are too big and they lag, cheats have not been stopped, new spectator mode sucks and most of all the new scoreboard is dodgy." I would safely say that at the moment you will hear every single one of these complaints from somebody in the space of an hour on a public server. But I must ask why, I mean the guys from the CS team and the men at valve have once again tried (and in my opinion succeeded) in taking another step into putting gaming forward. And yet still they are criticised, and I have to say that criticism is unjust and unfair. Shock! Horror! Someone writing about CS defending it from the masses, yep I am being brave.
Firstly lets go to the most interesting, fun and most effective change to CS, the adding of voice comms to the game. So far for me so good, people have said lets go left and for the first time in public CS the team has played together, rushing the same way and shooting to save each other. Could it be that the days of CS where you were alone in a death match against your enemy are gone, one only hopes so. But as all our pessimists said before CS 1.3 was even realised: "there's always some idiot making funny noises down the line", well they can't even complain. The voices can be turned on and off (via 'mute' function) meaning that they don't have to listen to anyone else, their loss if they don't want to play with the rest of the team. In the voice comms, the CS and Half Life team have managed to give CS public a chance to get back to the roots of what it should be, a team game where the primary aim is to win rounds, not kill the enemy. I can guarantee that the bomb will be planted more if everyone in the team is saying so on the comms. Another thing you will find as you play CS 1.3 due to the comms, is that there is a higher level or respect among the players. I personally am able to speak to someone easier than I am able to type and so it increases the human-to-human element to the online game. It can also remind you that you're playing alongside humans rather than bots (maybe a lot of the cheaters forget this) but does it make you more of a geek typing into your PC or talking to it? J
Multicast, well at the moment a lot of servers haven't got this feature running but from what I've seen of it it is excellent, watching your team as a substitute or supporting another clan in an important war now is possible and is also enjoyable. It looks like something Andy Gray (Ed: Sports Commentator, incase you didn't know) would use for Sky Sports Football as the tactics of each clan/team unfold. I stongly believe this is the first step into turning CS (or at least future gaming) into sport. And to those who say that it will never be used, I'd like to remind them of how many people sit at the Clanbase HL CS Nations cup in IRC, watching it scroll out script of how the game is going. I'm sure these people would much rather sit and watch the game unfold as if they were in it. Another brilliant and innovative add on to Counter Strike. Due to the addition of the voice comms and the mulitcast spectator spotting a cheat and telling people that he/she is one is now so much easier. Even though they haven't put in anything new to stop them immediately, these other two may actaully be a more effective way of stopping cheats. Only time will tell us.
The new maps, or de maps (seem to be the only well received maps nowdays) and I think we got three corkers this time especially in comparison to 1.1. I think 1.1 really failed to deliver with rotterdam, thunder and vertigo and was surprised when they allowed thunder to stay in but this time round we got what we had hoped for. Starting with DE_storm, I think we have got another dust in the making, although some would complain it is too dark others would say its adds to the atmosphere of the map and I would agree. It's very much like the de_dust map with an underpass as well as routes above the ground. Lots of nice choke points with bombsites well placed. A fun map that is very well set up and fits in perfectly with CS. DE_Survivor is another great addition and is a very original map on the design side of things. Although it is a de map it is quite large with various routes getting to the two bomb points. Obviously it is brilliant looking but the best part of de_survivor are its chocke points, the town point is great fun in a constricted yet open sense and the underground pass reminds me off something out of 7 brides for 7 brothers, brilliant. And finally, probably the most anticipated of the maps is DE_Torn, the nicest looking map to get into the official CS pack so far and it's a great map. The obvious complaints are that its too large and too confusing but its intricacy and detail although putting many off at the moment is going to be the one thing that keeps this map going. Its like a much more developed and nicer looking CS_Italy and it too is a great map.
And finally and so far the most moaned thing about CS 1.3, the headshots. Well I don't see what the argument is about, the fact that the headshots in this version count whereas they didn't in older versions is good news. I hated it when I was aiming at heads in 1.1 and not getting kills at least now, even if it is by luck it won't be by as much luck as 1.1 required. I also think the fact that 1.3 allows 'easier' headshots means that we will get a new kind of practise among players who instead of aiming at the others torso will specifically aim for the head. Again it's a case of time and in three months I might be screaming at Cliffe/Goose and co to change it back but at the moment I like it. So that's it, 1.3 in a Deean style nutshell. Those are my views, they may come across as being 100% optimistic but I just feel the game has been improved so much that this is what it deserved. Go easy on the flaming.... Article by Deean Feel free to comment below or on the Forums.
Comments
Editor
UKTerrorist
20:56 2/10/2001
Agree with most of what you say, although I'm sure loads of people won't and you're about to get flamed, hohoho....cya :) [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
21:24 2/10/2001
[CwT]MuffinMan
www.crowteam.co.uk [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
21:24 2/10/2001
Deean
21:29 2/10/2001
21:35 2/10/2001
But getting headshots wasn't as hard as yout thought in 1.1, it just required more skill to aim at the head. Now it seems that everyone is getting headshots every round, and the "spray and pray" tactics are only working to well for people. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
21:36 2/10/2001
I agree with all teh points made,
but it will take a while to get used to all these headshots.
But we have adapted before, just think back to 1.0 when they changed the hit-boxes in the first place to them new models and funked it up .....
or was it 7.1, bah
Good Article tho
01:49 3/10/2001
comm by any means, I just don't use it. My teamplay has not slipped and my
team (in a pub) just had a very good run on inferno even though none of us
used voice and the other team was using it almost exclusively. I'm not
flaming the technology, or you Deean
as whenever me and my friends LAN it up we rely on real life to carry our
messages. And, frankly, these are the only people I want to talk to, not a
bunch of strangers in an online game. And I've brought this up before on
csnation, the voice comm takes me OUT of the game. I mean, how many 12
year old SEAL team members are out there? I dare say none.
With or without voice I think CS is one of the best games out there and if
voice is what keeps it alive, more power to it but you will never see me
using it. You will, however, see me playing as a team consistantly. I do
have eyes and I can watch my team and I can shoot the enemy as opposed to
warning someone about it.
Final point/question:
Why do folks think it's so difficult to copy and paste a script and push
one button to say 'roger that' rather than holding one down and having to
say it yourself? I think the latter is much more time consuming and
dangerous to your play ingame.
Thanks for listening
-Plank
Over-and-Out [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
01:53 3/10/2001
In short, i totally agree with all that u have said m8
[ECSF]Buckaroony.
p.s Vivre I-series LANs! SMB BT! [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
02:17 3/10/2001
I just think the new patch suck...the voicecomm aint such a big deal as I hoped. Besides noone ever uses it. The hitboxbugs (shooting at the target but no damage made) havnt been fixed....
Although I hate the game, I play it about 3 hours a day...so its like a drug, and I will continue to play cs.
But I am waiting for TF2...hope it will be great fun....and that they learn from mistakes made by HL-mods [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
03:36 3/10/2001
04:00 3/10/2001
As for the maps... Survivor and Torn look terrific and play well, but the other one is a bit bland and boring (Just like dust)...
Great review, Deean
- Xentor [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
06:01 3/10/2001
08:45 3/10/2001
Ok...now my ranting ends....until next time [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
08:48 3/10/2001
Editor
UKTerrorist
09:13 3/10/2001
09:29 3/10/2001
As for the voice comms...more power to them good stuff.
Keep it coming CS crew [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
09:46 3/10/2001
I would have said that I could hold my own with most players in 1.1 despite being on a modem (obviously there are some that would own my arse) but since 1.3 came out, the lag is so bad I'm happy to get scores of 15/14.
de_torn is the worst culprit. Case in point, I'm one of 2 T's left, one CT left. We're at CT spawn, moron other T bloke stands on top of the roof, shooting at the floor, so I drop down to the right and hide in the corner. Sure enough blokey gets drilled and CT comes flying over my head as expected hunting for me, I shoot 3 bursts of 2/3, all perectly aimed at the CT in question (who is a mate as it happens). He turns round when he realises he's being shot, locates my hiding place, and nails me with an MP5, all the while I'm shootig at him. Flabberghasted at his lack of dying ability, I say "Dave, how much health did you have then?", to which he replies "about 60 odd".
This happens all too aoften in 1.3 and I'm reduced to spray an pray tactics to get any kills at all [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
09:49 3/10/2001
Also, How do you turn the voice comms off, I've unchecked the box in the customization menu, but it still works. Ne1 know the console commands? [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
09:53 3/10/2001
10:12 3/10/2001
BRING BACK THE OLD AK [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
10:22 3/10/2001
11:27 3/10/2001
LOL! the glock is ten times better then either of those guns, especially with the new accurate hit boxes.
as for the new maps, storm is amazing. it is rather plain, but it is built for gameplay rather than visuals (wish more maps were), much like clan1_mill and clan2_fire, 2 of the best maps for clan play ever made but very bland.
i agree that voicecom is unspectacular, but definitely not a detriment. i think cs was fine without it, as the only time it is really good is in clan matches, where roger wilco was already used anyway.
multicast spectator mode is amazing, it is so much better than irc bots. ppl would idle in the hundreds to watch large matches between good clans on irc, and i am sure plenty of them will get much more out of actually watching the matches unfold [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
Editor
UKTerrorist
11:29 3/10/2001
As for the Desert Eagle problems people have, I tend to agree (whether it's correct or not, I dunno), but if using DE I fire off a bullet at the spawn and reload before getting into a firefight. It tends to do the trick.
As for lag....it does feel slightly laggier but hopefully that will be sorted when they look at the CPU usage issues server admins have been reporting, apparently down to the way the hitboxes were fixed - hopefully it's only down to that. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
12:57 3/10/2001
13:24 3/10/2001
13:32 3/10/2001
13:35 3/10/2001
13:55 3/10/2001
14:20 3/10/2001
15:54 3/10/2001
16:35 3/10/2001
Deean (I got a 1ghz athlon so I would prolly be different if it was a quarted of that
17:54 3/10/2001
I've been playing since beta 1, sure had a few bad beta's along the way but cs 1.3 is just stunning, the voice comm's are great and the lag, well it's non existant, I've been playing on a 33.6kb modem for 2 years now and had constant pings of 170, with cs 1.3 it has strangely dropped to 140-150.
Anyone know if they changed the netcode or am I just having a good period before my cable modem comes, ohhhhh only 3 days till 25 ping and lots of lpb whorage with my glock.
Well, great review and good comments, nice thing that people are finally sticking up for CS.
Keep up the good work. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
18:40 3/10/2001
I think I might move to a new mod, one which can still support 56k.
Dashy [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
18:55 3/10/2001
Founder
UKTerrorist
19:25 3/10/2001
19:48 3/10/2001
19:55 3/10/2001
21:03 3/10/2001
21:15 3/10/2001
22:38 3/10/2001
your exactly the kind of person who kills people for fun on your own team!!!
grow up a little yourself you ignorant piece of s*** [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
22:46 3/10/2001
23:31 3/10/2001
Uhm, yes you can see who has the bomb. It's that player that has the text called "BOMB" infront. Or maybe you're playing cs_ maps ? [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
Editor
UKTerrorist
10:01 4/10/2001
backstabber, there is no way that a CS update made your ping go from 180 to in the 300s.
as for headshots...if someone is a good player then they'll get a headshot quicker than their 'lucky' opponent wont they? I don't think the problem is that big to be honest. It's snowballing though, because of the number of people whining about it others catch on and think 'yeah! that's why I cant win!' - when in actual fact they're just not that good and get annoyed at getting headshotted (if that's a word hehe). [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
11:16 4/10/2001
Editor
UKTerrorist
11:20 4/10/2001
as for your clan m8, if he lost with his AK versus a pistol, thats his fault....I dont see how that has anything to do with the cs update?
remember, if people are getting headshots so easily, it also becomes easier for you....its the same for everyone....the guy with pistol had no advantage over your mate. Obviously the advantage lay with your m8 and his AK....I guess the pistoler was just better :P [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
11:28 4/10/2001
Editor
UKTerrorist
11:36 4/10/2001
A less skilled player killing a good player isn't 'owning', it's only one kill. If the guy really is a good player he'll no doubt be back the next round to kill the 'newb' and the round after that, and the round after that.
Good players still die you know. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
13:10 4/10/2001
The only downside is my ping (56K modem) has skyrocketed and the same has happened for all my 56k mates. Hopefully there's some kind of fix coming soon. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
14:06 4/10/2001
Just before 1.3 was released I was getting really good at CS and getting great scores. The best thing about CS I find/found is the "sport" factor combined with the realism i.e. the more you practise the better you become. Noobs used to come onto a server and get wasted by more experienced players, loads of cheating accusations etc. This was great coz noobs would keep plugging away and eventually they'd improve and be "headshooting" newer noobs...
I fear that 1.3 has brought an end to all that. Getting a headshot really is too easy now. CS prides itself on being "realistic". For me, headshots in 1.3 have drastically removed that realism.
I'm not going to be arrogant about getting headshots from noobs. I know that it's the same for me as it is for them but it has reduced the quality of gameplay in my eyes. I hope that all the fuss about this gets taken on board coz CS has got worse.
I'll keep on playing though. I'm addicted... [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
16:15 4/10/2001
Im sorry but thats a step in the right direction for me, fair enough the number of headshots has increased but like what was earlier said - you can kill your opponent with a headshot as well. It adds a new deeper skill level to the game [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
17:17 4/10/2001
11:56 5/10/2001
12:05 5/10/2001
We have to upgrade our servers memory after last nights lagorific CS game :/ [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
21:56 5/10/2001
I also hate being accused of cheating just because i kill 3 people in a row every now and then.
Then there are people who just come onto a server to slag you off and really egt you annoyed so you get distracted from the game and then they start saying you are crap.
Im sorry if i sound stupid but i just think this has to be said there are too many (excuse my french) arseholes on CS these ays that just want to slag people off. They should have made an ignore button so that these annoying people can be ignored just like the mute function for voice comm.
I believe if more Mature people played CS 1.3 then the game would be enjoyed to the fullest... [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
10:34 6/10/2001
22:36 6/10/2001
You blind f***witt, 1.3 is a f***up, lag, headshots, the whole f***ing lot.
And WHAT THE f*** is up with all these motherf***ing missing files that the lazy ass, slow f***s miss out with each f***ing release. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
00:23 7/10/2001
07:10 7/10/2001
PEacE OuT. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
05:15 1/11/2001
BTW, when u fire a gun at a wall in CS, u can c the mark on it.. but it is a kind of prediction only... the mark where u hit might not represent what the server see u hit the target... [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
14:09 28/11/2001
Cliffe or Goose have to change the T secondary gun because it sucks? Thats so lame. If you pratice with the gun you will get better with it. I used to suck with the Glock as well, but then I started using it for whole maps, only buying armor and ammo, sure, I would be lucky to get 8 kills a map, but now I can bust out the headshots like there is no tomorrow, and do you know why?
Because I pratice and use the gun to my advantage, a pistol that has a 20bullet clip size has some serious advantages over the DE or USP, also, if you shoot someone with the Glock notice how the stop moving? wait, I guess you don't, cause the gun sucks, but anyway, you can shoot them in the chest and they will pretty much stop moving, casuing some rapid fire shots into they're face means they will die, all the time you are taking damage, but still running, making yourself hard to hit.
Before you abuse something, learn it then see how you like it. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
19:03 28/2/2002
05:26 7/5/2002
05:30 7/5/2002
05:41 7/5/2002
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05:53 7/5/2002
14:33 4/10/2002
but your taking the p*** about Torn, yes it may be a nice looking map, but in all honesty it sucks big time, it is far to big, big, big, big its c**k, one of the worst maps ever. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
13:56 18/10/2002
02:52 5/12/2002
007kurapica [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
11:09 14/1/2003
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21:52 19/5/2005
Ya really, what bothers me most about CS is not CS itself but the ppl that play it. Everywhere you go, they dont want you to 'Cuss' (cue in the religious right enter stage right) when they openly embrace ppl getting shot in the virtual face... talk about walking contradictions..only in my sad, sad america. Now I see a 'Christian' server for css.. WTF? whats next? the CSS bible mod? The cherry on top tho is the lameness of CS players.. people dont seem to care if teams are stacked play on obvilviously when the score is 20 to 1. They could only do so much to make the game balanced as it requires human intelligence (which is not sorry to say meseared by just the lenght of your c**k and you 'rank' on a server) and that is something totally lacking. Oh ya the voice chat thing sux..its fuzzy as hell and it cant even be turned off..nice functionality guys. [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]