I broke down and did the old Steam pre-order of Half-Life 2. I know I’m such a sucker.
So even though I’m hip deep in Painkiller (I hate that swamp monster so much!!!) I couldn’t resist trying out the Source Engine version of Counter-Strike.
Guess what? I’ve put in 2-3 hours and haven’t seen any trash talking or people just acting like asses yet. Wow! Now I’m sure they are out there, but it is certainly refreshing to be alb e to play CS without jerks.
That most jerks don’t seem to be on the new version yet is an interesting phenomenon. Basically, the group of people playing CS:S right now are the hardest of the hard core and who have the money to spend to buy the pre-order. Which raises the question of who lamers really are. Are they really 13 year olds? Are they people who don’t have the computer to run the new version? Are they casual gamers? It will be interesting to see how the new CS community develops and what will happen when Half-Life 2 finally hits the shelves.
On a related note, CS:Condition Zero came with the Steam package I bought and while I was waiting for the Source version to download, I started playing it. It is fun to play with the bots, but boring as heck when you die. What I found interesting though was the fact that CS has one version of the maps, CS:CZ has another version and CS:S has a third. So we have a constant process of remaking the same maps (not to mention the older versions of some maps that have evolved through the betas of CS). It is an interesting process which has some similarities to Lucas’ constant tweaking of Star Wars. What is interesting, however, is that I haven’t found anyone lamenting about how the old versions of the maps are better, unlike the constant lamenting of the original versions of Star Wars.
Whether this is, again, a case of only the hardest of the hardcore playing the game at the moment, with criticisms yet to come, or somehow revisions of levels seem to function in a different way for players than revisions of films do for watchers is yet to be seen.
Despite the fact that CS:CZ comes with “Deleted Scenes” I wonder if some day there will be a “Special Edition” of Counter-Strike that features tons of various versions of the Dust and Office. If they reinstate the jailbreak and VIP modes and include Jeepathon2k you can count me in!