

The original CS formula worked so well that it became its own downfall.


Following Counter-Strike’s trailblazing steps was very difficult. This, of course, didn’t go so well for a while.
COUNTER STRIKE GLOBAL OFFENSIVE EASTER EGGS SERIES
While this trend helped indie games to breathe and have their own share in the market, it was (and arguably still is) a tough time to “make it big.”Īs the Call of Duty and Battlefield series started to have a strong footing, Counter-Strike tried to keep up with the times. With the emergence of online distribution, the video game market saw an unprecedented influx of products, making it very difficult for any individual game to shine. It took everything good its competitors did and mixed it with its own formula, making another timeless classic in the process.Īs time passed, Counter-Strike became “older,” and modern shooters started being published left and right. Those quick, helpful radio messages were so useful that they became a crucial part of every online shooter today. Coupled with the signature radio announcements such as “Counter-Terrorists win!” (you can literally hear that sentence while reading it), Counter-Strike immediately became a sensation. (Image: Valve)Ĭounter-Strike, on the other hand, gave us a more realistic setting with factions, characters, and weapons based on real life. Pictured: What Counter-Strike looked like years ago. It was a good time to be a gamer and a sci-fi fantasy fan back then. Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament were a mix of fantasy and sci-fi, while Team Fortress and Half-Life were… also a mix of fantasy and sci-fi. As you’ll notice, all of the examples I gave above have some sort of fantastical or sci-fi elements to them. While all of its competitors were timeless classics, some of which still hold up to this day, Counter-Strike took it to a different level. Even Apex Legends uses a heavily modified version of Half-Life 2’s Source Engine.īack in the day, all you could get for FPS arena games were Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament, some Team Fortress Classic if you’re one of the OGs, and a bit of Half-Life multiplayer which was, let’s be honest, basically just the Crossfire map. It’s like the great-great-grandfather of shooters today, you can trace a lot of games back to it. Half-Life sparked a new age of gaming, which led to a lot of games we still play today. Half-Life deserves its own article for its contribution to video games in general, so I’ll keep it short for now. Go! Go! Go!Ĭounter-Strike made its debut in 1999, as a Half-Life mod. I was unwittingly a part of history in making. My dad, who was a gamer in his own right, one day asked me “what’s this Counter-Strike I keep hearing about?” and it dawned on me. It was a time where the market was not oversaturated with video games, let alone online shooters.

Literally, everybody inside was playing Counter-Strike, regardless of their age. Internet cafes were the rage and you even had to wait in line at times just to get in. I remember being 12 years old and counting the minutes until the school day was over so I could rush to the nearest internet cafe to play Counter-Strike with my friends.īack then, LAN parties were not a common thing in my area.
