CS-Nation

Covering the future of Counter-Strike
cs: source impressions
article: cs: source impressions
   

Let's face it, Counter-Strike 1.6 is a pretty ugly game. I love the gameplay and thrill of CS, but the game is unattractive. If CS were up for an Academy Award, Joan Rivers would kill herself once the game started walking on the red carpet. All of that's going to change with the release of Counter-Strike: Source. CS: Source isn't a "Counter-Strike 2," but it is a 21st century upgrade to the most popular online action game out there. CS: Source is, basically, a full port of Counter-Strike to the Half-Life 2 engine.

And it's coming out pretty soon. A BETA version will be released to Counter-Strike: Condition Zero owners and LAN centers within the next few weeks; the final version of CS: Source will be included with Half-Life 2 when, according to Valve, it ships this Fall. Don't worry, though, because you don't have to wait a second to hear about CS: Source! Just read on for my full impressions of the game based on a Valve playtest session earlier this week.

Valve started the playtest by loading up a revamped Dust II. DaveJ would be proud. While the map maintains the core architecture and gameplay structure of its CS 1.6 counter-part, the Counter-Strike: Source version of Dust II is something to behold.

Ambience has never been a strong suit in Counter-Strike's various maps. All of that has changed with CS: Source. Helicopters can be heard flying overhead. Birds chirp. CS maps are no longer a series of ghost towns. Insects, represented by tiny particles, can be seen flying about. Smoke and mist float around the map, giving the wind some character. The skyboxes make the world seem endless. The maps seem much more alive. The maps feel as though they're part of a world, instead of some isolated cut-out made for a computer game.


The environment isn't nearly as barren in the new Dust.
Abandoned and rusted cars serve not only to make the environment pretty, but also to provide cover in the updated Dust II. Rain falls from the heavens and dew glistens off the floor in the updated Aztec, the next map in the playtest. The visuals are simply amazing, Counter-Strike or not.

What makes it more astounding, though, is that this is basically the game we've been playing since its release in 1999. A graphical update can do a lot for a game; CS: Source proves as much. The power of the Source engine has been harnessed remarkably well in CS: Source.

Players running into physics objects kick them around. Shooting barrels naturally causes them to sway or fall over. Many objects in the world are no longer static due to the new physics engine. This feature — straight from the Source engine — will certainly not completely change how CS is played, but I must admit that making barrels roll down the ramp near bombsite A on Aztec is amusing. The physics objects that I saw during my playtest session were all there to give the world more character to, rather than to change gameplay.

Materials bring a whole new slew of effects to your typical combat scenario. From sparks flying off of an abandoned car chassis, to water splashing up as bullets penetrate the prestine surface, environmental interactions feel significantly more dynamic than with Counter-Strike. Get used to seeing debris fly from walls in the heat of combat, boys!

Dust II and Aztec were both very familiar for me and largely unchanged in terms of gameplay when compared to their normal CS counter-parts. In fact, this could be said about all of Counter-Strike: Source. All of what I played was true to Counter-Strike. Same gameplay, but with plenty of updated content. When you get down to it, it's basically playing Counter-Strike on a revved-up game engine.

All weapons and items have been upgraded with new models, of course. The new weapon models are obviously improvements over Counter-Strike 1.6's set of weapons. Apparently, only the USP and Glock were nearly finalized at the time of my playtest. As for the rest of the models, Valve says they are currently in the process of doing a series of improvements on all the weapon models in an effort make them look as perfect as possible. The USP and Glock models looked damn sexy. If Valve plans on bringing every weapon model up to the standard that these two set, then we will see some excellent weaponry.

The Desert Eagle and M4A1 are among the weapon models that may be tweaked significantly before the BETA release of CS: Source. However, even in their current stage, the majority of the models are very attractive and detailed. Details range from a very nice looking aiming reticule on the AK-47 to an un-zoomed sniper scope that actually shows the world on the AWM.

Most weapon sounds are familiar enough to be recognizable, but are certainly much better quality. Some gun sounds, like the M4A1's, could benefit from a re-hash, but for the most part it's certainly hard to complain about the visual and acoustical properties of CS: Source's weaponry. The guns are just damned impressive, especially when compared to our current batch of aging models.