ProFocus: Counter-Strike: Source
Counter-Strike, or better known as CS, grew to immense popularity over ten years ago when it was first spawned from the modding community. It was a highly team-based and ‘realistic’ shooter, where controlling your recoil in your weapon and team work was vital to the success of a match. Players could choose to be either Terrorists or Counter-Terrorists, and each had an objective depending on the map. Some maps gave Terrorists the objective of planting a bomb, while the Counter-Terrorists had to defend the areas and defuse them. Matches play out through rounds, where when you die, you need to wait till the next round to respawn, so dying was not only a serious penalty but a possible tide turner in the heat of a match. Weapons were also bought rather than picked up like in most games, and money was earned through fragging other players and completing objectives such as planting or defusing a bomb. It was a system that, at its time, was brand new and gathered a massive following.
CS fever quickly spread through the competitive scene and eventually made its way into the big leagues, making appearances in World Cyber Games, Cyber-Athlete Professional League, Electronic Sports World Cup, Major Gaming League, and many, many more. Even over a decade after its creation, CS is still one of the biggest games in the competitive scene, with several hundred professional teams battling it out in every tournament for top place, Team Fnatic and Dignitas being some of the more well known.
CS did spawn a new version in 2004, named Counter-Strike: Source. CS:S ran off the Source engine, which powers games such as Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2, so the game received a pretty large upgrade. Not only that, but it also incorporated pretty much all aspects from CS, and added new maps and extra features.
The CS community however is split between both games, with some preferring the old school game, and others sticking to the new. Both games are still active in the competitive scene however, so it’s quite clear that the core gameplay mechanics are pretty damned successful.
But we think you’ve just about heard enough of CS and its godly levels of popularity. Let’s move onto the frag videos!
ProSkill
As usual, we have three videos for you to smack your gob over. All are from CS:S. The videos are Epitaph, Fear Effects 2, and Incorporated 2.
Epitaph
The shortest of the three videos clocks in at 5:51. Epitaph is a nicely edited frag video (with a ridiculously long introduction) showcasing frags done by random players from the fragging community. Frags such as no-scope awp headshots, super spammy MP5 killing spree’s and really fast 'twitch-kills' are scattered all over this video, and are superbly synced with the music. Watch and enjoy:
It’s largely apparent as to why we suck at CS:S every time we try and play; we just don’t have that kind of pinpoint precision and recoil hates us. Passionately. If you’d like to download Epitaph to enjoy in higher quality, you can find it atsourceradio. The only downside is that you’ll need to register in order to download.
Fear Effects 2
The longest of the three clocking in at 10:45, Fear Effects 2 is another community based frag video with a lot of content and some awesome editing to boot. Music is synced up extremely well with the fragging and the quality of the frags themselves rarely lets up. Not our favourite of the three personally, but it’s well worth a watch anyway:
Imagine being the player actually taking the bullets to the head. Can you imagine how angry you’d be? Just constantly being shot in the head over and over, then add that you actually have to wait for the next round... It’s just asking for an Alt + F4. If you’d like to watch and download this in high resolution, head on over to sourceradio. Just remember that you’ll need to register in order to download. Now onto our final flick.
Incorporated 2
Our personal favourite, and arguably the best CS:S frag video around, Incorporated 2 is jam packed with wicked editing, great music choice and fantastic frags. The pacing of the video keeps things entertaining throughout the whole film and is a must-watch for anyone that enjoys pure ridiculousness at its finest:
You really do have to question the legitimacy of some of these frags. Some of them are just way too—what? They’re confirmed to be legit? What the f—
To watch or download this video in a higher resolution, sourceradio is your good friend, as long as you sign up that is.
That sums up our frag video section this week. What did you think and how did you feel after watching them? Let us know in the comments section. We felt both entertained and violated. And now to summarise this episode with a little bit of advice.
L2Play
Admittedly, giving out tips for CS is a little silly, because everybody has already played it. Unless you live in the very centre of the Earth, we doubt you haven’t played CS, but either way, we’ll throw out some basic tips to get started.
Probably the most important factor in CS is team work. A lot of new players seem to forget that their team mates are actually quite useful, and are not just giant meat bags in your way from becoming a Godlike Rambo of some sort. CS in fact thrives on team work, and without it you can very easily lose a match. Unless you hack, which in that case you’ll lose your server access.
The point we’re trying to make is work with your team, and try to keep in the know as to what exactly they’re doing at all times. Professional teams such as Fnatic always keep each other up to date on what they’re doing and where they are on the map, because without team knowledge, you’re half blind. You can be a gung-ho maniac, but do it with your team in CS.
That sums up the fourth episode of ProMode. We hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed finding the content, and we hope to see your feedback in the comments section. Next episode will be a special episode of ProMode, though what it is will be dictated by you, the reader. A poll will be put up on the forums soon and through that we’ll know what you want to hear about the most. Until next time, ProMode out.
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