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Tag: Counter-Strike

  • Counter-Life: Mixing two of my favorite games together.

    Counter-Life: Mixing two of my favorite games together.

    If you haven’t noticed, I really like maps and mods. Mainly because I prefer new content being made by creators for fun and not being sold as $30 expansion packs. But also because people make really good mods.

    Some of my favorite mods tend to be ones that only change that gameplay slightly while leaving the original content intact. Stuff like Police Brutality: wildweasel presents Terrorists!, like I mentioned in my Doom mods article a while back. So this time, I cover yet another one of those kind of mods.

    So what happens when you take the world of Black Mesa in Half-Life, and throw in the guns from Counter-Strike? You get Counter-Life.

    Gordon Freeman is a stone cold killer. Strange how we don’t pay much attention to that here, or even in the original game.

    I remember this mod in its early days, back when I used to lurk on a Half-Life mod forum. It makes sense that this exists, considering the popularity of both games. Counter-Strike was one of those mods that had a relatively slow burn, and then exploded by the time Valve acquired the team and released it commercially. These kind of crossovers are always neat, and it makes sense someone would blend two of Valve’s franchises together.

    “FOR GOD’S SAKE, OPEN THE SILO DOORS! SOME CRAZED MADMAN WITH A MAC-10 WANTS ME DEAD!”

    So the story is identical to Half-Life: You play as Gordon Freeman, except instead of an HEV suit, you have a kevlar vest and you get to fight with more realistic weaponry. Basically this is more of a weapons mod than something like They Hunger, which not only had new weapons, but new levels and enemies as well.

    The arsenal from Counter-Strike 1.6 is in full force here, from the classic USP, AWP, and Deagle; to the lesser-appreciated TMP and M249. Though there are some new weapons, such as the M4A1 having the M203 grenade launcher like in Half-Life, as well as a rocket launcher that almost resembles a LAW.

    This is the weirdest rocket launcher I've ever seen...
    This is the weirdest rocket launcher I’ve ever seen…

    In addition, some of the weapons have features not in CS, such as the P90 having a zoom in scope, or the Glock 18 actually functioning like its real-life counterpart as a fully-auto pistol and not the weird Glock/Beretta 93R hybrid it’s been since the beginning. While it’s not a 1-for-1 conversion of CS‘s arsenal, it works.

    Hell, in older versions of the mod, you could have akimbo USPs and Deagles, in addition to the more iconic Dual Berettas. Those were rather fun to use, but I figure they removed them to strive for more “accuracy” to the original game and not to satisfy teenage fantasies of new weapons. Had this come out during Global Offensive, we probably would’ve saw a clunky revolver and an overpowered CZ75 auto pistol, so in the grand scheme of things they made the right decision.

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  • Mods and maps: A tactical Quake bonanza!

    Mods and maps: A tactical Quake bonanza!

    As much as I love the mod scene for old PC games, I realized I haven’t looked much at Quake‘s mod scene compared to others. The last mods I played for Quake was stuff like Quake Done Quick with a Vengeance, which was made more as a demo of the game rather than something actually playable.

    So for today, we’re gonna tackle some Quake mods that tried their best to be a bit more tactical in their approach. Both of these were released around the same time, and share a few similarities but both have their own unique quirks.

    Sadly, Michael Biehn and Charlie Sheen don’t appear in this.

    First on our list is a mod called Navy Seals Quake. This mod features a bevvy of new weapons such as the Mark 23 SOCOM pistol, the MP5 (and its silenced variant), a Mossberg tactical shotgun, even an M16 assault rifle with grenade launcher. While those seem like fairly common things now, for when this came out in 1998, that was considered pretty impressive.

    There are three unique levels made for Navy Seals Quake, though selecting New Game oddly takes you to the default Quake start level. The levels all feature you going in and killing everything while completing objectives like destroying a jet and disarming “RADEK” bombs. You can also play through regular Quake with these new weapons, giving you a different taste of the game, but only a handful of characters were replaced, leaving you with custom marine models mixed in with default Quake enemies like Ogres and Scrags.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOwPcmcOSNY&w=640&h=480]

    In a unique twist, Navy Seals Quake features weapons that reload, realistic ammo management where partial-ammo reloads remove the bullets inside, the option to use flashbang grenades, even allowing you to headshot enemies and gib their heads. This was pretty advanced for its time, and it’s quite impressive.

    Sometimes the only solution is to rip everything to shreds, Rambo style. It’s like they know me.

    There is one interesting thing about Navy Seals Quake – it was made by a guy named Minh “Gooseman” Le. He would later go on to help make Action Quake II and a little fun multiplayer FPS you might’ve heard of called Counter-Strike. Le was one of the co-creators of Counter-Strike, who later worked with Valve up until Counter-Strike: Source. Le would later go on to make a CS successor called Tactical Intervention, which had some of the same features as Counter-Strike but with some new twists. While it wasn’t particularly outstanding, it did leave for some dumb moments.

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