Counter-Strike

Counter-Strike has a long and venerable history on PC, as a multiplayer military combat game set in the brutal world of counter-terrorism.

You take the part of counter-terrorism units like SEAL Team Six and face off against many foreign terrorist groups in foot soldier combat. You’ll either be fighting over a bomb, which the terrorists have to plant and detonate, or trying to rescue a group of hostages, who can be made to follow you. Of course, you can play either side as every gun-carrying character in this game is usually a human player, in an Internet game.

As a multiplayer-focused title, Counter-Strike might seem a bit wanting in terms of its single-player game. There isn’t any progression or story to follow, rather just a series of matches against bots (computer controlled allies and opponents) who are capable of pursuing the game’s objectives quite well.

Don’t be confused – this isn’t Counter-Strike Condition Zero, which will launch on PC in early 2004 with a solid single-player game. But this has many of the new weapons in the series and works extremely well over Xbox Live. Although if you want to play with friends, there’s a low limit to the number of players (four) you can have joining in when you’re hosting your own server. Otherwise the limit is sixteen.

The interface in Counter-Strike is well planned out for the joypad and technically solid, but the game really feels rushed in other areas.

VERDICT: 6 Solid port of the PC game that runs very smoothly over Xbox Live. Not a great single player experience.

PROS: Excellent bots for practice, cheat-proof gaming through Xbox Live. CONS: Game really should have been made more visually polished. Very basic for single-player.