I have a love/hate relationship with first person shooters. As much as I complain about “shooter fatigue” and how I’m tired of playing the latest Halo: Code of Duty clone, it’s undeniable that the FPS genre accounts for some of my favorite games as well as my most adrenaline-packed and enjoyable gaming moments.
One of my favorite multiplayer experiences ever happens to be Counter-Strike (1.6 and Source both get lumped together in my brain, I played them both equally), so naturally, any article about it is going to grab my attention. It’s good, then, that the folks at Joystick Division came up with a funny collection of Five Things We Learned from Counter-Strike. I found that some of these were definitely true for me, such as discovering that there are hundreds and thousands of people out there that are infinitely more skilled than you are, and that people will blame the best person in the server of cheating as soon as it’s acceptable to do so. On more than one occasion, I saw my brother get banned from servers for being too good, as it were.
Anyway, I thought I’d post this and open up the discussion a bit. What other nutty things have we learned from FPS games, including Counter-Strike, that you think ought to be added to this kind of list? Go!
Source – Joystick Division
I used to not care for 1st person shooter games. Then they grew on me. The only thing is I have to to a break from them.
I learned that silence goes a long way to avoiding unwanted attention, and that you can be terrible at a game but so long as you don’t make a peep you’re A-okay.
I learned that your quiet friend turns into a violent screaming crazy person when he dies more then once
I learned that in games like Battlefield or TF2 you can be better and learn to be more of a team player. Unless you totally don’t want to and just fail the whole game.
I learned from CS that sometimes, rushing means sitting out for 3 – 4 minutes while the rest of the players die or complete objectives. I think too many games (BFBC2 I’m looking at you) want you to constantly respawn so that players continually feel stimulated and play their game more / longer. I don’t like that system. I like sitting out and watching the rest of my team.
Some of the best moments have been while dead, watching others get knifed or something ridiculous happen. You know when there are 32 people playing, but only 2 alive, it can be like playing in front of a crowd. More games should do this.
(also, breaking a game can make it better. i.e All-Talk on. No strategies, just chat it up, be a goof, and hey, maybe shoot some people. Taking a game like CS seriously just /sucks/)
I learned that no matter how hard you try, it is nearly impossible to stay calm in CS if you are the last person alive in your team and there is at least 2 more on the other team. You either get real scared you’re gonna f up, so you do f up, or you get too much adrenaline and f up anyway.
[quote comment=”14304″]I learned that your quiet friend turns into a violent screaming crazy person when he dies more then once[/quote]
Haha, so true. Or if you’re like me in CS and just become a guy shouting orders but isn’t actually good at the game, really.
[quote comment=”14306″]I learned from CS that sometimes, rushing means sitting out for 3 – 4 minutes while the rest of the players die or complete objectives. I think too many games (BFBC2 I’m looking at you) want you to constantly respawn so that players continually feel stimulated and play their game more / longer. I don’t like that system. I like sitting out and watching the rest of my team.[/quote]
Julez +1
I totally agree that almost all shooters now (save for Gears of War’s multiplayer, really) are geared towards this. I love the mechanic of CS in really having to value your spawn, and it really makes every firefight that much more tense.