Version 1.2 was omitted when the retail version came out (this was the CS standalone, meaning one didn’t have to own Half-Life to play). But September 19 brought Version 1.3 with it. In my opinion, the best part of this update was the removal of bunny hopping. A favorite motion for Half-Life death match, bunny hopping totally ruined the Counter-Strike atmosphere and realism. While people can no longer hop madly around the map, I still find myself falling victim to the occasional major BS, midair kill. A player will start jumping and kill me while he is in midair. Some will argue with me that this is not BS, but those people need to be slapped upside the head numerous times with a damp halibut. Other bug fixes included hitbox and night vision issues. Version 1.3’s best technical triumph would definitely have to be the addition of voice communication, in which players could talk to each other with a microphone and have their actual voice transmitted to everyone else. This negated the need for such early communication programs as Roger Wilco, but certainly cannot compare to a downloaded program. I, myself, never used Roger Wilco, though I’ve used (and still use) Ventrillo, which is many times better than the CS voice system as it is much clearer; however, CS’s voice system was still a great achievement. Other minor things were added, but the last triumph of Version 1.3 was that nearby enemies could hear a player’s radio chatter from the preprogrammed radio commands the Gooseman implemented earlier on.

On April 24, 2002, nearly seven months later, the colossal Version 1.4 was released to the world. This version had the largest bug fix of any previous one, the most prominent one probably being the fixing of "fastwalk” cheats. With too many changes to name them all, the most notable, and most clutch, was the addition of Anti-Cheat protection. This was not the same as the Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) system, but did help to greatly reduce the number of cheaters and hackers that filled up servers and ruined games. A cinematically artistic change was added when players died: the camera would zoom out on their dead body and the angle would change to show the direction from which their killer came. Four changes revolving around the bomb were made. Only Ts were notified of the bomb being dropped or picked up, Ts were forced to stand still while diffusing the bomb (so no jumping either), (going along with that one) Ts were unable to move or shoot while setting us up the bomb, and Ts were able to see the bomb blinking in red on their radar once planted. Two new maps were added, and de_train was updated. Though only just added in Version 1.3, 1.4 came with the removal of players being able to hear enemy radio communication. Another discrepancy has risen in the records kept by CS-Nation (hey, no one’s perfect). For Version 1.3, it says that bunny hopping was removed; however, for 1.4 it says that jumping values were modified to reduce bunny hopping. I’m not sure which is correct, but it seems that today in CS:S, bunny hopping no longer exists so I’ll go with the records for Version 1.3 as correct. Many other minor updates were added, but an interesting one was having dead bodies remain on the ground throughout an entire round, which added to the realism of the game.

June 12 and Version 1.5 released de_piranesi and a few bug fixes, but not much else. It wasn’t until January 16, 2003 when another major version was released, Version 1.6, which included two new weapons: the FAMAS and Galil. Though updated many times between January 16 and January 17, 2007, the most notorious and fought-over addition was that of the riot shield, which caused many riots in the gaming community. By this time (of the first release of Version 1.6), however, I wasn’t playing CS much anymore. I was tired of all the BS and cheaters that ran rampant throughout the game. Much of the bull that the game is rife with bothers me still today, though so far as I can tell the cheating is barely there, if even at all. But my 2002-2003 school year in high school was a tough one, which also added to me playing CS less. I did, though, play on a few occasions in which I was able to see why everyone was complaining so much about the riot shield. As with its real life counterpart, the riot shield was a big piece of bullet-proof metal with a handle and a little "window” on it. Players were only able to use a pistol with the riot shield, and it was moved aside while shooting, but still people didn’t like it. Those skilled with it were able to protect themselves from incoming fire, but I never got the hang of it. Players thought it was an unfair advantage, though it seemed balanced enough: you could only use a pistol in conjunction with it and it didn’t protect you while shooting. It would appear, though, that the riot shield is still in use to this day in Version 1.6, which is still available despite the existence of Counter-Strike: Source.

Around the time Version 1.6 came out, Valve released Steam, a program through which people enter Half-Life and its mods. Early versions of Steam created quite a commotion throughout the gaming community, but looking back on things you can see that Steam is a much better system then the World Opponent Network (WON), originally used for Internet play. Steam in its current rendition is probably the best Internet gaming tool since GameSpy. It keeps all Half-Life mods in one easy-to-access location, lets you download new mods and games, and even has the capability to list people as "friends” to keep in touch with them and find out what sever they’re in. I’ll admit that I was among those in the fight against Steam, but at first it really was a Steam(ing) pile of expletive deleted. It was horrendously slow and chock full of bugs; Valve has solved all of those problems now and continues to increase its potential.

It was the release of Valve’s Source engine and Half-Life 2 that made Counter-Strike really soar. On November 16, 2006, the two were released to the world. Source gave CS a power boost to the extent that CS without it couldn’t compare even while on acid and coke, despite the fact that cocaine is a hell of a drug. At first, CS:S was small: it included few maps, but all the same old features, minus the riot shield. Most notable was the addition of rag doll physics and super-stellar graphics. Over time, however, CS:S grew. New (well, technically old) maps were added as well as new types of maps and game play. Assassination was removed (for some odd reason), but gun game and surf maps were added and are triumphs in their own rights.

However, there still remains an aspect of bull that I’m not to fond of, but don’t really think will ever go away. Things like random headshots, especially from the AK-47 at long range, and jump kills really bother me. While I really love playing, these aspects make me play less (though, quite honestly, it’s my poor Internet connect that really contributes to my lack of playing). Coupled with that is the lack of good servers. There are a select few servers that I will ever play on. These are ones that I either admin on or I know are going to be full with serious players who are there both to play and have a good time. I once went on some random server because my regulars were full and never again will I do so. Text chat was constantly flying across the screen with newbies and ten-year-olds bitching and moaning about another player’s actions. Oh, that was BS. No fair; you cheated! Your mom’s so fat she was classified as Earth’s second moon. Childhood crap like that spammed up the servers. Now, I’m not saying everyone was like that, but enough were that it ruined the game. OK, I’ll grant you that I do occasionally complain about a BS kill, but I’m nothing like those people. They just went on and on and on and on. And the players who tried to stop them just got sucked in. Now, now, there’s no need for all this fighting and whining. STFU, d-bag! Go eff yourself. I R TEH UBER HAXORZZZ!!!!1one. It’s like the vast majority of CS players are young teenagers whose mothers baby them so much they get whatever they want. I mean, I’ve been on servers where someone using voice communication was obviously about twelve and was using more swear words than Ozzy Osbourne. He was the type of kid that would whine and scream until mommy gave him whatever he wanted, and mommy caved in every time. I so wished I could just smack the kick in the head with a shovel and shout at him, "No! You can’t have whatever you want! Deal with it!” Like I said before, not everyone is like that, but it’s the players who are that ruin CS and online game play for me, and many others as well.

Anyway, enough of my ranting. Counter-Strike continues to be the most widely and the most popular game on the internet, barring World of Warcrap. I mean, Warcraft. It seems the MMORPG will never die, just like Bill Gates will never be poor. I wish he’d send some of those greens my way. I’d be happy with a couple mil. Please?

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