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| - As one of the world's most popular and played games of all time, Counter-Strike has garnered a love/hate relationship with gamers. While people love the camaraderie of playing on a group that enjoys working as a team and practicing to specialize in their favorite fire arm, they also dislike the general community and continued anomalies with hit recognition. Counter-Strike: Condition Zero would appear to be the ultimate solution: gamers can play a refined and enhanced single player experience that uses the same weaponry, style, and tactics that they've come to enjoy over the years. In theory, Condition Zero would've been the launching point for a new era in Counter-Strike, and a new way to hook a whole new set of gamers. In theory, it would also have expanded upon the universe with more weapons, equipment, maps, and a refined engine that would bring the game up to snuff. But in actuality, it turns out to just be Counter-Strike with bots - and a few missions taken from the cutting room floor. For those
who have never tried Counter-Strike, here's a quick summary: it's an online,
team-based first-person shooter that pits terrorists against counter terrorists.
They fight over hostages, planting bombs, and use a wide variety of weapons -
with names changed for retail release - that run the gamut from desert eagles,
machine guns, sniper rifles, and also equipment like protective shields and grenades.
Guns are realistically modeled and simulated - I'll take their word on that -
and have different firing rates, recoil (reflected by the crosshairs spreading
the longer a weapon is fired), and power. Forces will fight it out in office buildings,
shacks in jungles, hold-ups in canyons, malls, villas, and a few other locals.
Counter-Strike is currently the most played game as legions of online fans
have formed clans and devoted countless hours to perfecting their skills. Now
comes Condition Zero. | |||||
single player first-person shooting experience that Counter-Strike had become for the multiplayer world. I really wonder what happened during all that time. The bulk of the gameplay comes from a single player take on the online version featuring 6 'tour of duty' map sets, each with 3 maps; even myself, who only played randomly, immediately remembered most of the layouts of over half of them. If any of maps are new to you, as some were to me, don't worry, they're small and the enemy is predictable. What makes this different from the regular version is that there are more objectives than preventing a bomb from exploding and saving hostages. Now, players will also have to kill a certain amount of enemies and kill a certain amount while using a specified item. Each map has to be beaten with a lead of two wins for the player to progress; requirements do not have to be fulfilled in any set amount of rounds, as long as the computer doesn't win by two rounds, the player can continue working towards the goals. Also of note is that the terrorists aren't selectable for the tours of duty. Each map will start off with the player choosing their teammates. Every person has a reputation point assigned to them, with these points being earned by completing missions, and each has a specific item or weapon they are experienced in. All possible teammates are rated in Skill, Bravery, and Co-Op - the higher their cost, the better weapons they use and the better all-around players they'll be. It's actually pretty interesting to see how good a job the developers did with your teammate's AI - they will miss ledges when jumping for them, misfire, and even offer useful help when they feel the need, much like real players. The problems come when they impede the player from completing their objectives and when they fail to learn from their mistakes: several times a teammate would throw a bomb at a certain point that was way too far for any of the enemies to be semi close to so early in a round, round after round. After dying, some surprising things can be seen during the free watch mode, including teammates missing the enemy at pointblank range, in one instance the bullets made an exact outline of the enemy's head; switching to knives, then shotgun, then knives, with enemy in pursuit, then taking out the shotgun again to open fire; and staring at a planted bomb, and either waiting for it to go off, failing to shoot the guard and be killed while disarming, or just run circles around it until it detonated. The biggest problem, however, wasn't the random acts of stupidity by the player's teammates, but the complete lack of control the player has over them. As the role of the leader, one would expect the player to be able to exert some sort of control over the other players, but no. First, get any notion of Raven Shield-styled commands out of your head; there isn't anything that drastic in Condition Zero. Instead, basic commands, like "stay", are always disobeyed by at least one teammate, two on the average. This means situations like this arise: one hostage left needing to be rescued, the terrorists are almost gone, the player is seconds away from the extraction point, orders the men to stay, two confirmations come back, one negative, then the one negative proceeds to kill the last terrorist and force the round to start all over. That situation can, and did, repeat over and over and over again. It's infuriating. Bots can be adjusted to turn this 'rogue' nature off, but that is on available in custom games - the Condition Zero version of a skirmish. However, more often than not they are surprisingly realistic and are very vocal when spotting enemies and bombs, so they definitely have their perks. Since the game is just Counter-Strike with bots, maybe the developers spent time polishing it up, putting on a new coat of gloss, and creating new sounds? Nope. The game looks like a slightly cleaner version of what you have - for free - right now. There are still the awkward sideways standing animations when going up ladders, models are very angular, and everything just looks dated. Some of the textures are good, allowing for some nice detail in a few of the levels, but even those would be looked down upon if released in a first-person shooter we weren't already so familiar with. The music is, from what I recall, the same. The voices of the other players are replicated by the voice chatter sound and have sayings, like "owned!" - yay!, but they do keep in constant contact with solid intel. What I found even more surprising was that the menu system wasn't addressed: players still have to go back into the buy menu once they choose an item or cancel that section, due to being booted out of the buy menu. There is an auto-buy - which always picked the same thing for me, once my weapon-specific objective was complete - and a re-buy option, both of which came in handy since it helped minimize how long I had to slug through the menus. Complementing
the mock online portion is a version entitled Counter-Strike: Condition Zero
- Deleted Scenes. Deleted Scenes are 12 levels from Ritual, a previous
developer of Condition Zero, and consist of missions that take place around
the globe to participate in unrelated scenarios. From disarming nukes in Russia
to saving hostages in jungles, players will use remote bombs, video cameras, blow
torches, and other goodies to gather evidence and take down terrorists. This sounds
interesting, but it's more in line with The Hunger, a Half-Life
mod released a few years back. The levels are decent, but the AI isn't too bright,
enemy models are constantly reused, and the missions are short. A disc of Half-Life
2 footage is also packed with Condition Zero, if it's any consolation.
In short, Condition Zero feels like a trainer for the online version, with
a slightly above-average set of maps that have minimal stories and scripted events. Overall:
6.5/10 [ top ] |
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