Counter-Strike
Die in a round of Counter-Strike and you spend the rest of it as a spectator. Two teams, terrorists and counter-terrorists, fight over a bomb or hostages and buy their guns with money earned in earlier rounds.
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It started as a Half-Life mod. Minh Le began work on it in January 1999, and Rainbow Six gave him the counter-terrorism theme.
The name was picked on March 15, 1999, over ICQ, beating options like Strike Force and Frag Heads. The M249 machine gun and the Krieg 552 rifle made it into the game thanks to the film Ronin.
Then Valve bought the rights, and in November 2000 Counter-Strike became the first fan-made game sold in stores.
Version 1.6 launched in 2003 together with the Steam client. So many people wanted into its beta that sign-ups were closed on the first day, because the Steam servers ran out of bandwidth.
Reviewers at launch praised its focus on teamwork. Most called the engine dated even then, though they still liked the graphics. Players leave 96% positive out of 170,493 reviews, and it has 88 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #72 of 4,736 games.
Liked it? Try Counter-Strike: Source, the 2004 remake on the Source engine, and Day of Defeat, another Half-Life mod whose rights Valve bought, this time set in World War II.
System requirements
iSteam Deck Playable
