UKTerrorist

CS Addictiveness - Just One More?

Counter-Strike is the most played online FPS game ever - yesterday, today and no doubt tomorrow. Countless people have wondered why this is, and just as many have written articles on the subject. This may be simple curiosity, or it may be that they hope to repeat the same success by using their theories. Either way, people have come up with different ideas each time. This little article represents my own thoughts on the subject.

The most common answer to the CS success story is how every round and every game is different - my idea is just the opposite. It's the familiarity and similarity of every round that provides the game with a kind of "Just one more round" factor, making you want to keep on playing until you collapse from lack of food/sleep/porn.

Think about this. If you win the round, if you kill everyone and have a perfect game, are you fulfilled and can you now leave the server happy in the knowledge that you have reined supreme? Nope, 'fraid not. Getting you to keep playing a game when you’re winning is easy, because everyone loves winning and to get the chance to do it again is too good to pass up. Losing however, getting you to keep playing when you suck is something different altogether

In Deathmatch, you die and then you respawn instantly. However, when you go back to where you died the person who killed you will be long gone. In CS, things tend to work differently. Maps and gameplay follow a pattern that the Terrorists start at one side and the Counter-Terrorists at the other. This makes the game much like acting out a defined set of moves each time with very slight changes. So, when you get killed one round you have the desire to extract revenge and do better next time. Since you’re going to get the chance to do the same thing all over again next round, you stay put in the server - even if it means wetting your pants. As the rounds continue to come at you, you have the opportunity to learn what your enemy is doing, the opportunity to outsmart them, and above all else the opportunity to beat their ‘bitch ass’ down.

It all kind of follows the age-old cliché of "Tomorrow is another day", though in this case "Next is another round". This round will be different, you saw what they did last time and you'll be ready for them this time. You'll do better. You'll win. As long as the enemy doesn't do something different this time of course, which they inevitably will - giving you once more the same effect at the end of the next round, and so continuing the endless cycle and addiction. Just one more? Not likely.

Of course there are other things that affect people's enjoyment of the game, the fact it’s a team-game for one (although a lot of the time you wouldn’t know it). I remember playing Beta 5.2 and getting completely immersed in the game because it felt as if you were part of something every time you played. You weren’t just a lone warrior killing people for no reason; you were part of an elite squad sent out to save the hostages (or stop that from happening). There was a great sense of fulfilment when you saved the life of a teammate by killing his attacker just before he fired the last fatal bullet, and that was a feeling not acquired by deathmatch.

Unfortunately however, the community appears to be in such a state that I haven’t felt that feeling in a long time. Saving someone’s life goes unnoticed, and usually all you receive are calls from that person saying, "HEY, THAT WAS MY KILL!" All the team spirit has left, with only kill-hungry idiots remaining. This for me is the reason beta 5.2 is loved by so many people, and many consider it to be the best of all the CS versions – not because it was more balanced or it was actually better, but simply because the people were still nice and there wasn’t any paranoia.

Anyway, I digress. Counter-Strike is loved by thousands of people and each of them no doubt have their explanations for why they like it – and I'm sure it's a combination of things. So tell us why you like the game...