Counter-Community

By Shane Marshall

Counter-Strike™ has been around for a while, but on Xbox Live, the game has brought in a whole new community of gamers, in addition to the devout followers of the PC game.

One fan (Gamertag: Unreal Insanity) is an old-school Counter-Strike player who recently made the move to Xbox Live. He's found a new community of victims … er … I mean friends to play with. "The Counter-Strikecommunity is awesome. I met a lot of cool players onCounter-Strike. And, now, I play periodically almost every day." He calls the game "very addicting," and I have no reason to disagree with him (as I start another game).

The team that kills together wins together.

It's a matter of poking around until you hit that right combination of players. The first group is too tough. The second group is too easy. The third is just right. While waiting for the match to end, the dead discuss what they did wrong. When they start up again, they quickly divvy up the duties. “I'll cover site A.” “I'll cover site B.” “I'm going to take up a sniper position at the head of the street.” “I've got the hostages covered.” “I'll watch that vent that they came through last time.”

After you've found a good crew to mesh up with—folks who can work as team, share the work, cover each other, and learn from their mistakes as they go—it's easy to play game after game, winning some and losing some, but always having a blast all the way along.

GoodCitizenDan (who lives up to his Gamertag in the Counter-Strike community, by the way) offers the following to back me up: "Counter-Strike™ for Xbox is a great game. It's by far the most balanced first-person shooter on XboxLive to date, gameplay wise. Most all of my favorite people play it - not counting those bastards who defected toTom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® 3. Consequently, I play from 11:00 P.M. (when I get off work) until 3:00 A.M. or 4:00 A.M. almost every night."

So, it's not just me.

One thing about the gaming community praises most is the way voice chat is so wonderfully integrated into Counter-Strike play. The Xbox Live Communicator headset is a key tool in building trust and cooperation between players during a game. If I have the bomb, I want my fellow terrorists to cover me and be there to pick up the package if I get sniped. With my headset, I can tell them so and hear them respond. We can hash out strategy on the fly, change our plans if someone gets killed, and warn each other of enemy positions. My buddies can let me know if they need smoke cover or warn me if they’ve toss a flash-bang grenade. This series of "drops and catches" makes me want to play with them again, and so I add them to my Friends List.

Can I add you to my Friends List?

The single-player experience on Counter-Strike is a good practice venue. It's something that can help you learn the maps, get familiar with the controls, and try out new weapons. But, the game really shines on Xbox Live. That's what it was born to do: bring lots of players together in joy-filled marathons of bullet flinging. Just in the process of researching this article, I ended up adding new people to my Friends List, and that’s the beauty of the game.

Many gamers I spoke with had found many of their Xbox Live Friends through Counter-Strike, and I don't find that surprising. It's a genre that forces you to make friends or die. Be a team … or be losers together.

In other words, kill or be killed. There is no try.