Counter-Strike: Condition Zero - 26/03/04

[nips]

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero is being publicly released tomorrow after many delays.

I've just received an e-mail from Gameplay.co.uk saying that the game has shipped and will be here in 1-3 days. I thought I'd take this moment to give people a heads up that it's out soon, to those who'd totally forgotten that it was being released - IT'S GOT 20 MINS OF HL2 FOOTAGE INCLUDED!!!!!

I'm looking forward to it simply becuase of the bots (and the HL2 footage). Not having BB I can't play online, so I'm looking for some top quality bots to give me some off-line fun.

While CS may no longer be cool, I'm looking forward to it, and will post more impressions of it when it arrives

Here's the link to the anticipation thread in PC Gaming!

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EDIT: It just arrived through my door as I was typing this message. Pity it's 9:00, I've got to go to school. Although I've got incentive to work hard so I Can come hoem early. (I just saw the HL2 Footage Disc... I hope it's good!

First Impression:

[Montaver]

CS:CZ is pretty uninspired, just valve making people pay for a gamr theyve had for 4 years for free. And what they have done to the standard maps is just pointless. Competitions will use 1.6, i see no pint in paying for bots and some awful "deleted scenes" scenarios. Save your money and buy something decent like FarCry instead, thats what I did, and I'm loving it!

[Spatial]

C'mon Nips me boy, spill the beans on the HL2 footage

[nips]

I suppose it's a refelction of my anticipation towards this game that I played the HL2 footage before even thinking about playing the game. WHAT A JOKE! I'd seen it all, other than one clip on the E3 video. It's all old. The only scene that I couldn't relmember was the one with the big blue tenticle that stabs the marine, but it certainly felt quite familiar. They shouldn't be allowed to have 'Exclusive HL2 footage' on the box becuase, quite simply, it isn't!

Ok, so I've completed Condition Zero on Normal Mode. In all fairness I've been playing it for hours, but it certainly isn't a hard game! Perhaps I should have started at a harder level or something becuase the only reason I failed most maps is because I didn't know them.

As the 'commander' you have to be the one to defuse the bomb, on maps I don't know it's a killer. I've got my team yelling down my ear: "It's a bomb site B", and "Area Secure", "It's up to you now captain!" I'm running around looking for the bomb site, and they are just standing over the bomb holding thier dicks.

Equally another problem I had was with hostages. I didn't know the maps, so I look for them for ages, then when I finally get them and start to make my way back to the rescuse point my team, or I will have to, kill the enemy so I can't complete the objective of save the hostages... It stinks! Those two niggles extended my time playing by atleast 2 hours!

The scores were things like 12:2 simply because I couldn't find the hostages, or becuase I had to get kills with specific weapons. It was annoying.

The bots aren't anything special. You can tell instantly that they are bots. It sucks bad because you have to watch them run around like chumps for a couple of minutes if you **** up at the start. I watched a bot Run in a circle along the map, trying to get a hostage to follow him, for 3 minutes until I finally forfeit the round out of boredom. They must be going on check points or lines or something, becuase this one bot followed the same path 4 times!

I haven't looked a the delete scenes thing yet, I don't know what it is even... But I'm looking for a copy of Far Cry right now!

It's Counter-Strike with bots. I've enjoyed it becuase I've never played it online, and the bots I've downloaded previously have been pretty poor. These bots are better than any CS bots I've seen before (They'd bloody well better be for ?20), but they still do stupid things like look at the enemy for 3 seconds before shooting, and stand still whilst getting shot in the back etc....

Over all... not bad, but not good! If you've never played counter-strike before and don't have the internet 7/10, if you can't play online 5/10, if you can play online and have already got CS then 3/10!

A 5/10 for me then! I was blindly hoping for a lot more!