GameZig

Counter-Strike: Source is the most well known and popular online FPS there is. It’s also a very customizable game; you can change the textures and models of everything, and there’s a map editor and a mod creator included with the game.

CS:S is an online FPS, in which you play skirmishes between Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists. The game has a few maps included, but there are hundreds available in online play, greatly varying in detail. Some user-made maps are even better than the ones Valve provided. There are several game modes. In Hostage Rescue, the CS (Counter Terrorist) team has to free hostages from the T (Terrorist) team’s base. In Plant The Bomb, T must plant a bomb at a crucial site and guard it until it detonates. In Deathmatch, you get to choose your weapons freely, and spawn in a random place on the map. The team with the most kills wins.

The weapon system is remarkable: Each round, you can buy weapons, grenades and armour at your spawn site. The prices range from in the low hundreds for the pistols, to over 5000 for the M249 Light Machine Gun. Money is acquired by playing rounds and killing enemies. You get extra money for winning and surviving the round. When you die, you lose everything you were carrying, and have to buy new gear.

There are a lot of weapons. Desert Eagles, MAC-10’s, P90’s, AK-47’s, M4’s, and the Scout Sniper Rifle to name a few. All weapons differ in speed, accuracy, power, weight and cost. A general rule of thumb: Expensive>cheap. Well, except for the Dual Elites, which are awful. You can also buy body armour to take less damage, and buy several kinds of grenades to help you. All in all it’s still a pretty balanced system. Unlike some games I know *coughwarrockcough*…

A notable mod is the surfmod. Surfmod lets you “surf” down certain angled slopes. You really have to see it for yourself to fully understand it. (There’s a link to a video at the bottom of the post.)

There also is an inbuilt voice chat. It could’ve been great, weren’t it for all the 7 year olds screaming in it when they get killed.

Personal rating:
Graphics - 9. Most of the Valve-released maps and models are awesome. Some aren’t. But you can fix it all with 3rd party skins, so it’s okay.
Audio - 7. There are weapon sounds, and some macro’s you can yell at your teammates. The Voice Chat was a good initiative, but it didn’t work out well.
Gameplay - 10. Freaking awesome.

Overall - 8.7
You should try it out!

More Reading:
CS:S Wiki
Counter-Strike.com:CS:S forums, maps, strategy guides and more!
FPSBanana.com: CS:S skins, maps, tutorials.. Everything you need!

Pictures:
Dust
Italy
Market
SAS

Videos:

Frag video.

Surf video.

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My personal website.

Before you tie me up to the stake and light the torches, hear me out!!

Star Wars Galaxies, even though it is still alive today is a failure for the Star Wars fans in my book.  It started out as a fun game with some features I really enjoyed.  Granted, there were parts of the game that weren’t all that great but we’ll leave those ideas out of KOTOR.  The question I’m asking is that is there anything that you liked about Star Wars Galaxies that you think is salvageable for Knights of the Old Republic?

I for one liked two things above all else in SWG that I haven’t really seen done well in other games.  First was the crafting system.  To me the crafting system was unique in that it gave people the ability to produce better goods than competing crafters by spending the time and money to find the best resources.  Having the end product be strongly based on the resource quality it was made from is a big plus in my book.  Finding the best resources took commitment, a lot of time and patience.  It wasn’t something just anyone could do.  Ya, anyone could craft and make stuff but the best stuff was crafted by an elite few and those people became very famous in their servers, very sought after and very rich.  That feature of SWG is no longer really evident today in the way SOE screwed up the game, but you veterans will remember it.

Another feature I really enjoyed about SWG was player owned housing and cities.  A place you really got attached to because it was yours!  Some people only used houses for extra storage - others actually used it to show off their rewards and trophies.  They even had a weekly or monthly contest where people would go around judging the best decorated houses.  Is that Star Wars?  No, not by itself but it made you feel a bigger part of the Star Wars Universe.  You didn’t just visit from time to time - you lived in it.

Are there any features you enjoyed from SWG you’d like to see in KOTOR?  I know there are plenty you would not like to see, but what did you like about the game that you’d like to see implemented?

Half-Life 2 is one of the most successful Survival FPS games ever, if not the most successful. It has won over 35 Game of the Year awards, and countless others. It was, as it’s predecessor was, revolutionary. It had better graphics, a better engine, and a better story than any other game there was.

In the original Half-Life, you play as Gordon Freeman. Freeman is a theoretical physicist who worked in the Black Mesa research facility. One day an experiment Freeman works on goes wrong, and an interdimensional portal is opened, releasing hostile aliens into the facility. You spend the game fighting those monsters with fellow employees and a military Special Ops unit. At the end of the game, you are put into stasis by the G-Man, a strange man who appears throughout the series.

In Half-life 2, you’re pulled out of that stasis, and find yourself in a train, decades after the Black Mesa incident. The world is taken over by a military alien force known as the Combine. You have to fight your way through them to get to a safe haven.

Half-Life 2 is an FPS game. It’s divided into chapters, each one being a level in a different area. Examples are a network of sewers, a town taken over by zombies, a highway next to a beach, and a huge metal tower. During those levels, there’s a nice amount of back story. A notable thing is that there are no cutscenes, the entire game is composed of one long route, and bits of storyline are still in first person mode. In between are only a few points where the game has to load, which are quick and not too boring.

There’s a nice amount of weapons, from a small pistol to a rocket launcher, with things as a shotgun and crossbow in between. And, of course, the Gravity Gun! There are a lot of different enemies you will encounter, ranging from Combine Soldiers and Antlions to massive biological gunships, tripods and even zombies!

But it’s not only a brainless shooter, there are also a lot of fun puzzles to be solved, some of which are a real pain to complete.

All that makes it a truly incredible experience to play, and with the 2 sequels that are already released makes for a great series with a great replay value.

Personal rating:
Graphics - 10. Everything looks great, and anyone but the biggest graphic whores will agree with this rating.
Audio - 10. Great voice acting for the numerous characters there are. There’s some awesome music at some points, too.
Gameplay - 9. Great, but slow at some points.

Overall - 9.6.
Go buy this game!

More reading:
HL2 Wiki
Valve’s Website

Pictures:
Antlions
Helicopter
Striders

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Thanks to Blackwings for letting me join. I hope I’ll be able to contribute something good to the site!

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My personal website.