Why is Counter Strike so damn addictive?
 

I hate CS, I really do. Yet I end up playing it all the time and I just don’t get it. I am not great at it or anything but not terrible. It’s just the same crap over and over again, and there are no vehicles in it, no special features, no character traits, no customizable guns. The last three were in Frag.Ops (a CS clone) yet for some reason I got bored of Frag.Ops even though it was clearly a more innovative game.

So why?! Why is Counter Strike so damn addictive - any theories?

I really have to agree with you on this one. I loaded HL2 on my computer the other day. I try not to play video games much and I figured HL2 and CSS could be played much less than, say, an in-depth MMORPG.

Well, scratch that idea, I've been playing it like mad the past week. I might as well be playing WoW which I didn't install yet because "i dont have the time during finals"....riiight. :lol:

I'm not sure why it's addicting though. Lots of games are considered addicting because they require time to level (EQ, WOW, D2, etc.) but CS doesn't require time... Maybe it's the fact that the games go so quick and that there's always people playing. I personally make sure the time is at least a little well-spent by talking during gameplay in hopes to find cool people to enjoy the time with.

-T

It's simplicity and that when you get a kill you feel like you have overcome a difficulty.

I can't stand Counter-Strike: Source for more than 15-20 minutes at a time, it just gets so damn boring. There is no real stategy to it, and its definitely not very realistic (which I prefer). Battlefield 1942 on the other hand with mods (Forgotten Hope, Eve of Destruction, Battlefield 1918, Desert Combat Final), I can spend hours at a time playing. Mainly because people actually work together to finish objectives (at least on the servers I play on), and the maps are huge, you have freedom to go and run'n'gun, go up into some hills an snipe, bomb enemy points with planes, ground assaults with tank columns, etc.

Sounds like a good version of the Army Ops that I used to play, I'll look into it!I love team play and it's hard playing a pick-up game of CS with strangers that also like to cooperate.

I dont know?
I hate CS and CSS. They bore me after a minute or two. Dated graphics, boring maps, bland gameplay and thousands of ignorant fscktards just ready to complain when you kill them. I'd rather play something else.

Plan and simple because it's fun, the best reason to play video games.

It is probably the respawn system. In most games you respone every 15 -30 seconds, which allows for Rombo tactics. In CS/S respawn only happens at the beginning of the round. This is probably makes you care more about making a kill or being killed.

If you think BF:1942 is more realistic than CS...

Wow. Didn't know riflemen flew bombers and drove tanks (seriously nerfed versions, too) in North Africa, guess I was wrong! :D

edit - don't get me wrong, I love both games, but c'mon! If you want a realistic flight sim, play Falcon. If you want a realistic tank sim, play Steel Beasts. If you want a realistic CQB-style game play Rainbow Six, etc.

Personally I can't stand all the annoying kiddies who play CS, other than that it is an OK game, nothing too exciting though. BF:1942 is a super fun game though.

arcade gameplay. It's quick easy, and builds up that "Oh I can do that better" attitude when you are dead and in spectator mode.

finding good servers with responsible/not power abusive admins is 80% to having fun at CS. The rest is realizing that strategy can make up for inability to make headshots. Its an awesome game that balances arcade with realism.

Or you can just spam AWP, still quite fun.

You can't really spam with a gun that fires that slowly....

AWP can be very fucking annoying, but only in the hands of someone who is decently skilled with it.

I think CS is addicting because it's so easy to say "okay, one more round.... well that round doesn't count cause I died in the first 5 seconds... one more round... " and on and on.

Counter-Strike, this game has pretty much consumed my youth, it all started in a LAN center a few blocks from my house, I used to go with my childhood friends and be there for 1 hour maybe 2, 3 was too much at the time. As time passed and the summer was over, I started going on weekends.

2 years later I was playing on the competitive CS scene, playing there was much more fun, ever scrim or match was incredibly fun and winning one was an overwhelming feeling, winning championships and getting cash prices was the best of it all though, getting paid for winning in a computer game oh well.

In early 2003 I moved to the United States, leaving all my LAN friends behind and being somewhat lost in this online scene. Here I joined CAL, and withing 5 months I was playing in CAL-M. The feeling of competition, and being able to play with some of the most respected teams in the world from my house was just unreal.

My advice to you people is to join CAL, start getting into IRC, scrims and such. There you can get better and see this game with different eyes as you do now.

#redemption @ gamesurge

I hate CS:S and I play it only once in a blue moon. Now whats truely addictive is HL2: Deathmatch. That was damn fun!

But yeah its the quick rushes you get playing a game that makes it addictive. Another game that provides some good rushes for me is Day of Defeat, I just can't wait for it to get on Source.

I think the main problem with newbies to the whole CS phenomenon is that CS: source is nothing much on top of the original. And what can I say? I remember back in the days where graphics were 8 bit at best, and gameplay is where it was at. Don't expect too much from source over the original, but dont discount the original based on that.

Used to play with a TFC clan (another HL mod, but CS sort of killed it) that was regarded, at one point, as the best in North America, if not the world. The best part was that we were really a bunch of nobody's (people who play online games competitively will understand this -- we weren't a clan made of big household type names) who came from the lower levels of leagues and pretty much overnight started beating top clans. Of course, everyone flamed the hell out of us and called us newbies, but that was half the fun. There really is no feeling that compares to handing a clan's ass to itself when they have no idea who you are.


I really hope valve (or a third party) gets things together and makes TFC:S so I can waste my Monday and Thursday nights away once again.