Before I get into this rant-of-sorts, I am going to explain where I am coming from. The purpose of the “Nostalgia Bomb” post is to showcase the games that helped shape my love for gaming. I use heavy artistic license in these to prevent anyone from thinking that this is anything more than my opinion. It’s all about appreciation for the games that I grew up with; the ones that have helped inform me of what I admire so much about gaming and its community.
So without further ado…
The year is 1999, and America is in a pop-cultural tailspin. LFO is spreading their love for summer girls, along with HPV, all over the world. The NOW music franchise is still selling like hotcakes, as their contract with Satan is still valid. George Lucas has just poisoned his biggest cash cow, and opened the nerd equivalent to Pandora’s Box, unleashing original sin unto the science fiction community. Young Star Wars enthusiasts are attacked in the streets by the old, jaded, hollowed-out husks of the original trilogy Star Wars fans. Chaos is everywhere… is this the end?
No! Before the Earth opens up and swallows everything whole, magic happens… and not the Harry Potter type stuff that had uptight parents banning and burning books over. The Counter-Strike beta is made, and the rest is history.
Pre-Steam, pre-box edition, OG ass Counter-Strike was a thing of sheer perfection. Forged among the gods at Mount Olympus, CS patriarchs Gooseman and Cliffe set out to change the world. With Gooseman working on the mod programming and Cliffe laying down the Foley work, they would shape a game that would live on well past their original vision. While Counter-Strike: Global Offensive may be the current evolution of the series, it is a pale comparison to the once titanic glory of Counter-Strike. To put it into perspective, Counter-Strike (OG) is like Quake, and CS:GO is Quake 4.
Am I over romanticizing this issue? Do I have my nostalgia goggles on too tight?
Yes, and yes… I’ll tell you this though: that watered down, weapon-skin pushing business model that CS:GO is currently repping shows how far this mighty empire has fallen. Behold the science behind this argument:
PART 1: Sprays
Ever since humans developed the concept of expression, we’ve been spreading our opinion with impunity. Way back when, cave people were smearing berries, mud and whatever other primitive shit they could find to showcase their achievements and revelations. As time progressed, the methods employed to display our individualistic ideals advanced significantly. Then the peak of human achievement occurred… We were gifted with the spray.
Like Prometheus gifting fire, Gooseman and Cliffe sired one of the most prolific and true forms of expression and bestowed it upon the masses. As the ranks within Counter-Strike rose, many forums and fan-sites exploded with those sharing their sprays. The demand got so high, there were actually sites created in order to pay for custom sprays… That is some crazy, market-driven, free enterprise shit!
With seemingly endless utility, gamers used the spray to accomplish a wide array of tasks, though mostly to show how much better they were than you. Nothing was more humbling that getting lined in chalk after your were dusted for foolishly rushing. And you could always catch some fool shooting the wall because he couldn’t tell the difference between a player and a spray, thus removing himself from the gene pool as Darwin used to preach about. Whether you were repping your clan, disrespecting those with lesser skill, applying subterfuge, or just keeping it real, sprays were there to lend a hand.
Now-a-days, all players can do to endorse their flavor is have some wack-ass avatar, or gun texture. You can stoop even lower and apply Valve’s new-wave innovation… Gun Stickers.
Where is the endless possibility? Where is the individualistic passion?
Ever since Valve took away the spray, players have been degraded to tea bagging and knifing corpses like some low-rent, Xbox Live trolls. And for what? To push their keys, at crack prices, while providing no real outlet for expression and appreciation. I understand that the f2p model is business-like in nature, but that doesn’t mean that preservation of what made Counter-Strike so great should fall away.
As Valve begins to monetize Counter-Strike and give it a post-COD facelift, it sacrifices its originality and reduces it to another shooter-by-the-numbers. While CS:GO looks nice, it just feels like a hollow, HD substitute. To put it bluntly, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is…
If you’re in to reform via social media, maybe we can get Valve’s attention with these:
#reformCounterStrike #CounterStrikeUsedToOwn
Or, drop your favorite spray in the comments section and show your pride off a little.
Stay tuned for Part II: Weaponry
The Lone Gamer...er 