the storyline in Counter Strike Zero

For many, Counter-Strike is associated with versions 1.6, Source and Global Offensive. However, in 2004 Valve released the long-suffering Condition Zero – this is the first and last attempt by the studio to create a single-player campaign in the CS setting. It looked like a mix of Call of Duty and Splinter Cell and included 19 missions. Condition Zero: Deleted Scenes did not find much success, and the gaming community quickly forgot about it. If you missed this chapter from the history of CS – we have prepared material about the features of the plot campaign Deleted Scenes.

How Valve Juggled the Game

Condition Zero has two clients at once: in one the usual multi-user CS and single-player mode with bots on familiar maps, and in the other – Deleted Scenes – story missions, and there are objective reasons for this. Title problems started at the development stage – the project passed from hand to hand for several years. At first, the game was taken by Rogue studio, but after leaving the co-founder Jim Molina she fell apart. Valve transferred Gearbox Studio’s Condition Zero, with which she already collaborated on Half-Life. The company began all over again, abandoning Rogue’s ideas. Gearbox improved the game’s AI, graphics, and also expanded its arsenal by adding a rocket launcher, a grenade with gas, and more. However, Valve did not like these developments much, as did the protracted timelines for creating the title. Therefore, Gearbox services were refused, and the project migrated to Ritual Entertainment.

The new studio again began work on the game from scratch. The authors focused specifically on the single player campaign, the usual multiplayer for CS, they faded into the background. Ritual Entertainment created two dozen missions scattered around the world, where the player tried on the role of special forces of various units and fought against terrorists and drug dealers. However, Valve was again unsatisfied with the results, and the developers were pointed at the door. In the end, Turtle Rock Studios was called to complete the work on Condition Zero. The new studio abandoned the campaign created by Ritual Entertainment. Turtle Rock released the usual multi-player CS, which was not much different from version 1.6, and added to this a single mode with bots. The latter was a set of tasks on familiar CS maps, where the user needed to assemble a detachment and … do the same thing that he always did – kill several terrorists, save a couple of hostages and clear the bomb. In fact, it was a regular match in CS, where instead of live players there were bots. Valve decided to release both versions: what Turtle Rock did was called Counter Strike: Condition Zero, and the single player campaign from Ritual Entertainment was called Deleted Scenes. We will tell you about the latter.

From Africa to Vladivostok

There is no clear storyline in Deleted Scenes. The game is a set of 19 missions in different parts of the world, in each of which the user will have one task – to eliminate the terrorist threat. At the same time, within each specific mission, the developers created their own full-fledged history – there is even a scattering of cut scenes here. The player is not just sent to shoot terrorists, but is put on course: in Russia, for example, it is necessary to prevent the outbreak of the Third World War and repel nuclear weapons from the rebels, and in Colombia, to deal with the local drug laboratory.

All missions received unique locations that do not copy maps from CS. For example, in one Japanese mission we fight in pagodas, and in another, making our way through the hordes of terrorists at the station, we can wander into the kiosk with anime. The levels get their identity due to the musical design and the variety of enemies running at you. In Africa, the player will be chased by bots with sabers at the ready, and in Russia you can get acquainted with earflaps and Kalashnikovs.

There are no story characters whose name could really be remembered in Condition Zero. Sometimes, during the brief, a thought may slip through: “It seems I have already seen this officer,” but all this quickly dissipates and does not, in fact, affect history. They did not come up with their Imran Zakhaev in Deleted Scenes, antagonists can only be remembered for their bulletproofness.

You can complete missions in random order – this will not affect the general impression. However, even if you want to carefully study every detail of the plot, it will not be easy to do this – there are no subtitles in the game, but at least have plenty of broken English with a characteristic Japanese or Russian accent (or rather, the way the developers present it). Therefore, part of the replicas of Comrade Ivan or the Japanese police can pass by.

Special Forces, where is the photo of Spider-Man?

The ingenuity of the developers did not stop at the locations, they decided to experiment with the gameplay. To the standard CS kit – shooting at terrorists, rescuing hostages and clearing bombs – added a stealth mode in the spirit of Sam Fisher and solving puzzles. In some tasks, the player needs to not only catch the eye of enemies, but also carefully avoid scattered objects – in Building Recon, one bottle touched can wake the guard and lead to the failure of the operation. On the same task, we will have to feel like Peter Parker when the commander orders to take photos of the stolen bomb. Crawling with just one walkie-talkie or knife in Condition Zero will have more than once. In one of the missions, the user will generally be sent undercover to the drug lord. Everything is like in the series: a case with money and talk “about the cleanest product in all of Colombia.”

The run-and-shoot pattern in Deleted Scenes also does not always work. Firstly, because sometimes it’s not clear where, in fact, to escape, and secondly, to get to point A, you will have to press the red button, get into the ventilation, turn off the alarm, move the box and perform a number of strange manipulations. The whole process is complicated by the scripting of many elements. So we got into the right room, but we can’t contact by walkie-talkie, because we are not standing in the right pixel, and the door we need does not want to open, because first we need to screw a circle around the room so that the system responds to our presence. Well, and where without jumping on boxes and ledges and climbing on karachki through holes in the walls.

Where are you from, bot?

Condition Zero has many weaknesses. These include outdated graphics, unnatural physics and an incoherent plot, but the behavior of bots is simply beyond competition. A separate type of pleasure is to watch the terrorist standing in front of you, methodically releasing the clip on the shield, then amusingly runs to the side, reloads and shoots again.