''Counter-Strike: Condition Zero'' is a

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...

video game developed by

Ritual Entertainment Ritual Entertainment was an American video game developer established in 1996 by Robert Atkins, Mark Dochtermann, Jim Dosé, Richard 'Levelord' Gray, Michael Hadwin, Harry Miller, and Tom Mustaine. Based in Dallas, Texas, Ritual Entertainment wa ...

Turtle Rock Studios Turtle Rock Studios (known as Valve South between 2008 and 2010) is an American video game developer founded in March 2002 by Michael Booth. It was acquired by Valve in 2008, but was re-founded in 2011 as an independent company by Phil Robb and ...

, and

Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...

, and published by

Sierra Entertainment Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, ...

and Valve. The follow-up to ''

Counter-Strike ''Counter-Strike'' (''CS'') is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror (bombing, hostage-taking, assassination) while counter-terrorists try to preven ...

'' (2000), it was released in March 2004 for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

. ''Condition Zero'' utilizes the

GoldSrc GoldSrc ( ) is a proprietary game engine developed by Valve. At its core, GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of id Software's ''Quake'' engine. It originally made its debut in 1998 with ''Half-Life'', and would power future games developed b ...

engine and has a multiplayer mode, which features updated character models, textures, maps and other graphical tweaks. It also includes two single-player campaigns; ''Tour of Duty'' and ''Condition Zero: Deleted Scenes''. Alongside various other Valve titles, the game received versions for

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

in 2013.

Gameplay

Development

''Condition Zero'' started development in 2000 by

Rogue Entertainment Rogue Entertainment was an American computer game developer based in Dallas, Texas, which was active in the late 1990s. It was founded by Rich Fleider, Steve Maines, and Jim Molinets in 1994. Rogue Entertainment's office was in the same buildin ...

, and was initially announced in May 2001 at E3 of that year. Rogue's producer for the game, Jim Molinets, later that year moved to

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

and the development company went defunct, leaving Valve empty. Later, they gave it to

Gearbox Software Gearbox Software is an American video game development company based in Frisco, Texas. It was established as a limited liability company in February 1999 by five developers formerly of Rebel Boat Rocker. Randy Pitchford, one of the founders, se ...

, the developers of the ''

Half-Life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable ato ...

'' expansion packs, so that Valve could focus on the development rival ''

Team Fortress 2 ''Team Fortress 2'' is a 2007 multiplayer first-person shooter, first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It is the sequel to the 1996 ''Team Fortress'' Mod (video gaming), mod for ''Quake (video game), Quake'' and ...

'' and its new engine. Gearbox created an overhaul of ''Counter-Strike'' with high quality models and improved graphics. They also added alpha blending, allowing for realistic foliage and weather effects, a single-player mode to the game, similar to the final game, based on inspiration of

Randy Pitchford Randy Pitchford is an American businessman. He co-founded the video game development studio Gearbox Software in 1999 and was president and CEO for the company until 2021, upon which he became CEO and president of Gearbox's parent company, The G ...

from console games such as ''

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater'', released as ''Tony Hawk's Skateboarding'' in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe, is a skateboarding video game developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. It was released for the PlayStation (c ...

'' and '' Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec'', and they included explosive weapons such as a

Molotov cocktails A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with flammab ...

tear gas Tear gas, also known as a lachrymator agent or lachrymator (), sometimes colloquially known as "mace" after the early commercial aerosol, is a chemical weapon that stimulates the nerves of the lacrimal gland in the eye to produce tears. In ad ...

bomb, M60 machine-gun and

M72 LAW The M72 LAW (light anti-tank weapon, also referred to as the light anti-armor weapon or LAW as well as LAWS: light anti-armor weapons system) is a portable one-shot unguided anti-tank weapon. The solid rocket propulsion unit was developed in th ...

rocket. They also used the release of

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

to their advantage to help prevent cheating by ensuring constant code updates. After a few developmental delays, it missed its late 2002 deadline and was given over to

, who completely remade the game into a single-player one with 20 unconnected missions. It was expected to be released in early 2003 with a secondary multiplayer mode by the upstart

, and released alongside the

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

version of ''Counter-Strike''. However, after declaring the game gold and handing out review copies of Ritual's work, Valve saw an average review score of around 60%. The companies retracted the gold status and work on ''Condition Zero'' was essentially begun again. Ritual's share of development was dropped, and Valve assigned Turtle Rock to finish development. They implemented a new bot AI that was beta tested in ''Counter-Strike'' 1.6 before release. The final game contained a version mirroring Gearbox's version, along with 12 missions recovered from Ritual's single-player portion, called ''Deleted Scenes''.

Reception

''Condition Zero'' received "mixed or average reviews". It has a score of 65 out of 100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, based on reviews from 33 critics. The game was praised for its AI and new maps, while it was criticized for being out-of-date following its lengthy development.

Competitive play

''Condition Zero'' has been featured in tournament play, although neither ''Condition Zero'' nor '' Counter-Strike: Source'' was able to generate mass interest from players of the original ''Counter-Strike'' as their successor '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' did.

References

External links

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero
at

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