To keep it short this is a weird bit of valve proto-history. CSCZ has a low steam ID, being a fan of the mod, and all things HL. eventually i was bound to play it. Reading a bit about it, Two Studios did the development for it, the main one (I gues it's considered the official realease) is by Turtle Rock. Not very creative or original, you basically get the mod+bots and some exclusive (but kinda crappy) maps. In its day this might have been a cool ideai n the sense most didnt know how to get bots working and server management was clunky, this basically means valve sold a CS Drill simulator.

That doesnt feel rewarding.

Thanks for nothing GABEN! Why I'm so mad, I paid 10 bucks for this crap??? Why I'm going to join the guys over at Ritual now: Lol, welcome to that 'other version'... The one was 'cut' (but wasnt?) and is considered the Extended Version, or is supressed or.. something? They call this the Deleted Scenes it was made by Ritual Entertainment, who made SiN, which was a pretty cool 90's shooter that introduced me to multiplayer games actually (I bought SiN on eBay a few days before Half-Life was released in store, and I got BOTH on the same day actually cause SiN came in the mail when I grabbed a HL off the shelf :D !) In any case this game isn't SiN (and it's not CS either) but it's still kinda cool what they did with CS, and the guys did some good scripting of lots of stuff going on in the Gold Source engine. It's certainly a higher quality HL mod, enough to rub elbows with Gearbox (and it easily beats Gunman Chronicles) this version is basically a solo player campaign with random missions not connected. The scenarios are believable. Japanese cultists wanting to release nerve gas (you can be japnese CT's kinda neat), RAF fighting against Irish Loonies, Americans (seals i guess, not relaly specificed) in some kinda black hawk down situation. Game looks good and feels right and there is interesting gear like cameras and radios and blow torches. No new weapons, and you can hoard them HL style.

Ultimately its not great but it was worth a look and I was always curious. God knows why valve didnt like the ritual one, for what it is it's rather well made, but I guess the lack of multiplayer was a grave concern, yet it very much is on par with OPforce or Blueshift and pretty much exactly what I'd have expected of the game... so :shrug:

The game really has no reason to be played this days unless you are a major valve dweeb or historian. (It's really low steam ID number. one of the earlier releases) Gold Source Engine has aged horribly, these guys were good at it and I was pretty impressed with more than a few of the ideas for scripted events, deaths level destruction, etc. All in all it's a dated mediocre shooter from the days of beige boxes and fileplanet brought to you with the divine love that could only come from his holiness: GABEN.

Keep on moving unless you can't resist a good loving! :D