Counterstrike: Condition Zero : Games : Web Wombat

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, also may I extend a very warm welcome to the ambassadorial party from Pestulon IV, they're in the far corner by the bar.

Thirsty work, being an ambassador. Could I get a wave of the tentacles, perhaps? Thank you.

You may have gathered from my exceptionally chirpy greeting that I am a happy little unit. If you have indeed gathered this…then you're dead wrong with the emphasis on dead.

In truth, my friends, I am a seething ball of rage, testosterone and anchovies.

I've been waiting years for Condition Zero. It was touted as the Quake-killing, throne-toppling single player Counterstrike experience we'd all been craving just like junkies crave that next hit. We, the gaming public, could nigh-taste those sweet caramelised polygons so bad it physically hurt.

All of this, and for what?

An overpriced, outdated and severely outclassed Half-life MOD containing less inspiration than what is stored within the tip of my gangrenous, rotting little finger, is what.

Don't get me wrong; Condition Zero is fine, great even, if all you want to do is play against bots on annoyingly generic maps. If this is so, then Condition Zero is the dog's bollocks, the cutting edge and quite possibly the best of the best.

However, if you are looking for an above-average or even engaging single player experience utilising clever plot, inventive scripted events and/or top-of-the-line graphics…You aren't really looking in the right place, because CZ has none of the above.

Let's start from the top in order to make sense of this mess, shall we?

Firstly, plot: There is none. You've got CZ itself and CZ: The Deleted Scenes (I'll come to Deleted Scenes later). Anyway, standard-issue Condition Zero play is, to be blunt, nothing more or less than a collection of maps and a collection of bots to be mixed and matched at will utilising an updated version of the Counterstrike code complete with a slight graphical touch-up.

Time for a little 'democracy'

The singular incentive for playing through this slog, and it is a slog, is that you get unlock more derivative levels and more generic bots. Gee, don't you feel motivated just reading that sentence?

Secondarily, we have scripted events: They are there, but you can't be bothered to care, quite frankly, on account of the fact that we've seen it all before, from the Northern Africa crash landing that I'm certain was ripped straight out of the Half-life: Opposing Force expansion pack of many years ago to the occasional door being kicked in. This is as bog-standard as it gets.

If Hitchcock was a raving mad CS fragmeister, he must surely be turning in his grave.

Finally, we come to the graphics: This is the only point that allows Counterstrike: Condition Zero to save some face. Note my use of the word 'some'. In a lot of ways, this is as close as the truly ancient Half-life engine is going to come to modern standards.

It's been with us for a long time, we've had some good times and shared a few laughs, but, like that ancient uncle you've been storing under the stairs all these years, it's time to call the undertakers and bury this one for good.

The weapon models are looking good, slow-down is minimal on even the most average of machines and, occasionally, you can be impressed by what the old HL engine is capable of.

Then again, a large amount of the character models look positively decrepit, the particle effects are laughable and don't even get me started on the blood effects, akin to fleshy red streamers or possibly low-budget tomato sauce fountains, or textures, some of which could have quite easily come from the likes of Quake.

As Weird Al Yankovic once sang, "Please don't point and stare, we're just technologically impaired".

Now, I mentioned Deleted Scenes earlier, and even I will admit that the subtitle sounds promising. Hey, you might even be moved to think that Valve will have bundled some cute CGI bloopers a la the likes of Toy Story, out of which we might get, at the very worst, a weak chuckle. No such luck, I'm afraid.

In the name of, presumably, breaking up the monotony of CZ gameplay, we've got a bunch of unconnected, dull single player levels featuring pointless objectives about as engaging as watching the grass grow, maybe slightly more so, but only maybe.

When Angelina Jolie ran out of money,
she turned to a life of hockey - then crime

Said objectives range from "kill everything in Northern Africa and escape" to "find the hostage, kill everything in the Philippines and escape" to "defuse the bomb, kill everything in general and escape". I don't know about you fine people, but I'm starting to detect a trend here.

Vietcong this is not. It isn't even Soldier of Fortune. It's just…Condition Zero.

Having read all of the above, you're probably thinking that Condition Zero must be a terrible game, fit only for use as an anchor on the scurviest Slavic garbage scow to sink to the bottom of the Black Sea.

While it would be entertaining in the extreme to leave you all with that impression, somehow I feel it wouldn't be fair.

Counterstrike: Condition Zero is not terrifyingly bad. It is, however, just about the most mediocre commercial experience available today. If it were a MOD available for free download, I could mark it up substantially, but it's not, so I can't, so I won't.

In fact, the only way you can think about Condition Zero is as a patch for Counterstrike, complete with tighter code and a prettier interface, because that's what it boils down to, in as many words.

Is Condition Zero a semi-decent game? Yes. Would I pay money for it? Not on your life.

What the marketing boys will have to realise, if they want to continue receiving their big fat pay cheques, is that the vast and overwhelming majority of people have a hard enough time deciding what to spend their hard-earned dosh on without having to deal with duds, which is, unfortunately, what Condition Zero is. A dud.

Ah well, there's always Team Fortress 2 to look forward to.

Game: Counterstrike: Condition Zero
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: Ritual Entertainment
Distributor: Valve

Rating: 55%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Counterstrike: Condition Zero is on the shelves now.

	Announcement