Title	Game Info	Screenshots	Gamester Score
	Publisher: Microsoft   Developer: Valve   Software   Genre: Action   Release: 11/18/03   Rating: Mature		Control 5/5 Graphics 4/5 Sound 4/5 Orginality 4/5 Value 5/5 Overall 4/5

Counter-Strike is one of the few wonders of the gaming world. Originating as an online mod for Half-Life, Counter-Strike quickly went on to become the online FPS of choice for many gamers. Even with it’s aged graphics and (somewhat) aged gameplay, Counter-Strike is still the most popular online shooter. There are several factors to its success, such as it was free and the user-base for Half-Life was already high, but none greater than the fact that Counter-Strike provides a highly entertaining online experience. It only took five years, but now Xbox owners can finally see what all the fuss was about with Counter-Strike, a bare-bones port of the online classic.

Counter-Strike places two teams against each other: the terrorists and counter-terrorists. One team is given an objective, whether it ‘s rescuing hostages or planting a bomb, while the other team has to prevent the other team from completing those objectives. Counter-Strike has always had a fantastic balance between action and team-based play, allowing you to both run-and-gun and enforce team-based tactics. It’s no different in the Xbox version -- everything that made the original Counter-Strike an online phenomenon is still here.

Unfortunately, Counter-Strike will be a definite case of too little, too late for most gamers. Aside from the voice-chat and enhanced visuals, there’s little else to entice Counter-Strike veterans to the Xbox version. Xbox Live is absolutely needed to find enjoyment out of Counter-Strike since there’s little else to it in the single player mode. No story, no setup, and no missions – just the same Counter-Strike mode that you can find during online play, but with AI controlled bots. The bots can offer quite a challenge, but needless to say, yelling at the computer-controlled AI versus yelling at someone over Xbox Live isn’t as fun.

Counter-Strike looks better than the PC version, but really, that’s not saying much. Compared to most shooters on the Xbox, Counter-Strike is way behind the curve. Textures and animation both look like they don’t belong on the Xbox, and environments are simplistically rendered. Granted, Counter-Strike veterans will likely overlook these problems if they’ve been able to play the same game for five years, but console enthusiasts might not be so forgiving.

It’ll be a bit harder to overlook the audio problems though. Sound effects are solid, but the problem arises with the custom soundtrack option. Whenever a new match starts, the soundtrack will start over from the first song, meaning you’ll be listening to the first few songs over and over if you play short matches.

There’s no denying that the Counter-Strike formula still works and as such, is still a load of fun. It’s just a shame that Xbox owners are only getting a slightly upgraded game that’s over five years old. Veterans of Counter-Strike are better of sticking with the PC version, but Xbox owners looking for some solid online fun have another title to add to their “To Buy” list.