Counter Strike 1.6 has developed a reputation for being the game that got everything right.
I’m actually very happy with the game that CS:GO has become, but if you’re looking
to relive the good old days- or didn’t experience them back them and want to know what all the
fuss was about- then you can now try CS:CO.
Don’t be fooled; it’s more than just CS:GO with a bit lopped off.
It is an ambitious mod that hopes to bring the thrill of 1.6 to the new generation of
players.
And most incredibly, it was almost all created by one man named ZooL.
And when I say almost, he borrowed some maps and skins from other places, but he has singlehandedly
put it all together into a working and polished mod that’s very easy to play.
All you have to do is to download the 300 MB file, place it in your sourcemods folder
and then to restart Steam and it will show up in your games list.
It even uses the workshop maps from your CS:GO installation, so it’s very easy to get working
with all sorts of stuff.
And aside from a few assets he built the rest from the ground up in about 10 months.
Not bad for a lone developer.
Once you load it up you’ll find all of the old weapons, maps and character models, all
modernised for the Source engine.
The blood trails are a lovely touch and will be familiar to anybody used to frag videos
from 1.6.
The first version of this was released on Christmas day, 2016 and since then has had
several updates.
This mod is very much alive and well and has a thriving community around it to stop it
from slipping into obscurity: you can check out the serverlist over at onepointsix.org
right now.
ZooL remains busy developing the mod itself and is allowed to do so undistracted thanks
to his friend Dayik, who handles the public side of things.
It is he who has helped me with this video and who has revealed a bit about the future
of this project.
For a start, they made a poll a while back, asking whether people wanted an accurate copy
of 1.6, or the ‘best of both worlds’.
The result was the best of both.
It will take a while to incorporate this result into the project, but this is the direction
it is set to go in.
This approach might help ZooL who has made it very clear from the beginning that he can’t
fully recreate 1.6.
There are things that Source simply can’t do, like the Russian walk or magic bullet.
And there are many elements where changes are limited, like the HUD and physics, which
they can’t get around without purchasing expensive licenses for engines and exclusive
permissions from Valve- which they don’t expect to be able to obtain.
But driveable vehicles from the days of Source may one day be a possibility!
We’ll see.
Speaking with Dayik they have certainly thought it all out and are aware of the limitations
with this project, so if you wonder why a specific feature is missing or different then
the chances are it’s beyond their control and not through lack of trying.
The next major update will be V1.2.
Other people have joined to help with this release.
Slothsquadron will be on hand to help balance the weapons and Bez the Bot Whisperer will
be there to buff the bots.
An instagib 100% accurate railgun mode may also be coming.
This release also removes any copyrighted assets from the game, which will be a major
turning point for this project, paving the way for third-party tournaments, and further
down the line the possibility of greenlighting the game on steam.
Doing so would give the project an auto-update feature among other things, which would make
it a lot more user-friendly.
Which is what this mod needs if it wants to survive in the long-run.
When asked when this 1.2 release would be out, Dayik erred on the side of caution and
made me aware that he doesn’t want to put deadlines on things, but when I asked if it
was a matter of days, weeks or months, he said that weeks was the most probable timescale.
In the even longer term he’s hoping for third parties to host their own leagues and
tournaments for the mod and has a number of semi-pro 1.6 players who may help provide
feedback on later versions of the project.
Pro player Sixer from Envyus has also expressed an interest.
But Dayik wanted to stress that they are taking a very slow and methodical approach to this
whole project as they want to get it right.
They don’t want to make promises they can’t keep or have what they say twisted out of
context used against them later on.
The development team behind this mod is tiny, yet so far has been incredibly productive
and successful.
CS:CO is definitely a mod that deserves your attention.
Thanks to Dayik for helping me with this video.
I wish him, Zool and the rest of the team the best of luck with future versions.