Counter-Strike

Counter-Strike began as a free Half-Life mod built by Minh 'Gooseman' Le and Jess Cliffe, reaching beta in mid-1999 and a full 1.0 release on November 9, 2000, the same day Valve — having taken over the project that April — put it out as a retail release through Sierra Studios. This entry covers the game in its original pre-1.6 form: before the 2003 overhaul rebuilt the interface on Valve's VGUI2 and moved distribution to Steam. Teams of Counter-Terrorists and Terrorists face off in short, economy-driven rounds built around bomb defusal and hostage rescue. A console port followed on the original Xbox in November 2003, published by Microsoft Game Studios.