Introduction

Introduction
If you have even a passing familiarity with shooters, chances are you've heard of Counter-Strike: the competitive mod turned full-fledged title that was for a time was the world's most played action game. However you may or may not have heard of Condition Zero, a single-player focused half retail re-release and half sequel. Take the compelling tactical-shooty core of CS and augment it with VALVe's legendary powers of design and narrative and you've got a guaranteed slam dunk, right? If only. Condition Zero was on the road to hell, and it's a road that starts with outsourced development. The project changed hands many times, in the span of four years going through as many developers. Tumult was the order of the day, and the project was rebuilt from scratch numerous times, only finally settling into something VALVe would accept with Turtle Rock Studios, later notable for the Left 4 Dead series and Evolve. The release product was little more than a glorified texture pack, and is really only notable for including some of the most intelligent FPS AI ever developed, frequently outclassing its competitors to this very day. But I'm not here to talk about that game, I'm here to talk about its red-headed stepchild, the Deleted Scenes.

The Redheaded Retarded Stepchild
Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes (say that five times fast) are the leftovers from Ritual Entertainment's turn at the wheel, and consist of the closest thing Counter-Strike ever had to real single-player. That's the polite way of saying it was a generic corridor shooter strangely reminicisent of present day Call Of Dutys (Duties?) that was so bad it the finished product had to be scrapped for generating average review scores of 60%, dangerously close to the minimum score videogame outlets are allowed to publish. What's so strange about it is that the game was bursting with good ideas and cool possibilities, nearly every single one of which fell flat in actual gameplay. For this I have something of a macabre interest which I intend to indulge in this LP. The game itself is a series of random missions about Counter-Terrorists stopping those wacky lemmings terrorists from performing various acts of cartoon villainy. There's no story, no narrative, nor a sense of progression as you wander aimlessly from one mission to another. The simplicity is a refreshing change of pace at first, but it gets tiresome very quickly. Seen one angry man yelling through a balaclava, and you've seen them all.

The LP
As this is a very cut-and-dry game by boring people, so this is a cut-and-dry VLP by a very boring [sic] [recte interesting and attractive] person. In addition to the main game, I'll also be playing through the assorted optional missions, aiming for 100% completion. I'll try to keep it to at least an update a week, but I desperately hope to do better than that. The only thing really worth mentioning is my spoiler policy, or more accurately spoiler challenge. So here it is: I challenge everyone reading to find even a single thing in this game that's worth worth spoiling. If you can find something, you're a better man/woman/goon than I.

Videos