Counter-Strike: Source Critic Reviews

A fantastic conversion of a timeless classic and it has stolen the hearts of the online community once again.

This update has refreshed our love of the game, bringing a new physicality and violence to online shooters. CS:Source is essential.

Counter-Strike: Source is, once you've gained a knack for it, the most consistently rewarding and surprising team-based shoot-'em-up available on the PC today. It's been dressed up nicely for its relaunch in 2004, but it wasn't broken, and Valve hasn't fixed it.

The game looks more beautiful than ever, with structures that feel weighty and solid and little visual touches throughout. The flash-bangs look fantastic.

One of the best war games to play online. With so many players and so many newbies ready to take a bullet in the head from you, your gameplay options are endless and your lastability hours are infinite.

As used in CS: Source, that ground breaking physics engine is just gimmickry. Likewise, no attempt has been made to make the robotic hostages lifelike. So much for "HL2's" ground-breaking AI. But we have a confession: we just can't stop playing it.

Valve has done a sterling job of moving a flagship franchise over to a new engine. Whilst the gameplay guts come over correct and intact, (which may disappoint some), Counter-Strike: Source is an even more engrossing and captivating experience, capable of sapping hours of your time, and even the worst "1337 g33zers" abusing voice chat can't spoil the fun you'll have with it.

The most impressive outlet of Source’s physics engine is the most subtle, that of the corpses left after any particular round of slaughter. Bodies realistically slump into corners, drape over crates, and fall to the ground. I’m sure everyone will have a “coolest corpse” story within a week of playing.

A technically and graphically stunning port of a game that was already pretty damn good, with the potential to deliver bigger and better things in future. And you can’t complain too much about that.