There's a tiny piece of information about Counter Strike 2 on PlanetCS.de. Gooseman shares this tidbit about weapons/scenarios.

I can't say much about CS2 .. All I can say is , everything is being done from scratch. There will be new guns but at the same time we'll be keeping some old ones. I'd say half new ones, and half old ones. We're also working on some new scenarios as well.

Saw that on Stomped.

PC.IGN has posted an interview with Randy Pitchford, talking to the Gearbox president about Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. Condition Zero will be a single-player version of Counter-Strike as some of you might know. The PC.IGN crew asks questions about why Gearbox is developing a single player game, new gameplay elements, mission types, friendly characters, additional units and more.

IGNPC: Are you still planning on having an additional CT unit (the Russian Spetznaz)? Also, are you planning on any new types of Terrorists?
Randy Pitchford: We're actually adding units to both the Counter Terrorists and the Terrorists. The Russian Spetznaz really helps round out the available theatres of operation for CZ, and on the Terrorist side a new militia extremist will be used in several US domestic missions. In addition to the new characters, we've also added a number of uniforms to our versions of the familiar characters to reflect the environments they engage in. This includes everything from jungle or desert camouflage to full arctic gear. Every single character type gets a different outfit depending on the location of the mission [...]

A little Counter-Strike 2 stuff this evening for you guys. Ok well mostly it's just a confirmation that the CS2 project is a reality, as I cant really recall any official confirmation of the project. The guys at Gamigo have a couple of responses from Gooseman and Cliffe asking about things. Thanks MurrayDaSkull

We're not ready to announce CS2 yet.. All we can say is, CS2 is being worked on at the same time CS 1.3 is being worked on..

No word on if CS2 will be stand alone, working with Half-Life2, or TeamFortress2. There is a mention of a release date there as well, but release dates this far off are about as valuable as chihuahua farts in a plastic bag.

The official Counter-Strike website has been updated with some info on CS 1.3. Basically its still not done yet, with hitbox issues taking a while to fix. They have selected some new maps for 1.3 though.

Counter-Strike, ever heard of it? CS Nation has a little news blurb up with Gooseman commenting on CS2 and hit animations. The first part of his comment talks about bringing back hit animations to CS1 (not likely right now), here's the part about CS2

... I'm working full steam ahead on CS2 and I can tell you I plan on having MORE hit animations in CS2.. I (like yourself) was disappointed to see them gone as I felt they added a great sense of feedback (you knew if you were hitting someone).

Thanks Stomped.

We already knew about Half-Life patch plans, but what about Counter-Strike? The official site (thanks Blues News) has been updated with the following

Here's the projected release schedule for the next few weeks. Sometime next week CS 1.0.0.2 (Retail) will be released, which features Valve's Deathmatch Classic. If you have DMC already, you won't have to download the full package -- only about 1MB or so.
Then in mid July CS 1.3 will go out with Valve's integrated Voice Communication Tech as well as their new Proxy Spectator Tech. It will be called 1.3 as not to confuse it with the CS Retail version number.

A little while back Counter-Strike: Condition Zero was announced as a single player game based in the Counter-Strike universe. (The current issue of CGW actually has a cover story on this). At the same time it was announced Rogue Entertainment who was working on the project had a change in staffing that prompted Valve to pull the plug on the project and move it in-house. Well here's a couple of bits on happenings with the project.

- CSNation has word and confirmation that all of the prior work done on Condition Zero has been scrapped. (A few months worth, doh!)
- EvilAvatar has the credits on what guys at Rogue did what in the CGW preview (and a silly jab at Valve)

The scrapping of prior work considering it wasnt very far into development isnt much of a surprise. If Valve will keep the project in house or perhaps find another development house to do the project is still up in the air though. At any rate just to repeat it's a single player game based on the Counter-Strike universe. Obviously that isnt exactly a 'fleshed out' universe with the exception of "uh... there are terrorists and counter-terrorists" but it's a basic feel to work with that leaves the designers a lot of room.

Everyone loves these things. An interview with an author of one of the current aimbots and wallhacks out there for Counter-Strike that is currently being used. Speaking of that, a new Punkbuster has been released. Anyone wanna test it to see if this breaks the hacks?

Well we had the news of the cheats being released, the Busted guys posting their justification for them, and now here's some of the consequences. CS leagues are going invite only with sponsorship programs. Here's the concept:

All teams that are admitted into the two divisions (one standard, one with all custom maps) will have to be sponsored by two other clans, and if a player is caught cheating both the offending clan and its sponsors will be removed from the league.

Also, here's an interview with Tony Ray from PunkBuster. The most popular anti-cheat program for Counter-Strike. It's pretty lengthy stuff although it's curious that Tony mentions it takes him 10minutes to write a catch for the current hack out there but it's been a known issue for weeks.

Last week we carried a story about Counter-Strike cheats being posted publically that could circumvent even Punkbuster. The cheats were posted on one of the largest anti-cheating pages out there, Busted. As a result nearly all Counter-Strike online leagues have been halted (and still are right now!). Well Busted has closed up shop (Thanks -tKf-) and left a message:

Busted's actions were taken so that all major CS leagues would be forced to delay play so that these cheats could not be used, whether in the masses or in small numbers. They have guaranteed that these cheats will not see another day in any top CS league (IGL RiTD HA BITE FiTH so on). Are you going to flame Busted for making this guarantee possible? They have also gotten Valve AND PunkBuster's attention with this. These cheats were sent into both Valve and PunkBuster AT THE VERY LEAST 3 weeks ago. How do I know this? Because I sent them. PunkBuster and Valve have not replied and have not done anything about them STILL. [snip]

While on the topic, Gooseman has a brief Q&A on Turtled discussing cheating and his thoughts on if it will ever really stop. Here's a golden one:

"Asking me why my game is not 100% cheat proof is like asking me why I'm not Master of the Universe."

Thanks to Kevin for letting us know that Counter-Map, the official Counter-Strike mapping resource, has a new map pack available for download. Hopefully adding some new quality maps to the mod.

PC Zone has a preview of the single player Counter-Strike game that Valve is working on, Condition Zero. There's plenty of info about the game and screenshots as well. Thanks Blues News for the tip.

The game is set to contain 16 levels to play through, and you will be able to choose whether to play for the Terrorists or Counter-Terrorists, which means that there will be a total of 32 maps in all. Valve has also chosen to add new models and weapons, and while it has remained fairly tight-lipped on this issue, there a rumours of such additions as the M60 machine gun, M79 grenade launcher, a new shotgun, land mines, the .357 magnum, concussion grenades, an auto-crossbow, flares - I'm gonna blind you with my bad fashion sense sucka! -, binoculars and some kind of multi-tool

I'm ripping from ShackES!: Yesterday a website that normally focuses on busting cheaters decided to post two cheats - a wallhack and an aimbot - that are undetectable by Punkbuster. The site's owner did it in the hopes of compelling Valve and/or PunkBuster do something about the current state of cheating in Counter-Strike.

PunkBuster and Valve: The ball is in your court.
CS Leagues: Suspend league play until Valve and or PunkBuster resolve this issue.

We are sick of quick fixes.

As a result of the cheats being posted, a huge number of Counter-Strike leagues have suspended play. Hostile Arena, Ironglove League, Stronger Than All, Rumble in the Desert, and BITE are all leagues currently taking a break, waiting for something to happen in the world of cheats, and cheat prevention.

The guys at Polycount managed to get a hold of the Counter-Strike source art. It's not very useful to most people but pretty interesting to look at if you're bored enough or artistically inclined.

The CAL sponsored by the CPL (Who works in cooperation with Valve) has posted word on Counter-Strike v1.2 that is due for release this month. We can probably expect changes as usual. The CAL page also has word on a new anti-cheat measure that is included in v1.2

Upon release of Counter-Strike 1.2 this month, the Cyberathlete Amateur League will require all match servers to be in the new "pure" mode during official matches. I wanted give everyone a nice advance notice so you can get used to playing with all the default player skins, weapon models and crosshairs.

Pure servers settings. That should cut down on at least some of the hacks. A pure server setting generally speaking will compare all the files on your drive to the server and if you're running any different models or skins it gives ya the boot. Keep in mind this doesnt have any impact on the wall-hack video drivers. (Unless of course the phrase 'pure server' also encompasses something other than how Q3 works)  Hopefully Valve has something in mind for the wall-hack too.

Speaking of cheats, CAL recently booted a team from their top league for cheating and banned a couple of the guilty player from ever playing in future events. Cheaters = suck.

Gamasutra has one of those interview thingies with Minh Le aka Gooseman responsible for that one Counter-Strike game. The question of if you can or should ban a customer from using your product (Much like mentioned back in the TRIBES2 article) for using it outside of it's intended purpose. (Abuse/cheating)

Goose: ... But then again, it's controversial to do something like that. People would get so mad. If someone got banned from the game completely, if they couldn't connect to any servers, it would really bring up a lot of controversy. I'm not sure how we would tackle something like that.

Gamasutra: See, I think that would be great. Ban them for a month.

Goose: Ban them forever. I really don't have any tolerance for cheaters, but there are people out there that are so sympathetic to people in general. They're like, "Oh, I bought the game. I should be able to play the game any way I feel like it."

There is also of course the whole problem of proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone is a cheater. Oh and the legal stuff. Oh and the idealistic whiners saying this shouldnt even be a problem because there shouldnt be cheats. Thanks KHeT

XSR is running an article focusing on the ever-growing cheating problem in Counter-Strike (Graciously helped along by Asus, thanks fuckwads! too late!) They use an example from the CAL Invite league (Top Counter-Strike league in North America) and one of the players who demonstrates according to XSR quite a bit of 'wallhackish' behavior. It's pretty in depth stuff which a lot of can be explained away but there sure is a lot of it.

Do you guys believe that even at 'the highest level' of competition Counter-Strike players are still employing cheats in online tournaments?

Further into the game, there's one time where he's completely flashed under a train in the primary bomb site. With the wallhack running, you see the crosshair sweep up and under the far train and burst into a crouched terrorist.

The hacks are spreading like mad in a crazy way. Every Counter-Strike player I know has seen them or knows where to get them. How long until Valve is forced to be a little more system intrusive to determine if people are cheating or not? Do you think people would be willing to give up some of their 'computer privacy' and reveal some of their system information to better combat cheating?

I'm not exactly sure how comfortable I am posting this, but I guess it's only fair. Bobby "Xcalibur" Pavlock of or formerly of Rogue sent an email to us detailing his views on Gabe Newell's comments regarding the news that Rogue lost a CS project to Valve. He also talks about with what happened with Alice on the PS2 (or a lack thereof). Here's his email in its entirety.

Dunno if anyone really cares, but I thought I'd atleast let you guys know what really happened with the whole Rogue/Valve CS:CZ deal...

And now for the REAL story... (nice spin though Gabe!)

We busted our asses developing Alice in 10 months for EA, amidst a slew of EA f**k-ups which constantly had us falling behind schedule. Throughout the entire development cycle, EA was whispering sweet nothings into our ears, calling us their "Golden Child" and constantly reiterating how they wanted to "develop a long-term relationship" with Rogue (sound familiar to any other developers?). So we endure 5 months of 7 days a week crunch time to make sure Alice hit shelves by X-mas, which it did. Contrary to what some people may think. Alice has sold in the neighborhood of 400k units worldwide. Not amazing numbers, but certainly respectable, and well more than enough to make EA a cool few million dollars.

After Alice, we start designing the PS2 port of Alice, for which the contract had been signed back in May 2000 (7 months before PC Alice even shipped). 3 days before January payroll, we receive a call from EA informing us that the Alice PS2 port has been cancelled and effective immediately Rogue would receive no more funding. Rogue tried to explain to them that the employees were expecting paychecks in 3 days, to which EA responded "Sorry, not our problem." Apparently EA lost their ass by sinking all their eggs in the PS2 basket, and when the PS2 debacle went down, EA scrambled to make up lost money to appease their stockholdlers. This was done by slashing projects across the board, and what easier target than a PS2 title that had just started development.

Needless to say, this unexpected turn of events put Rogue in a bad spot. After a couple months of talking with several publishers about prospective projects, VALVE CALLED US, wanting us to do a Single Player version of CS. We were all excited about this project as we are all big CS fans. The contract was signed, and we started busting our humps to try to have a playable demo version ready for E3. About a month after we started on the project, Jim Molinets informed us that he had decided to leave the company to take a Senior Producer role at Sony HQ in San Diego. It was an offer noone in their right minds would refuse. So we thought, no big deal really. Jim was the Producer on the title, but we knew full well the team could develop this title just fine without Jim being there. When we inform Valve of Jim's unexpected decision to leave, they panic. We try to assure them that Jim's leaving would not really affect the project at all, as most of his duties (sheduling milestones, design doc., etc) were already done prior to his leaving. But, Valve felt that we had "betrayed" them. They thought we knew the whole time that Jim was planning on leaving, which we didn't, and that we purposely didn't tell them until the contract was secured. So they yanked the project from us, once again leaving Rogue in an unexpected financial hole. Rogue has not officially closed down yet, although throughout this entire ordeal, several employees did decide to leave for greener pastures, and are in fact in negotiations for another deal right now. Whether or not it will pan out, only time will tell.

So there you have the REAL story. Dunno if anybody cares, but I sure as hell wasn't gonna let Valve sit back and put a spin on the truth to make them seem like the 'good guys'.

Peace...
-Xcalibur
P.S. - you can post any/all of this message if you feel like it. I don't really care.

XSR has a nifty little set of console commands you might want to give a try in Counter-Strike that is intended to give you a little better feedback on your movement and firing at the expense of smoothness.

Yesterday featured a couple of stories about a Counter-Strike universe project by Rogue Software being canned (Not Counter-Strike2) and then the announcement of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero in the upcoming CGW. Well here's the hook guys, it's not just an expansion pack for Counter-Strike, but an actual single player game set in the "Counter-Strike universe" straight from the official website:

"Keep an eye on E3 for more info about Counter-Strike: Condition Zero -- the new CS single player episode being done in house by Valve, which was just uncovered by Computer Gaming World."

Place your bets on a game similar to Rogue Spear then? We'll be on hand at E3 to let you guys know what we see and post any info that becomes available the day of the show (Starting Thursday)