User Rating: 8.7 | Counter Strike XBOX
For realistic team-based combat, it's hard to find a better combination than Xbox Live and Counter-Strike. The game is actually a port of a user-made mod of Half-Life that's been circulating the net for years and now Xbox Live users can get in on the fun. The game supports up to 16 players in an online match, broken into teams of Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists. In the Demolitions matches, the terrorists must plant a bomb at one of two sites while the counter-terrorists try to stop them. In a Hostage map, counter-terrorists must attempt to rescue groups of hostages while the terrorists try to hold them off. The game's controls are adequately mapped to the Xbox controller, though it may take about an hour to get the hang of shooting a machine gun accurately while on the run. The graphics really show their age, especially in comparison to other Xbox titles like Halo and Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay. Still, the game flows smoothly online, and the player models and weapons look good. Counter-Strike excels at its sound presentation, with distinct reports for each of the in-game weapons. When you hear a pitched gunfight occuring somewhere else on a map, it really sounds like a war is taking place down the street. Another nice touch is the "ringing" in your ears after a grenade explodes nearby. Of course, most of the in-game speech will be provided by players using the Xbox Live headset, and voice-filtering options are available. Counter-Strike does offer a single-player mode, though it merely imitates an online match using bots instead of human players. Still, the AI seems extremely lifelike, and the offline matches make good practice for online play. Players looking to take their first-person-shooter skills to the next level should enjoy Counter-Strike, though it's a recommended purchase only for Xbox Live users. 
