In terms of network hassles, the steam software divides games up by a number of methods, players can sort the network games up by ping times, player counts, map, or game names, and by what actual game they're looking for in the case of them not playing CS:Source. Overall my experience was that there wasn't all that much network lag if players are sorting by speeds that match their connection, 56k users generally don't jump into high speed server games since they are usually kicked by the specific game admin. On average I had a ping time of about 70-80 through all of the matches I participated in. One thing I will advise for the newbies is to not download or have someone downloading on another system when playing though since it generally will slow the response of the connection down.

Just as I thought I was getting clear of addicitive titles until Half Life 2 hit, Valve comes in with this. Really I don't know what to say, the addiction has started up again and there really is nothing I can do about it. I spend every small opportunity from work to come and get a few games even if it's just 1 quick match. The Source engine really does perform wonders and with the original Half Life and Day of Defeat being upgraded one can only wonder what those titles will do to gamers.

From my observations Valve is constantly rolling out upgrades to Counter-Strike: Source to help fix minor bugs with the game, the strong support and the growing community makes this one of the prime titles to have for FPS gaming. We would like to award Counter-Strike: Source a 9/10 for lighting up that flame once again in our Counter-Strike hearts. With about 1 week left this title should be enough to drive up awareness of the Source engine and hold many players over until Half Life 2 arrives.

We would like to thank Kellie Cosner and the Valve Software staff for giving us the opportunity to check out the latest work by the company.

Overall Rating:

9/10