Though it looks dated by today's standards, Counter-Strike is still one of the most widely played games in the world. Imitation Is the Highest Form of Flattery While Counter-Strike is the undisputed king of online tactical shooters, it's had some competitors to deal with. Here are just a few of them. Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror Originally a mod using the Unreal Tournament engine, Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror is essentially a Counter-Strike clone. But as we all know, there ain't nothing like the real thing, baby. Global Operations Global Operations is one of the best games modeled after Counter-Strike and Team Fortress. It has a lot of familiar elements and has some really cool stuff like blurred vision and momentary blackouts when you get hit with tear gas. Counter-Strike still plays better, though. Counter-Strike: The Next Generation Counter-Strike Console fans will soon get a taste of CS, but can a precision game that uses a mouse and keyboard really transfer over to a controller? Initial signs point to no. Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Counter-Strike goes single-player in CS: CZ. New models and maps are said to be available for the online players who pick up the game. The fast-paced action and complex strategy in Counter-Strike are simply unmatched.

Although Counter-Strike's steep learning curve discourages a lot of players from ever really getting into it, longtime fans of CS know that it is unquestionably one of the greatest games, if not the greatest game, of all time.

Games like Quake and Unreal undoubtedly helped define the online first-person shooter experience, but Counter-Strike has since changed the way people think about first-person shooters and online gaming in general. Most casual gamers probably don't know that Counter-Strike is the most popular action game in the world. In fact, the weekly average number of players logging in to play is still upward of 1.2 million, and that number is actually on the rise, even four years after the game's original release. What's almost more impressive is that a young college student initially created Counter-Strike as a modification to Half-Life in his spare time.

The mechanics of Counter-Strike pit two teams of online players--counterterrorists and terrorists--against each other in a struggle to complete their respective missions. In all, Counter-Strike features four mission types: hostage rescue/detainment, site protection/demolition, VIP protection/assassination, and the elimination of the opposing team. While it has only four basic gameplay types, Counter-Strike has a good number of official maps and also gives players the ability to create their own maps, which has effectively supplied the game with a seemingly endless number of new environments to explore.

Once in the game, the overall goal is to complete your mission while trying to take out as many opposing team members as possible. Players are awarded cash during the gameplay that's used to buy weapons and gear at the beginning of each round, but since the winning team earns more cash overall than the losing team does, there is a great deal of strategy associated with how and what your team spends its money on. The most valuable commodities in the game are the weapons, which include a wide variety of pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, and fully automatic rifles. All the weapons are based on real-world firearms and realistically portray their real-world counterparts' look, recoil, and firepower.

While many developers have tried to copy Counter-Strike, the two elements that imitating developers have never been willing or able to re-create is Counter-Strike's unforgiving damage system and its unbelievably precise controls. Typically, first-person shooters give you some form of auto-aim or larger hit boxes to make shooting targets a bit easier. In reality, shooting a weapon at a small target from any distance is a challenge that takes practice and skill. CS players who can aim well are rewarded, since Counter-Strike's damage system realistically applies values based on the physical location of the wound, the type of weapon, and whether or not the target is wearing a Kevlar vest. Other factors are also considered, but the bottom line is Counter-Strike's damage system is the most realistic in the genre.

Like most avid Counter-Strike fans, my brother and I got together with some other seasoned players and tried to form a team to compete professionally. As most who've tried this know, the hard part wasn't necessarily winning, but rather just getting five or six people who could commit to practicing online or in person regularly. After only one or two legitimate practices and a few online scrimmages in a two-month period, my brother and I decided to leave the team. I recently heard that the team made it to the second round of a tournament it entered and mostly disbanded after that. My brother and I pretty much just play on public servers now, although every once in a while I'll get into a game with a few other game journalists who are pretty good.