Review: Counter Strike – Condition Zero

Back in the summer, I conducted an experiment in which a die roll determined what game/franchise I would take on as a special project. The result of this random roll was “Half-Life“. Up to that point, I had played and reviewed the original Half-Life game and its expansions/addons. So, I decided to follow the same logic this time around. What I mean by this is, instead of jumping straight to Half-Life 2. I wanted to check out other games in the Half-Life family as well. In keeping with my tendency to review things chronologically, this means that today, I’m going to be discussing Counter Strike: Condition Zero.

If you read my original Half-Life review (which is now over ten years old), you’ll know that Counter-Strike started as a simple multi-player mod that blossomed into its own game. I was an avid player of the original Counter Strike. But somehow, I never took the time to check out its official sequel until now.

Condition Zero is a redesign of Counter Strike using the game’s original engine. In terms of gameplay, this game is nearly identical to the original CS.  However, this new version included improved textures, models, maps, and AI. The devs spent extra time developing the maps, making them more “tactically interesting”. Having played both the original CS and now, Condition Zero, I do agree that the arenas included in this new version of the game are very much improved.

Like the original CS, when starting a new game, players are divided into two teams, Terrorists and Counter Terrorists. Gameplay is split up into rounds in which each group must either try to eliminate the other or complete special tasks. Successfully completing either objective first will result in a win for that team.

At the beginning of each round, players are able to purchase equipment and weapons using money that they earn as the game progresses. Naturally, the key to earning money quickly is winning as many rounds as possible.

The big draw to this type of game is the balance of competitive gameplay mixed with the cooperative aspect of teamwork. Each weapon has its own unique traits and the usefulness of each weapon varies depending on the level being played. For example, maps that feature high vantage points are the perfect playground for sniper rifles. Whereas, maps the feature walls and obstacles are great for blindly tossing hand grenades.

Online multiplayer is the main focus of Counter Strike. Even though this game is now over twenty years old, there’s still plenty of active servers. But, I will warn you, most of the servers you’ll find for Condition Zero are sparsely populated or filled with bots. That being said, there’s still a fairly active Russian community. If your Internet connection is good, and the lag isn’t too bad, you certainly find active players at almost any time during the day.

These days though, the real draw for Condition Zero over other, more modern Counter Strike releases is the single player experience. The base game includes a single player scenario called Tour of Duty that pairs the player with CPU-controlled team members and pits them against a team of CPU-controlled enemies. As the player successfully completes matches, they earn money that can be used to hire better soldiers for their team. This single player experience is really designed to serve as a tutorial so that players are ready to compete in online matches, as the maps and the objectives are nearly identical to those found in the multiplayer experience.

It’s important to note that there is a second single player option called Condition Zero: Deleted Scenes that serves as more unique single player campaign. This content is actually presented as a separate executable and is not integrated into the main CS: Condition Zero release. But, when you purchase Condition Zero on Steam, you are getting both scenarios for one price.

Instead of simply being a mock multiplayer matches, Deleted Scenes contains unique maps and objectives that vary from level to level. The interesting part of this whole thing is that Deleted Scenes represents the original vision of the Condition Zero single player experience. During the game’s development, the studio handling the creation of the game was changed. The new studio wanted to focus strictly on the multiplayer aspect, hence the reason that the Tour of Duty scenario so closely mirrors the multiplayer content in the base game. Deleted Scenes was included to showcase the original vision. But for me, Deleted Scenes is actually the more enduring aspect of Condition Zero collection. It’s my favorite content in the game.

These days, it’s difficult to recommend Condition Zero since there’s other more modern Counter Strike releases that do the job so much better. Still, this game certainly earned its place in the Half-Life canon during its heyday and true Counter Strike fans owe it to themselves to check it out.

Version Reviewed: PC

Difficulty: Variable–  The single player scenarios offer various difficulty options. The challenge ramps up quite well and does a good job at preparing new players for the online experience. As you might expect, when playing online the difficulty varies depending on the skill level of other players. There’s always someone better than you and the longer you play, the more likely you are to come across them.

Multiplayer: Yes.

Story: Counter Strike is designed as an online competition. As such, the storyline is minimal. It boils down do terrorists vs good guys. Even the single player scenarios are very basic in this regard. The exception here being Deleted Scenes, which does include some context and unique set ups. Long story short, you don’t play this game for the storyline.

Originality: This game is very much an update to the original Counter Strike formula. With this in mind, it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table except for updates.

Soundtrack: There’s not a lot in terms of score or composition here. Many of the sounds are borrowed from Half-Life and the original Counter Strike. That being said, they are all very well done.

Fun: If you like competitive shooters, this game might be for you. However, keep in mind, it’s very dated and there are much better experiences to be found in more modern CS releases. Personally, I enjoyed the single player content of Deleted Scenes quite a bit. It was action packed and each scenario was different.

Graphics: This game uses the original Half-Life engine, which in 2004 was pretty long-in-the-tooth. It does look better than the original Counter Strike, but it doesn’t hold a candle to other games of the same timeframe.

Playcontrol: This game uses the standard WSAD control scheme on the PC. It’s responsive and makes sense. Regardless, the controls are still customizable, so whatever you prefer, there is no real issue.

Downloadable Content:  Free custom content available via server-side updates.

Mature Content: Violence, Blood

Value: Condition Zero sells for around $10. But it does on sale every time you turn around (often at 90% off). Considering its age, if you are curious about the title, I’d recommend waiting for a sale.

Overall score (1-100): 75 – This score may seem a bit harsh to some. After all, the game doesn’t really suffer for any one particular flaw. Still, Condition Zero was very dated at the time of its initial release, and the years haven’t done it any favors. Even when it was new, other online shooters offered a more polished experience.

Original System: PC

Available today on:  PC  – (Updated as of Late Winter 2025)

Best Modern Experience: PC   –  (Updated as of Late Winter 2025)

Other Reviews In This Series:    

Counter Strike   –  Counter Strike: Condition Zero   –  Counter Strike: Source  –  Counter Strike 2