PSN Community Spotlight: Counter-Strike: Eyes Wide Open

Oh hey, it’s Saturday again. Funny how that happens. As per usual, we’ve got another PSN Community Spotlight for you this week. Don’t know what that is? Well, it’s where PlayStation gamers like you tell their unique stories/experiences/thoughts, as submitted to this section in the PlayStation Community Forums. Those that make it all the way to the PlayStation.Blog will find a $50 PlayStation Store voucher in their inbox.

With everybody jumping online to get a taste of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive since its launch last week, we wanted to hear some stories about your experiences with the legendary original iteration of the game. PlayStation gamer MrPatrick16 wrote in to tell us about his first foray into the first person shooter genre with Counter-Strike.

Counter-Strike: Eyes Wide Open

Back in 2007, I went over to a buddy’s house with my PlayStation 2 and Guitar Hero. I was overly excited to be able to play co-op with him, when he told me that he had another game he wanted me to try out. He took me into the garage where they had a PC and handed me a controller. At first I was confused because I had no clue that a PC could even play games. Boy was my mind blown that day! He took the game out of its case, put it in the computer, and opened my eyes to a new genre. I never knew anything outside of side-scrollers, RPGs, music games, action, and racing games. That day, I learned about first person shooters.

The game started up and I was shortly introduced to the title — Counter-Strike. I was told to go to the multiplayer and so I did. The game loaded pretty quickly and the match started up. I selected my weapon and was adjusting to the controls when I was met with a shotgun blast. As the shell exploded into my characters body, I felt a sense of annoyance. It happened time and time again and finally I gave my buddy the controller to show me how it works. He was getting kills pretty easily and I probably looked like a ghost with my mouth opened as I watched him play in sheer amazement. He finished the match and gave me the controller again and I felt ready to go. Luckily, this time I was able to get out of the spawning area and I was off to the races. My team was the counter-terrorists and I was tasked with taking out the terrorists. The level was a warehouse and not too long after playing, I encountered my first enemy. I fired away at him and felt a little pride as I got my first ever kill. Long story short, my team won, but I definitely didn’t help that victory much since I only got a few kills and tons of deaths. Still, I had definitely become hooked.

From that day on that I was over at his house, and we pretty much went straight to that game. There was so much to Counter-Strike that it took a while to finally be able to see everything. There were a lot of guns and servers, man the servers were CRAZY! There were custom servers relating to other games like Metal Gear Solid and a certain Italian plumber we all grew up with. There were even movie based servers, so the game obviously didn’t lack creativity. The modes were plentiful and my favorite was the zombie mode where one person was “the infected” and had to hunt all the other players down with only a knife and a few enhancements. When I was a soldier, I felt afraid and immediately flocked to the best spot to stay away from being infected. When I did become infected, it was a bummer but it was fun trying to get other players. This was an amazingly fun, well-crafted game, and I’m glad I was introduced to it.

When Global Offensive was announced, I felt the rush of those early experiences all over again. I was telling everybody about this game and even got them interested. I have been following it since its announcement and still to this day flock to the Internet for information about it. Counter-Strike opened my eyes to other shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield, and without it, I would’ve never even given those games a chance. The series is an eye opening experience and I will definitely be getting Global Offensive as soon as I can. Counter-Strike is not only a game but, the defining of a genre and everyone should try it out because it might open your eyes too.

See you on the battlefield and as always, game on and stay thirsty my friends.

Thanks for telling your story MrPatrick16. Hopefully you’ve been enjoying your time with Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

Next week, you can tell any story you want as long as it’s about the PlayStation brand. Click here to check out more info on this call to action.