История создания Counter-Strike: Condition Zero
Rogue & VALVe
On June 18th, 1999, a mod for the Half-Life engine was released called Counter-Strike (about Counter-Strike). The modest modification steadily grew into a well-rounded game with a fairly large fan base and Half-Life: Counter-Strike was released as a standalone product in retail stores around the country. Fans cried out for a single player experience, and thus Counter-Strike: Condition Zero was born.
A post at VoodooExtreme on April 28th, 2001 dispelled the rumor that Rogue Software was developing Counter-Strike 2. However, it did confirm that Rogue Software was doing some single player content for Half-Life. The product they were developing was eventually known as Condition Zero. The big exclusive was given to the July, 2001 issue of CGW. Rogue Software had just completed Alice. Rogue’s title featured some very odd weaponry, such as a crossbow and the controversial (for obvious reasons) suicide belt.
Before CS: CZ was even officially revealed, VALVe took over development when Rogue’s director of content left the company without discussing it with VALVe. Erik Johnson and his team continued work on the single player experience for CS until July of 2001. At that point they handed the game over to Gearbox Software, who were known for their work on Half-Life expansion packs Opposing Force and Blue Shift.
Gearbox Starts Fresh
With Randy Pitchford—president of Gearbox Software—in charge, CS: CZ started to take shape. Gearbox was presented with the task of taking a tried and true multiplayer game and converting it to a single player romp. Although some progress had been made on the Rogue/VALVe version of CS: CZ, Gearbox started from a clean slate. Gearbox’s version of CS: CZ looked more like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater rather than a normal first person shooter single player experience.
CZ was non-linear and let you go back to previous levels to improve your score. If you scored well on a mission, you’d earn special bells and whistles, such as a new weapon or an added skill for your teammates. Your performance in the first missions affected how well you could equip your team for the second mission and so on.
Each mission included around nine objectives that you were to meet to get to the next level. If you completed the objectives in a shorter time, you were awarded more money or extra bonus items. Other aspects included in Gearbox’s CZ were an improved AI coded by the creator of PODBot, enhanced graphics, a few new weapons and a couple pieces of equipment. Among the new weapons were a LAW, a disposable, single-shot rocket launcher, and the M60 machine gun. A riot shield and chemical gas grenade were added to spruce up the equipment department. To pull it all together, they used prominent members of the CS community, such as DaveJ, Hobbit, and narby.
The Gearbox team struggled to put together the game in time for their deadlines. The original release date was very optimistic, and soon it had to be pushed back. The second release date was also pushed back. The CZ project soon fell into a downward spiral of delays. In July 2002, after a year of work, Gearbox was likely forced to drop the project altogether. Rumors indicate that VALVe had asked for substantial changes in CZ’s gameplay and Gearbox simply wasn’t up for it.
