History YMMV / CounterStrike

** ''Counter-Strike 2'', which replaces ''Global Offensive'', were initially highly anticipated after successful closed beta sessions. When it came out, however, there is so much firestorm that at a point it's the first ''Valve'' game with a ''Mixed user rating'' after ''Videogame/HalfLife [[UpdatedRerelease Source]]''. Issues ranging from heavy bump on system requirements (to the point that the Steam Deck struggled to ran it well), removal of ''all gamemodes'' apart from Casual, Competitive, and Deathmatch, removal of non-Agent characters down to SAS for CT and Phoenix for T (along with most of their variants as well), to VAC being overactive to the point of banning players who use Windows 7, banning players for using the new "Anti-Lag" feature, and banning players for no reason (although the bans have been reversed due to it being unintentional bug on ''Valve'' side).

** Also from the original, the [[https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/Phoenix_Connexion Phoenix Connection]], a militant group formed in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR (only 8 years old at the time of the original game). Relevant in the 1990s, but Russia ''massively'' improved from the hellhole it was back then, reaching comfortably middle income levels of wealth and stability by the late 2000s, making their motivations seem quaint today. [[ValuesResonance That is, until the embargo campaign launched at Russia for the Ukraine invasion massively damaged Russia's economy]], which compares them to the infamous [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Wagner Group]].

* MorePopularSpinoff: Since the 2000s, it's become more well-known than ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' itself.

** The P90: with its easy-to-use spray pattern, low movement penalty, and fast firing speed, it's a silver's worst nightmare. However, in higher levels, a rifle player can do much more damage to a P90 user in a shorter amount of time than the P90 can do to them, rendering it useless. It's jokingly called the ELO-90 sometimes to reference the community viewing it as a [[SkillGateCharacter Skill Gate Weapon]].

** "Alligator": The XM1014 nickname prefered by tournament casters.

** "Pocket AWP": The R8 Revolver, because its precision rivals that of the AWP.

Due to changes in the money system, though, the AWP has since been accepted as a legitimate weapon in ''Global Offensive'' due to its hard to purchase status, and nerfing by reducing payout per kill - hilariously resulting in an [=AWPer=] who kills an entire 5-man team receiving a measly $125. So while it is still very much a GameBreaker that wins rounds easily in the right hands, it is still generally acceptable as a competitive weapon and not a ScrappyWeapon.

** admin he doing it sideways [[labelnote:Explanation]]''Counter-Strike: Source'' has a server mod zBlock that is supposed to nerf [[JumpPhysics bunnyhop]] (aerial DiagonalSpeedBoost). In 2010 a player Phoon demonstrates in a very quotable DeathMontage video that the patch isn't very precise, using increased speed to kill confused players. The use of Thé à la Menthe music also gave ''Film/OceansTwelve'' some ColbertBump.[[/labelnote]]

*** Current Fnatic player Olofmeister will always be known as "Boostmeister" thanks to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqB95s47f1w this play]].
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEnBgBJeR2A Summit1G dying to his own molotov]] has led to a kill with a molly being dubbed a 1G. It even got popular enough to get its own [=BetterTwitchTV=] global emote.
*** Twitch chat's seal of approval for a good play is "GOD (player name)". Likewise, "BOT (player name)" refers to a bad play (referencing the ArtificialStupidity of CSGO's bots). It started with [=NiP's=] ally, and took off from there.

*** M 1 6 R / M 1 6 R-0[[labelnote:Explanation]]Astralis created a historical record by [[CurbStompBattle utterly decimating MIBR in Dust 2, leaving them with no round win]] during Faceit Major London 2018 Legends Stage. It was the first 16-0 in a major in the professional Counterstrike scene and the meme is used by the MIBR detractors.[[/labelnote]]
*** Word.exe[[labelnote:Explanation]]forsaken, an indian CSGO player, was caught cheating in a '''LAN tournament''' and admins discovered the file, [[https://twitter.com/liuxinwei0102/status/1053212051621826560 aptly named word.exe]]. Since then, this is use for suspicious and VAC worthy shots.[[/labelnote]]
*** "Check HLTV". The ''Counter-Strike'' news site HLTV.org carries live score trackers of games in progress, which updates slightly faster than watching livestreams. Saying "[X] team won, check HLTV" started as a common {{Troll}} move in Twitch chat, but the phrase took on a life of its own both to as a way of declaring unlikely comebacks and [[CurbStompBattle Curb-Stomp Battles]] well before they could plausibly happen, as well as to joke about things that HLTV obviously cannot track.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9g6F5IopJc The Anti-gravity lean]] [[labelnote:Explanation]]''Counter-Strike: 2'' had an animation error where scoping in with a rifle while moving around would cause the legs to not update their position, making it look like the player is leaning, not unlike the "Smooth Criminals" lean popularised by Music/MichaelJackson. While this was eventually fixed on 12th October, 2023, [[https://imgur.com/atON4mo Valve have acknowledged it on their twitter banner.]][[/labelnote]]

** ''Counter-Strike 2'', which replaces ''Global Offensive'', were initially highly anticipated after successful closed beta sessions. When it came out, however, there is so much firestorm that at a point it's the first ''Valve'' game with a ''Mixed'' after ''Videogame/HalfLife [[UpdatedRerelease Source]]''. Issues ranging from heavy bump on system requirements (to the point that the Steam Deck struggled to ran it well), removal of ''all gamemodes'' apart from Casual, Competitive, and Deathmatch, removal of non-Agent characters down to SAS for CT and Phoenix for T (along with most of their variants as well), to VAC being overactive to the point of banning players who use Windows 7, banning players for using the new "Anti-Lag" feature, and banning players for no reason (although the bans have been reversed due to it being unintentional bug on ''Valve'' side).

** ''Counter-Strike 2'', which replaces ''Global Offensive'', were initially highly anticipated after successful closed beta sessions. When it came out, however, there is so much firestorm that at a point it's the first ''Valve'' game with a ''Mixed'' after ''Videogame/HalfLife [[UpdatedRerelease Source]]''. Issues ranging from heavy bump on system requirements (to the point that the Steam Deck struggled to ran it well), removal of non-Agent characters down to SAS for CT and Phoenix for T (along with most of their variants as well), to VAC being overactive to the point of banning players who use Windows 7, banning players for using the new "Anti-Lag" feature, and banning players for no reason (although the bans have been reversed due to it being unintentional bug on ''Valve'' side).

Due to changes in the money system, though, the AWP has since been accepted as legitimate weapons in ''Global Offensive'' due to their now hard to purchase status, and nerfing by reducing payout per kill. So while it is still very much a GameBreaker that wins rounds easily, it is still generally acceptable as a competitive weapon and not a ScrappyWeapon. (the auto-snipers on the other hand...) Humorously, this ends up in an [=AWPer=] who kills an entire 5-man team receiving a measly $125.

** Also from the original, the [[https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/Phoenix_Connexion Phoenix Connection]], a militant group formed in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR (only 8 years old at the time of the original game). Relevant in the 1990s, but Russia ''massively'' improved from the hellhole it was back then, reaching comfortably middle income levels of wealth and stability by the late 2000s, making their motivations seem quaint today.

** Another example are the Anarchists, who were an exaggerated caricature of Occupy Wall Street protestors, an organisation whose influence was at its peak during the game's development. In the years since, left-wing protest groups have become a much more polarising presence when it comes to the strength of both their support and opposition. It is very unlikely that Valve today would consider portraying such groups as silly terrorists to be worth the controversy that it would spawn.

*** For Thai players there is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW-NktwyPOM cs_untitled]] (which kept getting called United by some people there due to limited English education at the time), an extremely tiny open air map. So tiny in 1.6 people love to set starting cash to maximum and spam HE grenades right into each other's spawn during buy time.

** For a grand total of three whole days after release, R8 Revolver was definitely broken beyond belief. It used to have damage comparable to an AWP and absolutely ZERO penalties for shooting on the move, all for $850. It was supposed to be balanced by a delay between pulling the trigger and shooting, but this could be bypassed completely by firing with a right click (at a cost of some accuracy, negligible even at the medium range). Result is, no one fires with a left click and every player with an AK or M4 essentially has an AWP as a secondary weapon. And to top it all off, [[NotTheIntendedUse you could use the secondary fire while defusing the bomb.]]

** Sometime during October 2023 in Counter Strike 2, [[https://youtu.be/hDZAglON-i8 players found out]] that re-binding movement keys in a certain way will cause the player character to do a [[FanNickname "Michael Jackson peek"]], contorting the player model in a way that is hard to hit.

** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqB1uoDTdKM DOOR STUCK!]]"[[note]]A video of ''Counter-Strike 1.6'' gameplay in which the recorder follows around one of their teammates, [[{{Griefer}} constantly stabbing them with a knife]] which [[FriendlyFireproof does no harm]] until they corner them and get them stuck behind a door when enemies arrive. The hilariously emotional response from their target as they speedrun the FiveStagesOfGrief has gotten this video to become well-known and highly quoteable in the larger FPS scene.[[/note]]
** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7TRF7jrSM4 I'M THE LAW!]] I'M THE LAW! ''OH GOD I'M A FREAKIN LAW!'' I'M THE LAW! [[BrokenRecord I AM THE LAW I AM THE LAW I AM THE LAW I AM THE LAW I AM THE LAW I AM THE LAW...]][[labelnote:Explanation]]One player's particularly [[MadnessMantra mad]] case of SanitySlippage upon being repeatedly confronted with the Counter-Terrorists quoting Film/JudgeDredd in a game of jailbreak.[[/labelnote]]

*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq1oO8kxyuE "Bingo bango bongo" and "Bish bash bosh"]] (both cheers) also became memtic because of how silly it sounded.

** Prior to ''Global Offensive'', there are a pool of 4-5 different skins per team, which understandably could throw beginners out of the loop due to the lack of "red vs blue" recognition. It got worse in ''Nexon'' (formerly ''Online'') where there are dozens to hundreds of new skins. Since ''Global Offensive'' onwards each map has the CT and T wore single type of uniform with only little difference between each other... and then in 2020, Agents, custom skins, are introduced as paid items (see BrokenBase above).

** The introduction of Agents, PlayerCharacter to obtain and choose from, divided the base hard by the casual players who liked personalization against competitive players who feel that the ability to choose player models throw the "identifying enemy or friendly players on the map" gameplay out of the loop. It's even worse for colorblind players. E-sports events reportedly have banned the use of custom Agents.

** To Thai players during "internet cafe era" (somewhere around 2000s), a certain Thai bootleg voice pack mod for ''1.6'' has popularized several quotes taken from a Thai dub of ''[[Film/TheThinRedLine Thin Red Line]]'' (1996) film. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpKW6nc4HoI Here]] are some selections.

*** Twitch chat's seal of approval for a good play is "GOD (player name)". Likewise, "BOT (player name)" refers to a bad play (referencing the ArtificialStupidity of CSGO's bots). It started with NiP's allu, and took off from there.