Since many of us were broke, Crossfire was the best CS alternative for free. Good memories. It being pay2win and the amount of hackers were downsides though.
Yes the Turkish/Russian hackers released the bots and apps to the police and ruined the game at the time. I felt like they had beef with Punkbuster devs during that era and hopefully it's fixed these days. I hadn't played it for 8 years. The p2w was negligible since free players can earn credits to buy perm guns or rent the unique ones over time. You can spend for bulletproof vests and unique skins that don't change the core weapon's damage but it does change other negligible aspects I suppose.
apparently there is another game that shares similarity like crossfire and its Point Blank, its quite popular in southeast asia especially in indonesia because they already have mass marketing campaign with local internet cafes and yes its pay 2 win and also made in korea just like cf does. glad i was grow up with cs 1.6 with my homies and its kinda sad to see that most people in my country are getting fooled over an online game which also causing some news to blame internet cafes instead of the game
I knew about Crossfire many years ago thanks to mods and skins of it for Counter-Strike. Never got to play it but on paper looks and sounds fun. However, when you talk about a free 2 play game that is Asian based, you know it will be full of microntransactions aka a "pay 2 win scenario".
When I had played CF back during and before the NA release, the game offered new accounts a bunch of free credits that you farm for the first few levels and it was enough to RNG roll some unique permanent weapons. Many of the perm weapons other than special skins can be purchased with in-game earned credits, while indeed the special editions were rented only but they are mostly cosmetic based on seasonal or cultural references at the time. They didn't break the game but eventually circulates and becomes free. They were how they could afford to run those servers for free and hosted so tournaments. I was in college around then and sacrificed my free time by playing a bunch of video games so I kept rolling new accounts until I had obtained unique weapons. Then I started working and realized my time was worth a lot more and just rented the guns in this and paid for other games as a form of entertainment. It is not expensive and was like $4-6 for a month of rental. However, I agree renting is not a concept that we are familiar with. The game was fun despite the cheating due to the game's codebase being simpler at the time. Hope that's been fixed nowadays and I would play again if I wasn't so damn tired these days.
Also the p2w was either a gun that you can get such as the AWP that can one shot most people but has a better skin so it was not p2w, or a body armor that absorbs 1.5 bullets, which means you can take 4 shots instead of mostly 3 shots from an AK-47 to die. It wasn't much since most guns had stats such as fire rates and damage which was quite unique at the time for this type of online game along with the different game modes such as Ghost (this part you have to pay to make less noise breathing or walking but only by a certain percentage). It's not a mode that you have to play either since all modes earn free credits over time. Not justifying the p2w aspects but it felt like such a great game since it's free.
I had this game before and during the North American release and I have to be honest...the skill levels of Asian players were far ahead of our Western counterparts. One being that the western players just started learning the crossfire game mechanics despite similarities in terms of how the game control feels and plays just like CS as greatly pointed out in your video. But it's just that once the Asian/APAC players started to join the NA player base despite having worse ping and latency, they were wrecking the Western players. I had a lot more faith in my EU teammates than my USA teammates despite me being in the USA time zone. I was in college around then so I had the luxury of wasting my time playing games whenever I wanted. There were the defuse bomb modes that we are so familiar with in CA, but CrossFire offers other fun modes such as Ghost mode where you have to master bunny hopping to not make noise as individual characters that can only use melee weapons to hunt down the opposing team that has to defuse your bomb. Which is why there are all these varieties of fun to use guns where someone in your team can have a 500 round Gatling to crowd country certain doorways while you defuse the bomb, but the loud gun noises would prevent you from hearing the breathing of the invisible ghost players that increases their breathing noises or footsteps and they are closer to you. Then there is the FFA mode that is mindless fun where you respawn after a few seconds after getting killed and that was fun to rack up kill counts, be accused of cheating often, and where you can earn credits to rent those guns. The only p2w aspect is buying a vest that absorbs 1.5 bullets, essentially allowing you to survive 4 bullets instead of 3, and most guns shoot at a rate that makes that negligible other than the early first one or two rounds where most can only afford to buy better pistols than the starting but good enough handguns. I had a lot of fun memories playing this game until the cheaters from Turkey/Russia started to release their cheats for players to use and ruining most of the game back then. Even the Punkbuster anti cheat engine couldn't detect those and with such a large player base, the mods couldn't manually ban all the cheaters faster enough. That was when I had stopped playing due to all the bot/hack app users. If that's been fixed these days, more reasons to go back there. I had a lot of memories growing up with counterstrike as well but it got boring eventually and games like Crossfire offered new and refreshing game modes for free. Also, players can create plenty of free accounts and try their luck rolling for unique guns that are permanent with the free beginning credits. Making multiple accounts wasn't as easy for legit Asian players due to them needing to register their accounts with an actual ID. I'm just ranting at this point but just wanted to share my love (and hate) of this awesome game where skills such as quick scoping, bunny hopping, jump shots, and aiming really matter and aren't penalized if you are a casual player either.
TLDR; CF is definitely worth a try if you are bored of CS due to the many variety of game modes that are tailored to different players preferences. Just hope the current version of the game has better anti cheating algorithms.
Yeah absolutely. I was called a cheater often in the FFA and Ghost modes when it was released in NA. When the APAC and Russian players joined the NA servers, it was pure mayhem despite their higher pings. I was glad to have Asian or Russian players on my team for plant and defuse modes especially with Ghost mode not gonna lie. 😂
@@GariusMarius This game really plays differently than COD or CS or even Arena shooters that NA players are used to. The speed/agility of each engagement is insane.
@@KiLDELTA Agreed. I still hadn't found such a straightforward and fast paced type of game to this day. The Battlefield games are fun but it doesn't feel the same. Perhaps it's more of my own nostalgia talking than based on unbiased reality.
DOTA isnt a separate game. Its a custom map and in specific snese a mod/new gamemode as map editor in Warcraft 3 allows you to change gameplay drasticly with almost no limits. It never was a standalone thing, it always just was played in Warcraft 3, before Valve approached the mapper maintaing the main releases of the map, and eon court battle against blizzard who stupidly wanted to rob the mapper of the idea for free.
That is correct! I just thought it was easier to simply reference it for its competitive significance in Asia at the time, rather than explain that it was a mod.
I grew up playing CS. Loved it. But the simple mode got boring eventually. CF and other games offered a wide array of game modes and skill mechanics. In CS, you die and have to observe and wait for the next round.
i would have loved to play crossfire on it's peak in ru region, but i was a counter-strike nexon: zombies fan back then. ru region also closed recently.
I was a big fan of a lot of the Korean F2P FPS games from back in the day. Combat Arms, Warrock, Wolf Team, Sudden Attack, AVA, Black Shot, you name it. I was one of those kids that liked Counter-Strike but also wanted to try out more games but didn't have the money to buy anything at the time. I definitely didn't have a good computer at the time either, just a good ol' Gateway, remember those?
@@Swattii only heard of combat arms, ava and sudden attack. only knew about both crossfire and counter strike online couldn't recognize their games as different things and put crossfire tags to cso media
Oh right the Mutant modes. I didn't like it and it was for mindless casual players to earn credits without getting wrecked in other skill-laden modes. Also a great mode to just shoot mutants testing out all your new guns and toys without much pressure.
Many people say this is a copy of CS, but I would say they are completely different. This game being my childhood I will always have a special place for it.
While it was definitely inspired by CS, it definitely has its own points that make it unique. I’ve never played it much myself, but I’m glad it’s still popular for the community. 🙂
Loved this game! I used to play it years ago when there weren't so many p2w skins and guns. I did try it out a year ago and even bought a prem weapon, but the hackers really ruined it for me. I mostly played the zombie/mutation mode, as I'm not a PVP person. It's still fun to hop in here and there, but it definitely isn't a "main" game at least. Good vid bro!
