Exploring Counter Strike's Creepy & Unsettling Maps

[@-Raylight]

Love how old source games has this creepy atmosphere. Still play them until this day Engine limitation will always give a birth to creativity

[@CasepbX]

I feel HL2 source has the same vibes.

[@BlazeBlueY3]

"limitation will always give birth to creativity"✍🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@aryabratsahoo7474]

I believe it's mostly cause of the ambient sound effects. Also the low graphics trying to replicate reality without any style creates an uncanny valley effect.

[@kylemulkey9659]

That is a great point. Games today have endless amounts of resources to make things look perfect, but it seems to lack atmosphere. Creativity becomes back seat to realism.

[@sinjin8576]

​@@BlazeBlueY3it's why modern films with 250 million $ budgets worth of CGI feel lamer and uglier than something made in the early 80s for less than $10m

[@reviathan3524]

My man's diving into the empty multiplayer maps essay. I like the feel of that

[@TheStrayHALOMAN]

I still go on Halo Reach CE and 3 on MCC and appreciate the graphics on those in 4k. For some reason the later games after CE "Besides 3 and Reach" all of a muddy blur and bland color pallet You can really see this in 2 and 4.

[@Type_0_Fighter_Model_52]

That eerie atmospheric feeling on 1st playthrough of Assault on the Control Room

[@finnfeaver1196]

​@@TheStrayHALOMANhalo 3 multiplayer map ambience alone is excellent

[@TheStrayHALOMAN]

@@finnfeaver1196 Ghost Town do be a Ghost Town lol

[@acolite2341]

Yeah down for it

[@TeddyOnTheSpot]

Really goes to show the effort people put into these maps back with the limited technology of the Goldsource Engine.

[@EagleEye517]

That's what I admire alot

[@kommodore6691]

I think having less options is better for creativity sometimes. Too much choice and you get overwhelmed and never push what is possible or new ideas.

[@EagleEye517]

@@kommodore6691 best example being the AAA modern games

[@patrickiamonfire965]

Or my house with the doom engine. Spoiler alert If I recall it’s a gay love story.

[@DuneJumper]

I miss when games were about the details instead of the screenshot graphics

[@AnticitizenOne93]

There’s a great movie called „A Land Imagined” (2018), in which there’s a scene where the main protagonist is falling asleep while playing „Counter Strike” and, while being in spectator mode, he’s starting to nocliping through the map. This nocliping effect seeing on the monitor, added with great, hypnotizing music, created an eerie moment, as it looks like the protagonist is moving to another dimension.

[@3n3j0t4]

ChatGPT ass comment

[@just_matt214]

Hey there, co-writer for Ghostware here! Thank you for the shoutout, the 120% increase in exposure this video generated will allow Mothership Loudspeakerz to stock up on mezze penne for the next three months.

[@MidnightMedium]

heyyy! Funny seeing you here. Hope Ghostware continues to takes off!

[@MothershipLoudspeakerz]

Ghostware lead dev here, nice to have the game get two shoutouts in two consecutive videos 😎

[@JonnyHorseman]

Love your Deus Ex covers

[@eyestonedaniel]

See. G-Man, do a review on it already!

[@broderickblack]

Yeah G-man this game definitely deserves a review, as I need an analysis to whether to buy it

[@famosoanonimo602]

First time i've heard about your game, and now i'm buying it xD

[@Gatorade69]

I saw it on steam the other day and it looks insteresting but does the game itself have multiplayer ? I've been dying for a good arena shooter.

[@indeimaus]

yeah I had similar vibes in the old day of defeat levels without anyone in them playing at lan parties, something about the gold source engine man

[@scumitarop6707]

Happy Pentecost ☦️

[@sadare765]

Indeimaus! More toy vids cmon!

[@andrwarrior]

oh man, definitely. There is something supremely surreal playing one of the beach invasion maps alone, where the looping background war noises and far-away explosions were SO loud and constant, but it was just you on a deserted beach, not another soul in sight. dod_omaha I remember had a really effective sense of distance compared to the other beach map with a far larger axis-side with dugout tunnels and bunkers (can't remember the name of it)

[@wailfulcrab]

On cs_estate, I remember you could turn the light on and off to piss off the counter-terrorists. And even bots knew how to use them.

[@Rosa_Neco]

just mentioned this also hahah thanks

[@michaelbrown2145]

I went back to Return to Castle Wolfenstein - Multiplayer last week (not ET). 20 years ago, this game had loads of players, clans, etc. Every server that is live today, is now only bots constantly playing the same levels in loops. Every time I entered a server, I'd ask "Is anyone out there?" - no response. It was like playing with ghosts.

[@Daniel__Nobre]

That is quite eerie indeed

[@thegates-pearly]

what if they DONT speak english

[@Daniel__Nobre]

@@thegates-pearly 🤣

[@kingstarscream3807]

Tragic that the playerbase for a classic like RTCW died off.

[@nikobellic8002]

​@@thegates-pearly Yeah that's also a possibility he should consider

[@ActualPie]

3:29 unsettling reverb fart

[@Cimlite]

I guess GmanLives has never played No Players Online since that wasn't mentioned. That was the first game that did that whole, playing on a server alone concept and amped up the horror element. Good stuff.

[@SeanNoonan]

In the early days of CS (and multiplayer in general), the tension really felt like horror to me. Memories of crawling around de_prodigy with a TMP trying to get the drop on people, only to get scared shitless by a dude with balls of steel running at me with an AK. Had me kicking the desk and throwing the keyboard in the air :D

[@andrwarrior]

those vents from the CT side that dropped down into the main terrorist choke point hallway really sticks out to me as a memorable terrifying situation my buddies and I would always rush right to at the start of each round. You either felt like solid snake sneaking down behind encroaching terrorists, or you landed right in front of them with your thumb up your ass and their AK down your throat, dead in miliseconds

[@Slappaccino]

I always found several of the Tom Clancy multiplayer games "scarier" than most proper horror games tbh. R6, Ghost Recon, and especially Splinter Cell where death could be in any shadow. Knowing other people are in the dark is much more unnerving than scripted monsters and such that can't react beyond their programming. Not so much modern Ghost Recon, though. R6 Siege has had a lot of great moments, too, whether it's something like a Sledge suddenly coming through the wall behind you Jack Baker style, a good Caveira or Jackal hunting you, or the feeling of knowing a Glaz is on the other side of that smoke grenade that was just thrown in the doorway and you have nowhere to hide. Especially when you're the last one alive.

[@junioraltamontent.7582]

I remember being 9 and my older brother got me a burned copy of Half Life w/ CS from school. I had to wait til he was home to play them bc I was just too scared to make decisions. It was a big deal for me to finally muster up the courage to take on the Blast Pit chapter or log on to a cs_militia server by myself.

[@junioraltamontent.7582]

​@@SlappaccinoGhost Recon was fuked, as the very first mob in the game is hiding under some bushes along your route and then backed up by a MG nest on the hill behind them. Right off the bat it makes you just assume they can be anywhere and wipe your whole team through the trees.

[@GoldSrcFreeman]

That cs_estate creepy lights was a real mystery. There was nothing in the map activating upstairs lights except the lever in the transformer. The thing is the lights are turned off by default and they stay like that even if you're not alone on the map, but only ONE team must present (you can add a dozen of bots in your team and till the opposite team will have no players the upstairs light will remain dark). The secret is the transformer switching the lights is actually func_door set to "Start open" in its properties. func_door has a little secret: it resets closes itself at every new round. When there's only one team (no mater how many players in the team) on the map the game doesn't count it as a round at all. What happens is: the upstairs lights are turned off, you start the map, there's no opposite team -> another player/bot joins as the opposite team -> the game actually starts the round -> the transformer lever (func_door) closes since it's a new round -> upstairs lights turn on.

[@rosefaceFGC]

Halo: Combat Evolved gave me these exact same feelings as a child in both its campaign and multiplayer. So many early games are masterclasses in unsettling atmosphere.

[@KitchenGuy]

Oh that AK sound is Burned in my brain. That and the SSG sound is so brutal.

[@CatsOverdrive]

The MP5 and the Sig552 firing sounds...that patrick bateman headphones scene is how i feel everytime i listen to those.

[@buggyboy2849]

I'd argue the fairly recent trend of associating empty vast spaces and buildings with existential dread is at least partially a result of how overpopulated most urban areas have become in the last 2 decades. The feeling of being alone in an apartment building is largely a rarity now and feels unnatural to most people. Having grown up in Eastern Europe during the 90s I actually feel quite at peace at abandoned factories or construction sites, reminds me of a calmer more uneventful part of my life. Sometimes we just need some time alone with our own thoughts, afford to spent time on nothing :)

[@Atrahasis7]

I think there is an unconscious element fear of being alone, being alone in urban areas might end up with you being robbed.

[@buggyboy2849]

@@Atrahasis7 True, but as with many fears the intensity can vary among cultures and individuals. Someone used to living in a large busy loud city is more prone to feeling lonely compared to someone living in a more rural area. As I was growing up there was an increase in construction sites as the population grew so it wasn't uncommon for me and my buddies hanging out around empty half built buildings. It wasn't so much a feeling of loneliness as it was more a feeling of being small.

[@elone3997]

That's an interesting observation on the fact that so many people live in dense population now - it hadn't crossed my mind, but in a world where constant stimulation from digital distraction is the norm, I can totally see how alien the concept of silence (or even just subtle ambience) could be. I also didn't get spooked in games like HL2 where many others have commented on it feeling like they a were being watched (lots of videos on KZbin on this subject) which is quite a creepy concept. Half Life 2 for me had such a feeling of quiet isolation but as you mentioned, a calmness also, which played beautifully with the contrast of the combine dropping in on you leading to a full on fire fight. They totally nailed the atmosphere of total isolation on the road trip section in HL2 (Highway 17?)..

[@Atrahasis7]

@@elone3997 Few games nail silence well, like Gman said the only one that is masterful in it is Thief. And that game inspired a lot of designers including valve and many others.

[@Rodjeurs]

I love this take. Personally, finding myself in a big and empty place where it is usually crowded is an extraordinary feeling. It is both soothing and crushing; calm and creepy. And it is indeed a rare occurrence, which makes the experience even more precious.

[@Lord_Deimos]

Every Source engine has that liminal feeling because maps are seemingly abandoned but you can hear the ambience around you... cars passing by, birds chirping, kids playing but there's no one there.

[@yuzusauce]

Can't believe you started off with de_survivor! As a kid, I would somehow spend hours alone by myself on a server just wandering around that map with headphones on. I distinctly remember simply running around and imagining scenarios in my head for why the player would be in this map. In one instance, I imagined the player was a truck driver who's vehicle broke down and they stumbled upon some top secret research lab. In another instance, I imagined we were the sole survivor of an airplane crash and were being hunted by a creature that escaped from the back of that truck. The visuals, the sound design, the general atmosphere of eeriness... it's so hard to explain what a seemingly pointless experience like that does to a young person's imagination and curiosity. I remember getting chills my first time loading that map up and turning the corner to see the crashed airplane and then hearing that wolf howl. Not to exaggerate but I have to believe that fucking around on de_survivor as a bored and impressionable child permanently altered something in my brain chemistry to where I not only am obsessed with all things horror-related now as an adult, but I find specifically snowy environments, in real life or in media, really unsettling and creepy. Especially because I live in Los Angeles, CA where it never snows unless you head up to the mountains, being in the snow was such a novel occasion for me that I couldn't help but associate it with the feelings I felt when I used to wander around that map. Man, what an absolute nostalgia trip...

[@hamzakhalil-gs7oc]

Ngl I miss the childesh imagination, it really added the immersion and atmosphere to the maps, I also always wondered what is going on these maps and just imagining what might have had happened

[@mynamefrank6567]

I did the same thing as a kid, there's really something special about survivor, oilrig also had me feeling all kinds of things with the dripping water ambiance, the vast background on every direction feeling completely isolated and lost at sea

[@Kenjn_DJ]

Bro same! I'm also fond of things related to snowy environments because of this map. The Thing (1982) movie made me reminisce the beauty of this map.

[@contra7631]

Same dude.I used to roam in this map alone alot.Its weird how common we are.

[@d.ryan96]

If i recall correctly, original Counter Strike has some slight changes to first person fov and player height compared to Half-Life. It wasn't acknowledged well by mappers which results in it's weirdly warped perspective and sense of scale.

[@mynamefrank6567]

that makes a lot of sense because in this video I realized just how weird the perspective looks, like you're smaller than the environment while still not being "shorter" but the walls all look stretched

[@FlyboyHelosim]

Yes that's true. Back in the day when I made maps for CS, I would make some for HL first and then convert them to CS later as HL loaded quicker than CS for testing. However, once played in CS many of my prefab props made for HL were bigger in CS and looked out of place.

[@KimBoKastekniv47]

Ah yes, the genuine Australian multiplayer experience - playing alone on a map.

[@nonenothing4412]

Do not be racist

[@123mandalore777]

Too true. I just ended up gravitating towards games that featured bots until Aus internet finally got good enough for online play.

[@nikobellic8002]

​@@123mandalore777 Thank god for bots for that

[@ababa9668]

I swear I never expected you of all people to make a video on this. I love it.

[@MonsterJuiced]

This was perfect. I love how you included estate. Back then Id join a game on italy and sometimes it'd be empty so id just explore while waiting for people to join. I loved that singing going on behind one of the doors. Gave me a comfortable feeling. And same with estate, id chill in that room with the fuzzy tv on and just sit there imagining being comfy in that bed at night. It made me feel quite sleepy

[@Michael_Hunt]

Man, I used to explore maps in 1.6 by myself all the time and it was really relaxing, it's cool that De_Survivor was shown because I remember exploring that map exactly. Also not a creepy map but there was a custom Christmas themed map that had a little cafe playing Let It Snow that I used to love to relax and walk around in. I need to find that Christmas map again. I swear these old maps have a soul.

[@patriot_5057]

That dark hostage silhouette in that room at 9:37 was the creepiest thing.

[@Rodjeurs]

From the very beginning, I have always loved the first Half-Life for that reason. This sense of isolation, of vastness. The low-res textures repeating themselves, giving this liminal space feel. The silence, only broken by a few sounds here and there. The feeling of walking through usually crowded offices, now abandoned. It is both eerie and peaceful and struck me really hard back in 1998.

[@devangnivatkar2649]

I'm sorry, but no matter how scary, I'm still laughing at 'Oops Air - No Guarantees'

[@DazyBrad]

It sounds like something that you would see in GTA universe

[@thomasvleminckx]

I laughed hard at that one

[@nikobellic8002]

Never really noticed that. It's funny.

[@nikobellic8002]

​@@DazyBrad Definitely

[@RadekCrazy1]

3:30 I love how you put this sound effect in every single video even if it is half hidden 🤣

[@ultgamercw6759]

I feel like some of these older game engines manage to capture creepy feeling effortlessly because they always have visuals that look slightly off. I remember playing around in abandoned source engine games a while ago and I got the same creepy feeling.

[@Aurathon3D]

4:15 those ice formations remind me of those crystal formations you find in the original Crysis when entering the alien super-structure... so I 100% agree

[@mr.kitsune1531]

The thing about cs_estate is that you get to turn on/off the lights for each floor. I'm pretty sure later bots do turn them on, but the old ones, for which you had to make a map out of different types of waypoints, didn't.

[@antonybr1]

12:30 These noises are from Tomb Raider 1 Peru Level

[@Mrcoops85]

Re-used in TR2 also for the shipwreck levels

[@TMKsheep03]

A lot of those background noises used in Atlantis are from the classic tomb raider games

[@timkaine5098]

I'm pretty sure the map maker nipper did that spooks level, he did a ton of other crazy atmospheric maps. I used to help beta test them in a gaming community we were both part of back in the day. Strongly recommend checking out his later maps if you get a chance he could do absolute wizardry with the godawful hammer editor

[@CrAzYpotpie]

Blahhhhhh for life.

[@rahjeel]

For the longest time I thought I was the only one feeling creeped out by the ambience of Source Engine maps/games. It's just unnerving how close to the ground the sound of footsteps are with the howling wind on the background without any music. When I watched No Country For Old Men, I thought to myself "The Coen Brothers must've loved Counter Strike because this quiet ambience is unsettling af"

[@MondySpartan]

I always thought as_oilrig was supposed to have a special cutscene that plays after you manage to reach the helicopter but I guess it just works that way.

[@IIIOldSchooLIII]

Will you ever do a full video on Ghostware: Arena of the Dead? Because that game looks dope as hell, son.

[@sir-scudio]

makes sense that spooks makes an appearance here, it was made by nipper after all. alot of his maps are incredibly unique, bizarre and occasionally downright creepy. i mean hell that's putting it lightly.

[@Skiad-OpsGash]

Fun fact: Edvard Munch painted "The Scream" with cs_estate as a backdrop in mind. Yes, he was that far ahead of his time.

[@apehawk]

I'm so glad to finally hear someone saying that being alone in a server isn't scary, I've been hearing people say this for like 2 years now and it makes no sense to me

[@mrmannova3212]

1:38 Afraid of Monsters in corner: Am I a joke to you?

[@WatcherKoops4677]

Funny, he once covered the video on the game a long time ago

[@Zack_Wester]

I was thinking of maybe Cry of fear. as Afraid of Monster sort of getts anoying quickly in that the enviroment make zero sence (even for a horror game) its super dark all the time meaning you more or less need to run the flashlight on 24/7.

[@WatcherKoops4677]

@@Zack_Wester he should cover cry of fear next!

[@JonnyHorseman]

​@@WatcherKoops4677 he did, years ago

[@WatcherKoops4677]

@@JonnyHorseman oh oops!

[@kayiskoi]

It's really cool how a game like Counter-Strike has such a good atmosphere on a lot of maps, considering that during a gunfight you wouldn't notice more than half of the time. I recently bought a perfect condition physical copy of the Half-Life Platinum Collection, including Counter-Strike 1.6. It's definitely one of my favorite games of all time.

[@Shalashaska_XOF]

Loved this, really enjoy these kinds of videos where you revisit weird/fun/interesting maps from a simpler time! I’ve seen other videos on this topic and I’ve found most of them pretty dry tbh but your commentary as always is both informative and so full of character it has me both hooked and cracking up the whole way through!

[@Dylanquinn666]

I've never played Counter Strike but watching this gives me a very specific feeling of nostalgia. I got the same thing when I played the Mirror's Edge games.

[@michaelmoore3356]

Atlantis, especially that lava room, is almost certainly a reference to the Adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. The climax of that game takes place in that lava room.

[@DaxMarko]

Maps designed for the zombie mods, aka ones with "zm" prefix, is where you'll find the best horror that cs 1.6 can offer. If you thought that silent hill map was already too much to swallow, imagine playing it with bunch of zombie players (or bots) hunting you down.

[@latchmakesmovies]

Great video! I'd love to see you do this top with CS: Source. I never played the game back in its heyday but have had so many creepy experiences loading up empty CS:S maps in Gmod sandbox only to discover they take on a life of their own without other players around.

[@peachesbunny]

I started CS when I was around 8 years old where my older brother would teach me to play on 1.6 and when my brother's not around, I would just remove all the bots to just wander around the maps but little did I know I would get so creeped out. I think it's a similar concept to going to an empty mall or school during the holidays where you expect to see people but there aren't so it's just super eerie. You literally cannot get the same feelings with CS2. Only with 1.6 does it feel like someone's just watching you the whole time.

[@noobsaibot7006]

Its so true man. I did the same numerous times in a lot of empty maps by exploring it or playing 1 v 1 against another guy in the server. Being there by yourself was really unsettling and eerie.

[@kayDawgTV]

I am so happy you are making this video. I've put the same amount of hours into the game as you have and I always felt the same way about the maps as you describe here. Some of the maps are really unsettling, when you're alone on them.

[@ShrapNello]

I bet the lava room on the Atlantis map is a hommage to the finale of Indy Fate of Atlantis

[@PeaceLoveAndGuns]

So about the Atlantis map. Those are audio stingers directly from Tomb Raider and the reference to Thiefs Lost City is probably also intentional because it was made by Eidos… and which also had a Lost City (of Vilcamba) Map#2.

[@1thevm1]

Off the top of my head: es_trinity is of course one of the maps ever made, as is de_foption with rare spawn kill trigger de_torn is one of the more atmospheric maps in a war-torn country, with actual environmental hazards like bombshells and stuff I won't call it creepy, but de_prodigy has one of the rare hurt triggers that will gib you to pieces (just like in half-life) if you jump out of the map from the railing I also remember the fight club map with knives only, it was unsettling as a kid because it was all dark, grungy, with blood spots everywhere, and the song from the movie played there at max volume.

[@jf6647]

Gman, truly a man of culture. I'm glad to see someone appreciate the aesthetic of these maps and the engine. As well, the sounds are so nostalgic and give me shots of serotonin. Whether is ambience or footsteps. As I kid I used to spend quite a few hours just roaming around half life and cs. I played cs prior to steam and there were a lot of maps that weren't implemented in 1.6. Honesty a lot of the less popular maps had the more interesting elements and lay outs. I love the 3 first maps, estate, survivor and oil rig. I also loved militia and back alleys AND Vegas was amazing.

[@b19931228]

3:08 I remember I sometime would call in sick early in the morning by faking it to my mum. After she had gone to the office, I would log onto counter strike and explored all the (mostly) empty community server. It was the loneliest but most tranquil back when I was little.

[@foxus-a113]

Wandering in an empty map alone in Counter-Strike, or other multiplayer games like Quake is something most of us can relate to. When you hop in your favorite server, but it's too early in the morning for anyone to be online, you wander through the server's maplist, sometimes another player joins in, you guys enjoy yourselves in the map, messing around.

[@TherapeuticDriving]

Before I even had internet on my Windows comp, I just used to run around maps like de_aztec, de_dust, cs_office, etc. and pretend I am fighting imaginary enemies (ohhh man). Then I got my AOL dial-up, updated my before-steam copy of cs to 1.5 and was able to see community servers. Joining a server with other players was like a dream come true for me, I never forget that first instance when I saw other players in game. CS 1.5/1.6 + Half-Life 1 are by far my fav games. Along with oldies like Max Payne 1 & 2. Soldier of Fortune 1, No One Lives Forever (the list goes on).

[@smokedaddy3d_]

People doing this with Counter strike reminds me when I used to do this with the Call of Duty 4 maps way back in 2009. I didn't have Internet for the Ps3 at the time, so I would often spend most of the time playing Single Player on games that had a big Multiplayer Presence, like Call of Duty, Resistance Fall of Man and Resistance 2. But exploring those Cod 4 maps is super unnerving. The ambient sound mixed with the music that occasionally plays makes those maps even scarier, especially maps like Vacant, Backlot, Shipment and Downpoor. Seriously just load up Cod 4 and go into any of those maps solo, and you'll feel this sense of unease and fear, considering the maps themselves mixed with the Graphics at the time, make the game feel like a World Ending game, even though the game is literally just about a Fictional war mixed with some more realistic wars in Afghanistan at the time.

[@chrisidoo]

Old games just had that eerie charm in empty maps. Halo and TimeSplitters are also prime examples of this, with their maps feeling unsettling and empty (and literally so). The ambience also added to it a lot, seeing as a lot of multiplayer games had no music going on when you played, and without any players all you could hear was the often creepy sounds going on. Same with the old Tomb Raider games. The silence except wind or cave ambience. Or the old butler constantly following you and just waiting to be locked into the freezer. He scared the hell out of me.

[@lilwyvern4]

1:18 Bro, is that an Alex Jones reference? This is why server browsers are necessary. Matchmaking has been a net negative on multiplayer games in my eyes, not only mixing utterly incompatible playstyles into a blender but also putting the kibosh on creative community maps. Even as someone who utterly despises PvP, I adored the strange things you could find on TF2 servers, like those old idle achievement maps with easter eggs, in-jokes, and sometimes hidden boss battles and the like.

[@CrAzYpotpie]

Halo 3 matchmaking was pretty amazing, then 343 decided to throw that all away for every game on MCC. Halo 3 set standards that no one else was capable of meeting, apparently. I also thought that the theater mode was going to appear in countless games after. Nope. So I don't blame you for hating it, it is so rarely done well in that it matches you with equally skilled players, developers nowadays just cram whatever random players together as quick as possible.

[@moritzzz1]

I had actual dreams in which I explored and lived in the 1.6 maps. The Gldsrc engine is magical to me

[@AvalancheReviews]

I didn't even know CS existed until I got Half Life 2 and installed steam for the first time. So I never got to mess with 1.6. I loved source though. I used to play on an "only Office" server something like Office 420 or some shit. God damn, just typing that brought back a million memories.

[@ManinTidyWhities]

Playing cs_crackhouse on a DM server can be scary if you think about it. You're engaged in an endless battle against Ts(or CTs) with no real goal or end in sight, and dying over and over again without any memory of what happened before. Really a special kind of limbo

[@colddarkness1798]

2:58 one of my top 10 favourite CS maps we need this map in CS 2 and survivor also in CS 2

[@pickle600]

Nice to see that de_survivor is on here. As a kid, I found the map pretty unsettling but also very interesting for some reason. I would load up the map and just explore it alone whenever I was bored. I remember thinking that the breaking bridge and the ice that would break when you walked over it was extremely cool.

[@sketch8988]

i dont know, for me walking in these empty maps fills me with somber nostalgia, spending so much time on them before when they were populated and now when they are empty just feels nostalgic and sad

[@DaedalusRaistlin]

Man this brought back memories. Oilrig I think was the last VIP escort map they made, and the most polished. But there were others, I think in the betas of CS. This is stretching my memory, but I do recall a number of escort maps you never saw anyone playing. I tried them offline with bots, but in those days you had to map out bot paths in a fairly complicated way if nobody had done so for that map yet. And nobody had. I tried my best but setting up navigation and path nodes was really tricky.

[@dhoyft411]

Dude, my buddy and I remember playing cs_estate vividly with a bot mod I downloaded at the time back in the day which resulted in the Terrorist's torsos moving in a static and straight line while their legs went haywire above their heads. This wasn't intended behavior and I've remembered it being scary ever since. It's only fitting for me that the map was included in a "Creepy and Unsettling" CS map video.

[@ianmcsherry5254]

Used to love as_oilrig, especially as CTs or VIP. There was something satisfying about a good, slick rapid, exit up to the top level, creaming terrs on the way. I miss all the old map rotations from around 2000. So much variety. Then we started to get the crowd coming in moaning about anything that wasn't a de_ map, and eventually just about any map that wasn't Dust or Dust2. The old UK Wireplay (later Blueyonder), and Barrysworld servers usually had good crowds on, and admins that knew their stuff. Much enjoyment and hilarity, pretty much any time, day or night.

[@TheReal_FishFins]

My childhood nostalgia is Halflife , TFC, and CS 1.4 through 1.6

[@CatsOverdrive]

Besides CounterStrike, Wanted is one of the GldSource mods that i really enjoyed playing.

[@TheReal_FishFins]

@@CatsOverdrive oh and The Specialists!

[@xelldincht4251]

When i was younger i downloaded a lot of maps for Counter-Strike and wanted to play against bots but for many of the maps it was not possible so all I did was walk through the empty maps and destroy everything that was destructible (windows, boxes)

[@deathcold_longplaysua4846]

I never was scared by playing maps alone in Counter-Strike. But playing them with someone and not expecting them to show up at you from unexpected places is what scared me many times back in the days. For example on "assault" map that I played with few of my friends. One of them decided to hide in the vent above the door that leads to the hostages, and when I was slowly trying to get to the hostages to see if he were hiding in the room with them, he jumped out of the vent and shot me down. And since I was not expecting that, because I even looked at that vent and didn't saw him in there, it was scary not because it was like in some horror movie but because I was not expecting him to jump out from there. And there was many situations like this back in the days. But in general, I was not scared playing Counter-Strike alone or with bots, because bots are always predictable and most of the time they are making a lot of noises when they are running around and looking for you. I was more scared of some other video games than Counter-Strike. Like, first time when I played Painkiller it was scary, because I was afraid of those skeletons that jump out at you in the first level. And then I was afraid of the game because of it's atmosphere and how scary enemies were for me at that time. Now that was scary. Sure, since I played Painkiller a lot, I worked over that and now it is hard to scare me via the game, but sometimes I got scared because I didn't expect some enemy to jump in front of me in to my face like a damn screamer. By the way, "survivor" map is one of my favorite maps in Counter-Strike ever. I always enjoyed playing that map and I always wanted to see it's remake in more modern versions of this game. Sadly, none of them modern Counter-Strike games brought it up. Sure, there is some fan made remakes of that map but they are not what I wanted to see. Like the one for CS Source, that has so many unnecessary details that the game itself starts to lag like crazy. And I don't like that.

[@MrHiglon]

Now this is a dope video. Nothing cooler than good atmosphere.

[@summers232]

Awesome upload, was slightly expecting it to be like any other video essay on "le spooky liminal source maps" but it turned out very different. +1

[@borknagar5454]

The lights on cs_estate turn on and off from a switch outside the back of the house

[@joze.carvalhoo]

Now, imagine playing this maps in zombie mods! The feeling when you ear the scream of Nemesis... I remember my younger me, with a lot of goosebumps and fear 😂

[@packthing]

'Like having irritable bowel syndrome on a two hour long uber rider' This felt this one in my soul

[@alexanderthegrape2023]

OILRIG! That was the TITS back then! I’m glad someone else remembers it. I remember writing a fanfic based on this map and good LORD did I use the suspense from the final stretch to nail the ending, as the protagonist wasn’t able to make it alive due to a fatal gun wound to his chest, but managing to snag one final lucky shot to the terrorist, allowing the VIP to escape. His death may have been horrifying, but the victory was well earned. God I hope I can rewrite it someday.

[@captainscrumpy1019]

I would love to see you do more map exploration vids like this for valve games. I like that style of content, and it would be cool to see your experiences with maps like that on Gmod or HL1

[@wishiwascooler]

A lot of the maps by Nipper could be very spooky and give off that same feeling. His maps and servers that ran them were always a blast back in the day (2003-04 or so)

[@WorldCupWillie]

I remember being creeped out by a few levels in the 1st couple of Medal Of Honor games on PS1. The night missions in the forest and the SS castle were really atmospheric with a great soundtrack.

[@Hachi-Mi]

14:53 Bro wth bro it's 2 AM you can't just scare people like this man

[@winKoneR]

I'm glad to hear I wasn't the only one enjoying playing alone against bots. Firing up de_militia with me against 16 bots, trying to rescue the hostages while listening to new The Prodigy LP was better single-player experience than most modern shooters.

[@Darkreaper1982]

@3:30 = that's one way to make yourself feel uneasy

[@serioussponge6416]

Man, I was a little too young to have gotten on the Counter-Strike train. My only core experiences with the original were playing with bots on the dead console version of the game and then playing the Condition Zero version of the game. My main introduction to the franchise was Counter-Strike: Source

[@theIEF4]

This is what makes you a certified OG. “They Hunger”. Also Nitemare 3D for bonus points.

[@Cr1msnF4dger]

Now that's something new. It's unexpected, but a welcoming one

[@jonbourgoin182]

There's many other games with maps like this, you could make a series out of it. Timesplitters has some good ones too!

[@3beyondthesun3]

The ambiance sounds and "noises" in De_Atlantis are from the classic Tomb Raider I-II (for example the Caves level in Peru, and the Cistern level in Greece).

[@blackegret666]

GM_Bigcity comes to mind in GMOD because unlike Flatgrass or Construct where they're open and have enough ambient noise to keep you company; Bigcity is this once bussling metropolis that feels like it was just abandoned overnight with no ambient sounds whatsoever. GM_Bigcity_Improved fixes this by having commuter traffic and emergency vehicles in the background which makes me feel less uneased.

[@Michael-vm4bb]

Tairon in Ninja Gaiden Xbox gives that feeling of dread. Empty streets, zombie soldiers, a sky that looks like oblivion... the list goes on. It's weird considering the more classic Ninja setting in which the game starts but you quickly go fighting in a world turning to hell.

[@OceanTheFreak]

You should dive into the Hondo secrets in the mod Action halflife. The secrets alone in that mod are beyond worth diving into.

[@cxxal]

there's an old version of de_survivor before its released as official map which the layout was slightly different. And to me, the most memorable(weird) thing in that version was there was a song you could hear coming out from the truck in the bombsite. It's a guy singing a sad song but I can't remember the detail.

[@dignusdingus3709]

I think Oilrig's solo bot gameplay would make a tense standalone game about methodically getting from 1 end of a map to the next, with AI similar to F.E.A.R. hunting you down

[@TheMegatonBomb]

17:21 You know what they say "The classics never really go away" LOL. (coughs) Gamebanana has a lot of Counter-Strike maps. I wonder who started one of the most popular genres for these maps. In my opinion the Rats maps are one of the most popular. Where everything is huge and you are small. It's funny for Red Faction Deathmatch the name is changed from Rats Maps to Micro Maps.

[@YokohamaAkuma]

I used to play offline all the time and I had the exact same experience on survivor and oilrig. Awesome video!

[@piotrrogowski4177]

Never played first cs, but i've spent my whole teenagehood on source games and oh boy, maps and ambience there were soo unsetteling. You had this feeling like something is watching you all the time. Like there is more going on than you could see. I probably won't remember your name when we meet but i will remember source engine sounds till the end of my life

[@jebbekillen]

Great video Gman, this stuff is so relatable for me as I felt almost like re-living 1,6 and condition zero again

[@bunnyfreakz]

De_survivor do not gives me a creepy but chilling and nostalgia atmosphere at the same time. It is like when I am wake up very early in the morning when I was a kid, your entire house feels so cold and your family members still sleeping.

[@JakubHohn]

What is most stunning is that there is more than 5 maps in CS

[@knightwolf1363]

Thank you for continuing to upload I’m glad I can still support my favorite KZbinrs any way I can