Zoomer anon has brainrot

Ahh, the days before games companies hired the casino slot machine UX designers. An elegant game from a more civilised age.

Boomers my ass. This is Gen X gaming.

We had mods. They're a bit like skins and new content, only free and far more creative. They are what you call microtransactions today but you didn't have to sell your right arm to get them because anyone could make them.

CS 1.6 was peak gaming. There were servers with Warcraft 3 mod where you could pick your race and level up to receive additional modded abilities and items, and it would save your progress over months. Not to mention the map customizations.

Also, no paying for season passes or DLC, no paid skinpacks, no censorship or embedded ads or tracking. And custom porn sprays.

EDIT: there were definitely skins, they were just free downloads from modders. And they were client side so you could see them but other players would just have their own skin or default for the same item.

Trollbait, it has to be. "no brand tie ins" is genuinely hilarious to me. I'm picturing a videogame reviewer going like: "The game is an artistic and a technical milestone. The gameplay is also the smoothest we've seen so far. Unfortunately, the game does not feature a Ronald McDonald skin or even a Slurpee coupon, so we have to give it a 7/10".

By...not playing it? No boomers were playing Counterstrike back in the day, lol wtaf?

It was pure gaming.

No advertisments, no marketing, no extra costs.

The only way to get better was to play more.

How can it not be fun?

Good ol' days, thank you VALVE.

God I miss those times, it was all about skills. Cheating was also also extremely rare in CS (according to my memories) during the earlier 2000s. Loved that game

As a gen x, I didn't know any boomers played CS.

I don't even claim free season pass rewards because I couldn't give a fuck less about your cosmetic trash. Gameplay is king in this household.

I used to play LAN Quake at Uni before 3D graphics accelerating boards (and before that things like Pacman and Manic Miner on a ZX Spectrum and before that arcade games) and I ain't a boomer.

Boomer games are more like this

Really speaks to how fast culture is moving that people in their thirties have developed "kids these days" type attitudes.

Well we had mods and custom levels when we got tired of the official stuff.

I heard some weirdos switched de_dust and de_duat2 for de_aztec and cs_office sometimes. Avantgarde as fuck

No skins and no new content? CS had way too many different maps to play on, not to mention the amount of custom skins were crazy.

Skill progression ig

I spent so much time playing 1.6 in college, even after Source was out. On the university wifi, that game was rock solid.

Zombies servers were sick tho

I still play 1.6, Source, and I'm trying out some multi-player on Quake

Sauerbraten

Sad zoom.

Istg zoomers will call anything older than them "boomer". I was born in 99' and I used to play the shit out of 1.6. Mainly because my pc couldn't handle source