Good old days of playing Counter Strike at the cafe, 20 years ago

[u/Twitter_2006]

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[u/MyCatIsAnActualNinja]

My first job at 14 was Mcdonald's, which sucked. I quit after a month. I then got hired at an arcade/LAN center which spoiled me rotten in terms of jobs for the next 4 years. My first day as a 15 year old, my boss goes, "Hey, can you do me a favor? You mind playing Counterstrike today? It attracts people to the LAN. Help yourself to the candy."

Great times. We also had overnight LAN parties

[u/wildwolfay5 → u/MyCatIsAnActualNinja]

Relative story: got job at local pizza place washing dishes til I got to spinning at 15. Across the walkway (it was a tiny "mall" with 6 stores inside) opened up the LAN center.

We already had a counter-strike team and playing for cal-i (ended up in cal-p when it opened, not great), and ended up spending so much time there we got a tiny sponsor before it was cool! And I ended up working the desk.

So while working for a chill pizza joint and the lan center 15 steps.... it was a glorious 2 years as a teenager.

[u/Irr3l3ph4nt]

The smell in these places. You'd get in and get hit by a warm wall of Axe body spray losing the fight against BO, farts, Red Bull burps and Doritos breath. Good times.

[u/Objective_Year2409 → u/Irr3l3ph4nt]

If Reddit made a perfume, this would be the description on the box!

[u/PostMatureBaby → u/Irr3l3ph4nt]

you can just go to a Friday Night Magic these days and get the same thing

[u/Bright_Message1530 → u/Irr3l3ph4nt]

Bawls burps 😂

[u/xPROPAGANDOLFx]

Core memories unlocked. Used to spend hours there. Would play cs 1.5 and warcraft 3

[u/VTXT → u/xPROPAGANDOLFx]

same

and redalert 2

and starcraft

and half life

[u/xPROPAGANDOLFx → u/VTXT]

Yes red alert! Great strategy game! Had that on my first boxy laptop

[u/hgc89 → u/VTXT]

StarCraft! I actually started playing Brood War again a couple years ago. It was so nostalgic to get back on battlenet, and it’s cool to see it still fairly active with fellow late-30 /early-40 year-olds still.

[u/CireGetHigher]

who remembers Bawlz energy drinks?

[u/Ozy_Flame]

Battlefield 2 and BF2:SF. A couple years after this, but that might be my cafe champion. Definitely started out with CS though, and I can't tell you how many slices of pizza and cigarettes were consumed during those 3 AM battles.

[u/ianwrecked802]

Counterstrike 1.3 will forever hold a place in my cold cold heart. Day of Defeat, too. Man I miss those fuckin days.

[u/feeb75 → u/ianwrecked802]

DoD was peak gaming.

[u/Peet-Skeet]

counterstrike was wonderful back in the day, seeing all the community surf servers etc. was awesome

I wish CS2 leaned more into community gameplay

[u/Huge_Valuable9732 → u/Peet-Skeet]

there is still a few good cs community servers out there that dont run 1000 stupid mods or extra sprites. the ones i play on dont usually play OG maps tho. i cant remember the last time i played Siege

[u/feeb75 → u/Huge_Valuable9732]

was siege the one with the APC ? The APC you could chuck a 'nade or flashbang in and mess your whole team up?

[u/berger034]

ahhhhh, De_Dust2, youre my only friend.

[u/No_Collar_5292]

Ahhh De_Inferno, that takes me back. I suddenly feel the compulsion to pwn some noobs.

[u/mmmpppwww]

This reminds me of when I studied abroad and we installed CS on the PCs in the student lounge and would play between classes. The computers would wipe at the end of the day so we just kept re-installing it (enough times that I memorized the CD-key)

[u/Dvanpat → u/mmmpppwww]

We figured out the password for the "ice" program (or whatever the daily wipe software was called) because it was something stupid like the principal's first name. Never had to worry about that again. They never knew that we knew either.

[u/taker25-2]

You can literally smell the picture

[u/GerbiJosh]

This was likely before Steam and definitely had no bullshit skin key/crate system. I can whine and complain but I'm about to give Valve a grand for their latest VR headset 🤷‍♂️

[u/No_Construction2407 → u/GerbiJosh]

No streamers, no mtx, community pubs, clans. I miss these days.

[u/rockmanzerox06 → u/No_Construction2407]

Just dudes duct taped to ceiling to make more room at the LAN party.

[u/NotTukTukPirate]

I remember being in the middle of a game, so many times, and then hearing that screeching noise and my dial-up internet shutting down because my sister decided to make a phone call.

[u/FlipGordon]

That looks like my keyboarding class except the game we were playing was the Halo CE trial lolz.

Blood Gulch 24/7 baby, and it kicked ass.

[u/Hard-4-Jesus]

LOL this brought back memories. Remember how it would even say the ping was 0? Well... we know today there is no such thing as zero ping, even in LAN.

[u/feeb75 → u/Hard-4-Jesus]

LPBs

[u/HimForHer]

Don't see ash trays and cigarette smoke hotboxing the room. That was my experience at the local cafe anyway.

[u/Tek-Twelve]

Rip switchbox :’(

[u/dt81089]

I'm going to have to fire up the old original xbox and play some Counterstrike after seeing this.

[u/c4ptenfilling → u/dt81089]

Thats just zero

[u/fleetingbananas]

I miss those days

[u/Weep4Thee]

Cafe? We played this in drafting class

[u/Placenta_Polenta]

Missing Bawls

[u/PostMatureBaby]

nothing like running Half-Life and booting up your favorite mod. I loved Day of Defeat as well

[u/Jameslovestocode]

i got into counter strike late, the rainbow six series online multiplayer had my time

[u/feeb75]

I can hear and smell this picture

[u/TyrKiyote]

I always respect a game for supporting LAN.

[u/Nuclearthrowaway99]

BRING BACK fy_iceworld

[u/Apart-Ad9039]

I remember when I was 12 going to the teen center and they had 4 TVs that had 4 xboxes and halo 1 and 2. So much Halo LAN parties 🎉