July 2002. Playing this for the first time on my friend's PC during summer vacation. Little did I know, I'd be consuming the video game equivalent of crack cocaine. The crisp gun play, janky grenades, busted wallbangs and sense of community had me hooked from the first time I ever connected to a server.

After my dad helped me build my first PC in 2003, I purchased my retail copy of 1.6 from the local Walmart. I still remember the day Steam was being required to update/play CS 1.6 after the WON service shut down. Thank you Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe for the greatest game of all time.

While CS 1.5 and 1.6 started my journey with Counter-Strike, CS:S was the game that solidified my love of CS and fueled my addiction growing up. Countless hours spent playing with friends after school or during summer breaks for unhealthy amounts of time. This game was the sole reason my family finally got off of 56k dial-up and onto the only DSL connection available to our house so I could keep fragging and not tie up the phone line.

The golden era of the community servers of CS in my opinion. Zombie Mod, Deathrun, Jailbreak, Surf, Gungame, Scoutzknives, CS Soccer... the list goes on and on. Iceyard, Poolday, Rats, Legoland, AWP India were my favorite maps outside of running around 24/7 Office servers with a deagle. Too bad Steam wasn't tracking hours yet, I would love to know how much of my life was wasted on this game.