I must have been 15-16 and in Istanbul (I am Turkish). Back then, copied games on CD was how you could play cracked full games so me and my cousin went in to the shopping area, and we would just buy 10-15 discs with games (they were very cheap in Turkey), one of which I got was Half-Life (I also remember Warzone2100 and Carmagedon 2).
I didn't know what it was but I flew home to the UK, installed the game, copied the cracked .exe file from CD in to the installation folder and began playing. Soon after, I found out there was an add-on called Counter-Strike where I played Mansion:
![[Image: cs-954-cs_mansion_novi.jpg]](https://static2.cs-bg.net/maps/images/screenshots/maps16/cs/cs-954-cs_mansion_novi.jpg)
And Office:
![[Image: cs-2659-cs_office32-3.jpg]](https://static2.cs-bg.net/maps/images/screenshots/maps16/cs/cs-2659-cs_office32-3.jpg)
And 747:
![[Image: cs-1562-cs_747.jpg]](https://static2.cs-bg.net/maps/images/screenshots/maps16/cs/cs-1562-cs_747.jpg)
Finally, I found out that there are de maps where you defuse the C4 and started playing maps like Aztec, Cbble, Prodigy etc. Things moved forward, I got better, played in CS teams and started in CALeague which is USA based - I didn't understand how pings worked but played in US servers when I started playing and naturally got invited to join a team.
Our US team did well in CALeague and we reached CAL-P (CAL-O > CAL-IM > CAL-M > CAL-P > CAL-I > CPL). We watched demos of professional teams and practised strategies 1-2 hours every night (where to nade, who watches where when entering or defending a site, angles, etc) and I had matches at 11pm or even later at 1am because of the time differences. Spent a lot of our time on mIRC where we had our channel but, the team eventually died because we got older and had other commitments.
I spent some time in UK leagues too such as CSGN and TheSGL but I did not feature so much in the UK. I took some time off but today, I enjoy CS 1.6 today
I didn't mean for it to be a life story lol
but interested to know what it was like for you.
I didn't know what it was but I flew home to the UK, installed the game, copied the cracked .exe file from CD in to the installation folder and began playing. Soon after, I found out there was an add-on called Counter-Strike where I played Mansion:
And Office:
And 747:
Finally, I found out that there are de maps where you defuse the C4 and started playing maps like Aztec, Cbble, Prodigy etc. Things moved forward, I got better, played in CS teams and started in CALeague which is USA based - I didn't understand how pings worked but played in US servers when I started playing and naturally got invited to join a team.
Our US team did well in CALeague and we reached CAL-P (CAL-O > CAL-IM > CAL-M > CAL-P > CAL-I > CPL). We watched demos of professional teams and practised strategies 1-2 hours every night (where to nade, who watches where when entering or defending a site, angles, etc) and I had matches at 11pm or even later at 1am because of the time differences. Spent a lot of our time on mIRC where we had our channel but, the team eventually died because we got older and had other commitments.
I spent some time in UK leagues too such as CSGN and TheSGL but I did not feature so much in the UK. I took some time off but today, I enjoy CS 1.6 today
I didn't mean for it to be a life story lol
but interested to know what it was like for you.