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Counter-Strike (commonly abbreviated to CS) is a tactical first-person shooter video game which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe. The game has been expanded into a series since its original release, which currently includes Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Anthology and Counter-Strike on Xbox. Counter-Strike pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds. Each round is won by either completing the mission objective or eliminating the opposing force. The latest incarnation of the game, Counter-Strike: Source, is based on the Source engine developed for Half-Life 2.

The game is currently the most played Half-Life modification in terms of players, according to GameSpy.

Counter-Strike was developed first as a Half-Life modification. Therefore named "Half-Life: Counter-Strike". The original version was a 3rd-party Half-Life modification, but since then it has grown into a commercial mod and later advertised as a separate game in itself. It still uses and runs on the Half-Life game engine and is based on its unchanged structure.

Counter-Strike is a first-person shooter in which players join either the terrorist or counter-terrorist team (or become a spectator). Each team attempts to complete their mission objective and/or eliminate the opposing team. Each round starts with the two teams spawning simultaneously, usually at opposite ends of the map from each other. A player can choose to play as one of eight different default character models (four for each side, although Counter-Strike: Condition Zero added two extra models, bringing the total to ten). Players are generally given a few seconds before the round begins (known as "freeze time") to prepare and buy equipment, during which they cannot attack or walk/move (a player can still take damage, having the player drop from a certain height during freeze time was the only way somebody could control the players starting "HP"). They can return to the buy area within a set amount of time to buy more equipment (some custom maps included neutral "buy zones" that could be used by both teams). Once the round has ended, surviving players retain their equipment for use in the next round; players who were killed begin the next round with the basic default starting equipment.

Standard monetary bonuses are awarded for winning a round, losing a round, killing an enemy, being the first to instruct a hostage to follow, rescuing a hostage or planting the bomb.

The scoreboard displays team scores in addition to statistics for each player: name, kills, deaths, and ping (in milliseconds). The scoreboard also indicates whether a player is dead, carrying the bomb (on bomb maps), or is the VIP (on assassination maps), although information on players on the opposing team is hidden from a player until his/her death, as this information can be important.

Killed players become "spectators" for the duration of the round; they cannot change their names until they spawn (come alive) again, text chat cannot be sent to or received from live players; and voice chat can only be received from live players and not sent to them (unless the cvar sv_alltalk is set to 1). Spectators are generally able to watch the rest of the round from multiple selectable views, although some servers disable some of these views to prevent dead players from relaying information about living players to their teammates through alternative media (most notably voice in the case of Internet cafes and Voice over IP programs such as TeamSpeak or Ventrilo). This form of cheating is known as "ghosting".

Though Counter-Strike is itself a mod, it has developed its own community of script writers and mod creators. Some mods add bots, while others remove features of the game, and others create different modes of play. Some of the mods give server administrators more flexible and efficient control over his or her server. "Admin plugins", as they are mostly referred as, have become very popular (see Metamod, AMX Mod and AMX Mod X). There are some mods which affect gameplay heavily, such as Gun Game, where players start with a basic pistol and must score kills to receive better weapons, and Zombie Mod, where one team consists of zombies and must "spread the infection" by killing the other team (using only the knife). There are also the Superhero and Warcraft III mods which mix the first-person gameplay of Counter-Strike with an experience system, allowing a player to become more powerful as they continue to play. There is also a Star Wars mod, where you get a lightsaber instead of a knife, have special abilities according to a starwars character, also receive a rank based on the U.S. military ranks, and the objective is to capture the flags. The game is also highly customizable on the player's end, allowing the user to install or even create their own custom skins, HUDs, sprites, and sound effects, given the proper tools. Also some mods have a feature called rollthedice, where something bad or good happens to you when you type rollthedice.

Counter Strike has been a prime target for exploitation by cheaters since its release. In-game, cheating is often referred to as "hacking" in reference to programs or "hax" executed by the user.

Typical cheats are:

Valve has implemented an anti-cheat system called Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC). Players cheating on a VAC enabled server risk having their account permanently banned from all VAC secured servers.

With the first version of VAC a ban took force almost instantly after being detected, and the cheater had to wait 2 years to have the account unbanned. Since VAC's second version, cheaters are not banned automatically. With the second version, Valve instituted a policy of 'delayed bans,' the theory being that once a new hack is developed which circumvents the VAC system, it will spread amongst the 'cheating' community - by delaying the initial ban, Valve hopes to identify (and ban) as many cheaters as possible. Like any software detection system, some cheats are not detected by VAC, and at times the only effective anti-cheat solution is a human administrator watching an online game. Some servers implement a vote system, in which case players can call for a vote to kick or ban the cheater. VAC's success at identifying cheats and banning those who use them has also provided a boost in the purchasing of private cheats. These cheats are updated frequently to minimize the risk of detection, and are generally only available to a trusted list of recipients who collectively promise not to reveal the workaround.

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