Welcome To The PC Zone Counter-Strike Map Pack

We've spent the past few months scouring the Internet to try and find what we believe are the best third-party Counter-Strike maps currently available. This pack, which contains these levels, has been put together for you, our readers, to enjoy. You will be able to play all these maps on the dedicated PC Zone Counter-Strike servers. To find out more about these servers, visit our Online section on the PC Zone website.

Hostage/Rescue Maps :

The objective in this map is to rescue the hostages hidden inside a room at the top of a warehouse. There are several ways into the warehouse but the terrorists hold the high ground and infiltration by the counter-terrorist team won't be easy. There is a way in via an air conditioning vent on top of the building but coming in that way is very risky - the best cover is by the back door. If the terrorist team is careful they should win since they have the tactical advantage.

2. cs_india, by Atomfried

CS-India is a monster of a map. At 3.9Mb it's the biggest here by a long way, but once you give it a play you'll quickly realise why. No expense has been spared in terms of time or effort in designing it - the layout, the textures and even the sounds are all top-notch and well deserving of a place in anyone's Counter-Strike library. It's a hostage rescue map, with four unwitting fools having been grabbed by the terrorists, and it's now up to the counter-terrorist team to release them. It's a shame there aren't more servers running CS-India, but hopefully this will change. In the meantime, try to get a LAN game running if you can - it's worth it.

3. cs_snowbase, by Veldrin

A small map, but packed full of fun. The premise to this hostage rescue scenario is that a bunch of terrorists have broken into and taken control of a remote nuclear missile facility. In doing so, they've captured the team of scientists who have the launch codes for the missiles and the counter-terrorist team has to go in and get the scientists out before the terrorists find out how to fire them. It's all good, clean, standard stuff - happens every day in fact.

4. cs_thunder, by Chris Auty

CS-Thunder is a very enjoyable hostage rescue map where the action takes place on a dam. It's all very James Bond-ish as you run along the parapet, watching out for your enemies and popping a couple of shots into them if they're stupid enough to let you. One touch worth remembering is that there are in fact two levels to the top of the dam, so if you're on the upper level then just wait for the opposing players to run past beneath you, then hop down behind them and... blam! - ventilated cranium. Lovely.

5. cs_trainraid, by T1000, MercuryMan and Akuraci

Train Raid is a hostage rescue map that will make you think twice about using our over-priced and under-resourced train network in future. The terrorist team are holding a bunch of hostages at the front of the train and the counter-terrorist specialists have to make their way forward from the back end to rescue them. The layout makes for lots of frantic action - large, open spaces aren't common on trains - so you'll need to keep your wits about you.

Bomb/Defuse Maps :

This is a great map with an Egyptian theme. The terrorist plan is to devastate the middle of the Egyptian tourist-trap area with a bomb placed either in the tomb or by a group of statues. The counter-terrorist team have to prevent the bombing by either killing all the terrorists before they can plant the bomb, or defusing the bomb and then killing the bad guys. Sound easy? It isn't.

2. de_nshuttle, by MaryBeth

We have to hope that this never happens in real life because it would be a huge publicity scoop for any terrorist group. Basically, the terrorists want to blow up the space shuttle on its launch pad and plan to do this by planting a dirty great big bomb either underneath the main engines or in the control room. The counter-terrorist team have to stop them, but because the action takes place at night it won't be straightforward for either side. Actually, we're not sure we'd want to go up in any spacecraft that had recently been exposed to gunfire, let alone blown up...

3. de_satlab, by Edward Fuller

A nice looking map with two bomb points for the terrorists to target. It's sometimes a little difficult to see what is going on, but once the fighting starts (which won't take long) you'll be too busy trying to survive to worry and it's only in a couple of places anyway. Otherwise, everything is fine with a nicely laid out map and plenty of good fire fight opportunities.

4. de_scud, by Jeramy Cooke

Despite not having invented the scud missile, the name will always be associated with Iraq and Saddam Hussein's plan to use it to bomb Israel (and almost anyone else in range). Thanks to the Gulf War that plan didn't work, but there is now a secret American base near the Iraqi border and rather predictably the terrorist team have taken it over and plan to blow it to bits. The counter-terrorist team have to stop them and help protect American interests. A good fun map with plenty of action.