Rubicon Games

Archive for December, 2007

One of the biggest obsessions between people, especially males these days apart from gadgets and bikes is probably CS or Counter Strike. Counter Strike is a tactical, first person shooter game and now is available on almost all platforms including PCs, Xbox and has a number of variants.

The game is one where a group of anti-terrorists fight terrorists  and each round is one by either completing the given mission or my annihilating the opponents. Players join one of the two teams and try to eliminate the other. All players are given some money in the beginning to buy things, ammunition, guns etc. During the freeze time which is given for players to buy things they cannot attack or be attacked.

This game can be played by a single player and is also available in multiplayer option and is also played on the internet. It is played very often on Local Area Networks (LAN).

Counter Strike is an extremely popular game and there are professional players and leagues formed to play it on a serious basis. People earn money from playing CS and servers hosting it earn a huge amount of money through advertising revenue and sometimes through membership charges. Cheating and violent behavior is known to happen due to CS games. There are number of very well known cheat codes which are employed to considerable effect.

CS has also gained so much popularity worldwide that it has influenced several other games but none of them have been able to match the popularity of Counter Strike.  CS has also attracted its own share of controversy and people have blamed disruptive influence on CS saying that it affects the minds of people.  CS addicts however remain unfazed through all this and their devotion to the game strengthens day after day.

Online games refer to games that are played over a network and in the present times refer to games that are played over the internet. Online games can be simple games which are available all over the internet and can also be complex games with graphics and virtual worlds which are played by many players at once. Thus online gaming has in a way brought about a new facet to gaming and has in some ways made single player gaming obsolete. While some sites offer games for a fee there any many sites where gaming can be done for free and the site owners make their money from advertising revenue instead.

In the early 1990s games were played over a Local Area Network (LAN) and by the late 90s games began to be played on the internet. As the internet became more and more improved and the quality and standards of browsers also improved more and more browser games began to be invented where games could be played by using HTML & HTML scripting technology while more complicated games were played on a web server. The kind of games and the level of online gaming improved with the advances in technology.

With the development of web-based graphic technology such as Java and Flash came a new era for online gaming which allowed browser games to become far more complex than before and these games became immensely popular and were being played increasingly and all over the world. Games created earlier were also recreated with the new technology so as to improve the playing experience. In recent times a technology called AJAX was invented which allowed complicated multiplayer gaming through browsers, something which was impossible until then.

With the spread of broadband internet, massive multiplayer online games became popular and involved people from all over the world in a single game.

Now multiplayer games can also be played through browsers with a technology called Massive Multiplayer Online role-playing games (MMORPG) which have taken gaming to an never before reached level. Thus online gaming has come a long way since the 1980s with the rapid strides made by internet based technology.

A video game is something that allows a user to give an input and displays such video feedback on a visual device like a handheld or a monitor. The electronic systems such as computers, video game consoles and other devices are now known as platforms.

There are various kinds of video games. Arcade games were extremely popular earlier but their popularity has gone down with the demand for specialized and larger scale games.

The input device which the user uses to control the game is called a game controller and the kind of game controller varies with the kind of platform. For example a keyboard may be used with a computer, or a joystick with a gaming console.

Gaming has now gone from a past time for children to a serious pursuit involving adults with some serious money to be made. Games may be of various kinds including very basic games including Mario, Pacman which every child plays at a young age to strategy games or serious games such a Counter Strike or Warcraft which has captured the minds of people, mostly males within the age group of 12 to 40 with competitions and contests being held.

Most games these days are multi player games wherein many people participate in a game to emerge the winner.

Also the gaming industry now rakes in billions of dollars from selling gaming platforms like the Sony Playstation and online gaming and the sale of different games.

Video games have faced their share of criticism from some parts of the society blaming games for the effect they have on young children and exposing them to violence, advertisement, propaganda, drugs and other such things

Unfazed by detractors however, the gaming industry with the help of its ardent followers continues to rake in the moolah.