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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 has both individual and multiplayer options.  Bots can be added into the game. The online-multiplayer option is activated via Steam.

“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 separate game in itself.  It is sometimes mistaken that Counter-Strike has no relation to Half-Life now that it is in a more commercial form and no longer referred to as “Half-Life: Counter-Strike” but “Counter-Strike.”  “Counter-Strike” is still using and running off of the Half-Life game engine and is based off of its unchanged structure.  The kernel of the engine maintains the same throughout all of the current commercial Half-Life modifications.  (Day of Defeat, Team Fortress Classic (not to be confused with original teamfortress running on Quake1, which half-life itself is based on), et cetera)

Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer team-based first-person shooter, developed by Valve Corporation as part of the game compilation The Orange Box.  The game was announced in 1998 as a sequel to the original Team Fortress mod for Quake, but has since been through various concepts and designs.  In 1999, the game appeared to be deviating from the original Team Fortress (and Valve’s own Team Fortress Classic, a mod for Half-Life) by heading toward a more realistic and militaristic style of gameplay, but the design metamorphosed further over the game’s nine-year development.  The final rendition of Team Fortress 2 bears more resemblance to the original Team Fortress and Team Fortress Classic games, and sports a cartoon-like visual style, based on the art of J. C. Leyendecker following a popular trend in recent CGI films (in particular, films recently made by Pixar/Disney, such as The Incredibles).

The lack of information or apparent progress for six years of the game’s development caused it to be labeled as vaporware, and it was regularly featured in Wired News’ annual vaporware list among other ignominies.  The game was officially released on October 10, 2007.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a first-person shooter developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision for Xbox 360 , Playstation 3 and PC.  It is the fourth installment in the Call of Duty video game series (excluding expansions), the first not to be set during World War II.  It was announced on April 25, 2007.  It was released on November 6, 2007 in North America, on November 7, 2007 in Australia, and on November 9, 2007 in Europe.  The game also became available on Steam on November 6, 2007.

City of Heroes (CoH) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing computer game based on the superhero comic book genre, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCsoft.  The game was launched in North America on April 28, 2004 and in Europe (by NCsoft Europe) on 4 February 2005 with English, German and French language servers. A Korean open beta of City of Heroes, entitled City of Hero (시티 오브 히어로), was launched on January 18, 2006. On October 31, 2005 the game’s first sequel, City of Villains, was launched, allowing users to play as supervillains.  Ten free major updates (Issues) for City of Heroes have been released since its launch, the latest of which, Issue 10, on July 24, 2007.

In the game, players create superhero player characters that can team up with others to complete missions and fight villains belonging to various gangs and organizations in Paragon City and its surrounding

areas.

City of Villains is a massively multiplayer online role-playing computer game based on the superhero comic book genre, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCSoft.  Released on 2005-10-31 (Halloween), the game is integrated with their previous release, City of Heroes.  The gameplay centers on defeating a variety of computer controlled opponents within a three-dimensional world using various powers and attacks, sometimes with the help of several other players.

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (commonly abbreviated as LOTRO) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows set in a fictional fantasy universe based upon J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth writings.  It takes place during the time period of The Lord of the Rings, the author’s most famous novel.

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar was developed by Turbine, Inc and is a subscription-based game.  It launched in the United States, Australia, Japan and Europe on April 24, 2007.  Also, CDC Games holds exclusive rights to LOTRO in China, and has started beta testing on July 16, 2007 and plans to release it by the end of year.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a real-time strategy game, developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment in 1994.  The real-time strategy genre had been pioneered by Dune II, but Warcraft (along with Westwood Studios’ Command & Conquer) is widely credited for the genre’s rise in popularity.

The game is set in the Kingdom of Azeroth, part of the fictional Warcraft universe.  The events that take place in this game are known in Warcraft lore as the First War or the Great War.

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (War3 or WC3) is a real-time strategy computer game released by Blizzard Entertainment in July 2002.  It is the second sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, the third game set in the Warcraft Universe.  The game proved to be one of the most anticipated and popular computer game releases ever, with 4.5 million units preordered and over one million additional units sold within a month.  Warcraft III contains four playable races, including the Humans and Orcs, which had previously appeared in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.  In addition to these are the Night Elves and Undead, which are new to the Warcraft mythos.  Warcraft III’s campaign is laid out similarly to that of StarCraft, being told through all four of the game’s races in a progressive manner.

Blizzard Entertainment released two versions of the game: the regular edition and a limited Collector’s Edition.  The collector’s edition box contained a Warcraft III cinematic DVD, including behind-the-scenes features and the cinematics of all prior Warcraft games; a Collector’s Edition Soundtrack; a Collector’s Edition instruction manual; The Art of Warcraft book; and Lithographic Prints.  Warcraft III won many awards including “Game of the Year” from more than six different publications.  An expansion pack, The Frozen Throne, was released in 2003.

Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne is a real-time strategy computer game developed for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Mac OS X by Blizzard Entertainment; it can be played also on GNU/Linux systems by using Wine or Cedega.  It is the official expansion pack to Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, requiring the ownership of Reign of Chaos to play.  Released in stores worldwide in multiple languages beginning on July 1, 2003, it includes an additional hero for each race and two to three new units per race, four campaigns, a new neutral race (the Naga), five neutral heroes (an additional neutral hero was added April 2004 and two more were added in August 2004), the ability to build a shop and various other improvements such as the ability to queue upgrades.  Sea units were reintroduced; they had been present in Warcraft II but were absent in Reign of Chaos.  Blizzard Entertainment regularly releases patches for the game to fix bugs, add new features, and balance multiplayer play.

EVE Online is a player-driven persistent-world massively multiplayer online game set in a science fiction space setting in which players pilot a wide array of customizable ships.  It is developed by the Icelandic company CCP Games; it was published from May to December 2003 by Simon & Schuster Interactive, after which CCP purchased the rights back and began to self-publish via a digital distribution scheme.

Crazyracing Kartrider (Korean:크레이지레이싱 카트라이더) is a South Korean online multiplayer racing game, developed by Nexon, which earns revenues by selling virtual items for the game through its website, including different types of car and spraypaint.  Such cars include fantasy and real-life models of cars, with Nexon’s collaboration with companies such as MINI (Korea).  The Chinese version of the game is known as PopKart.  There are an estimated 15,000,000 users of the Korean version of Kartrider, and over 25% of South Koreans have played the game at least once.  And this was the first game to beat Starcraft in the Korean and Chinese online game market.  The closed beta for the English version of the game was released by Nexon America on May 1, 2007 and ended on May 31, 2007.  The open beta was released on October 2nd, 2007, at 6pm EDT.  In America, the game has the slogan: “Catch my drift!” The Korean and English version are essentially the same, the only difference being the availability of certain items and the language used in-game.

F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon is a first-person shooter developed by Monolith Productions and published by Vivendi.  It was released on October 18, 2005, for Windows, and ported by Day 1 Studios to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.  An expansion pack for F.E.A.R. entitled F.E.A.R. Extraction Point was released by Timegate Studios on October 24, 2006, and a direct sequel has been announced by Monolith Productions.

The game’s story revolves around a supernatural phenomenon, which F.E.A.R.—a fictional special forces team—is called to contain. The player assumes the role of F.E.A.R.’s Point Man, who possesses superhuman reflexes and combats an army of cloned soldiers, and at the same time uncovers the secrets of a paranormal menace in the form of a little girl.

F.E.A.R. was well-received by critics, scoring 89% on Game Rankings, and The New York Times calling it “as thrilling and involving as Half-Life.”

World of Warcraft (commonly known as WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It is Blizzard Entertainment’s fourth game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. World of Warcraft takes place within the world of Azeroth, four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard’s previous release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft on September 2, 2001. The game was released on November 23, 2004, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

Although its initial release was hampered by overpopulated servers, the game became a financial success and the world’s largest MMORPG in terms of monthly subscribers. On July 24, 2007, Blizzard announced that the user base for World of Warcraft had reached a new milestone, with 9 million players worldwide. There are more than 2 million players in North America, 1.5 million players in Europe and 3.5 million players in China as of January, 2007. Additionally, the game has over 8 million subscribers worldwide as of August, 2007. The game has won numerous awards and recognitions, including GameSpot’s Game of the Year Award for 2004.

The first official expansion pack of the game, The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16, 2007. Blizzard announced a second expansion pack called Wrath of the Lich King on August 3, 2007. The release date of Wrath of the Lich King has not yet been announced.

WoW has become increasingly referenced in popular culture as a result of the game’s popularity. Notable examples include the South Park episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft”, the Louisville World Series of Video Games competition in which World of Warcraft was a featured game, and a commercial in which a scene from the cult comedy film Office Space was edited with footage of the game. WoW itself also contains references to pop culture within the game. The popularity of WoW has also led to a board game and a collectable card game to be created based on WoW.