Counter-Strike is one of the most important and influential PC games in history. it began as a mod for Half-Life, released in 1999, before Valve acquired it and hired its creators. before Valve acquired it and hired its creators, the game was released in 2000. It began as a mod for the released Half-Life; the version of the game released in 2000 was tweaked over time and became known as Counter-Strike 1.6. Today, quite surprisingly, it can be played in a browser.

First things first: this is a Russian website that appears to have nothing to do with Valve. Trying to get the Russian authorities to take this site down must be fun for some poor lawyer in Seattle. On a more practical level, malware and trackers might be a concern. I'm no cyber expert, but I've run it through three different scanners and it seems clean.

Here at Play-CS.com, you can play Counter-Strike 1.6 on various regional servers and take advantage of the game's different modes and various additional features. Our comrades did a great job: PCG's editor-in-chief Evan Lahti had a bad ping a few times, but for me it works amazingly well. I played several rounds and modes on different servers and the functionality is great and feels exactly like CS 1.6.

This seems to be a bit of a passion project, and anyone who liked CS 1.6 should be able to indulge in nostalgia for a half hour or so; it's obviously dubious in that it has nothing to do with Valve, but it's one of the most iconic games in PC history, from 1999, fully online functionality and the fact that someone has made it playable in a browser with no problems is seriously impressive.

The "real" Counter-Strike is still going strong in the form of Counter-Strike Global Offensive, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary (and was made to run at 4,000 FPS by one of its biggest devotees. Though not up to it, it appears in even weirder places than browsers: like this Nintendo DS port.