Everyone loves Counter-Strike. And, judging by the average CS player, EVERYONE NEEDS SOME FUCKING HELP.
Aside from general tips when it comes to console stuff, Josh and I wrote up a guide to the Counter-Strike weapons which might be helpful for the actual gameplay when it comes to selecting your weapons.
Right now we're going to focus on console commands. First, in order to do most of these things, you have to know how to open the console while in the game. If you don't know this by now then I don't know what you're doing playing this game, but just push the ~ key in game (you don't have to hold down shift). Most of this stuff is basic knowledge when it comes to gaming, so if you didn't know this ahead of time, you're a pretty big newbie, so I hate you. And there's some of this stuff that's already covered in the readme file. It's usually a pretty good idea to ALWAYS read the readme before doing anything with a program, TRUST ME.
One last note about putting commands in the console: don't put the whole command in quotes. You just don't have to. Unless the command NEEDS quotes. Then... something.
The Netgraph
This is handy for checking out your ping, and packets of information being sent. Here is an UP TO DATE picture.
To turn this one on, type "net_graph 3" in the console. Netgraphs 1 and 2 are said to lower your framerate, so don't bother with those.
To turn off the netgraph, type "net_graph 0" into the console.
Voting and getting player's numbers
Oops, I think they got rid of this. DARN YOU COUNTER-STRIKE TEAM. Oh wait, no, they added it again. Well, looks like I have to retype it.
Actually, it depends now. Servers can have voting players out disabled. And you can't tell (yet) if the voting is disabled, unless you can ask the admin, and if the admin is there, they can just kick trouble players automatically.
To get a players number, you just pull down the console and type "listplayers" in, which will show all the players in the game, and the appropriate number for which you can use to vote. Then you take that number, and type "vote [number]" into the console. Of course, not only is the number about four digets long, but you won't be able to get anyone else to vote for you. It's pretty pointless. Never mind.
Changing your name while playing
This is definitely one for the clueless Beefholes (oops, it's "Players" now--NO WAIT, SIR_KNUMSKULLS [update: it's "Player" now I think]). Simply open the console, type "name [ClansRGay]blahblah" and you're set, but you can only do this while you're still alive, so dead people aren't changing their names to "CAMPER IN ATTIC" or "BOMB NEAR CT SPAWN" or some such (another update: I wrote this, and most of the other crap on this page just for Counter-Strike, but you'll find that other mods have other rules for stuff like this). If you want spaces in your name, you have to type the name command, and then put the actual name in quotation marks.
Voting for another map
This one will actually come in handy, on occasion. If you're in a game, and most people just want to play a different map, they can vote to have the server just start up a new map. In order to do this, you bring down the console, type "listmaps" and then you get the number of the map that you/other people want to play, and type "votemap [number]". Remember, don't type "vote" and the number, that's for voting on players. Map numbers are simply 1 through 20 or however many maps they have.
Weapons fire for CS
In normal Half Life, you could move in obscene directions while keeping steady fire on your enemies. This was explained with the HEV's special features. Of course, you don't get an HEV suit in CS, so there comes an important descision: when you see an enemy, what do you do to kill them?
The best idea is to figure out how close an enemy is and how long you can hold the trigger down. Needless to say, when you're standing close to an enemy, holding down the trigger is your best tactic. But other variables come into play when distace is brought to the table.
How far away can you hit someone from with what weapons? It's best to simply play with all the weapons, seeing which ones are best suited for the map you're playing on. For example, alley has a lot of close hallways, so the AK is a great weapon. In tundra, the AWP is obviously the best choice. Playing and knowing how each weapon works is a good idea.
A good remedy for distance is simply ducking down. In both CS and Firearms, ducking increases your accuracy by about 3 times, with every gun. The g3 in CS and the Barret in Firearms only work if you're ducking or in the prone position. But ducking is a godsend for things like the mp5, which is accurate as hell as it is, as well as the silenced colt. With the Aug and Commando, sniping is a very good possibility while ducking. Partially because they have scopes, which actually plays more into accuracy than you might think.
For every scoped weapon in CS, accuracy also goes up when the scope is activated. For the AWP, Scout, and G3, the accuracy can be boosted twice thanks to double zooms on those scopes.
Learning when to duck, when to stand still, and when to use the scope can benifit your game greatly, and anyone who plays this for more than a month will have already learned these things. As they have learned when to jump while firing, when they can run, jump, and circle strafe a target while aiming at the head. And stuff.
Area damage
Firing at the head is what most CS players go for, which leads to a more successful kill rate. But for people who don't have the courage to aim for that smaller target, the chest is the place to aim for, since it's the second most important part of the body containing the heart and lungs, so it will take more damage. The problem with that is that when a player who's thrifty only buys a vest and no helmet, he's still able to ward off the worst from a body hit. Where as in the person aiming for the head would do a ton of damage on a bare head. Every assault rifle can kill in two hits to an unprotected head. Or even one shot to the head and one shot to the toe. Assault rifles do about 90 damage to a head.
Aiming for the head should be an absolute priority, though getting killed 10 seconds into a round is really irritating and I shouldn't encourage it. Personally, I always aim for the legs. Then recoil takes the bullets up to the arms or chest area and maybe the head.
Others
To turn on the player shadows, which just look weird (and crappy) really, r_shadows 1. They look crappy because the Half-Life engine is based off of Quake 2. Which is a game that is CRAPPY. It might not even work anymore--who cares.
Another helpful hint: ducking while standing still in Counter-Strike will help increase accuracy. Remember this the next time you buy the AK-47. That gun totally rips ass with the added accuracy. The accuracy is judged based on if you're running, jumping, standing, and ducking. A person jumping through the air to the side will probably have the worst possible accuracy. UNLESS THEY CHANGE THAT IN THE NEXT BETA FOR SOME REASON GOSH DARN IT TO HIGH HECK!!!!!!!
Almost every gun should be fired in short bursts.
If your game gets minimized during play, and you lose your sound, try pressing esc to go into the menu and just resume the game immediately. You should be able to hear the sound trigger when you hit the "Resume" button. You'll have your sound back then. Hopefully!
CS recently added a "timeleft" command. You just type "timeleft" in the console, and it'll say how much time is left until the map changes. You can also bind a key to the timeleft command, by typing "bind pgdn timeleft" so whenever you push the Page Down key, it'll activate the timeleft command.
When you type "listmaps" in the console, it brings up a list of all the maps you can vote for. However, this can also be used (sometimes) to tell what map will be next. Sometimes it doesn't exactly work, because the next map in rotation might not be on the maplist for voting.
You can now bind commands SPECIFICALLY to the keypad keys. So if you wanted to bind the timeleft command to keypad 9, you'd type "bind kp_pgup timeleft" since the 9 key on the keypad is also. The rest of those numbers, such as 7, 9, 4, 6, or 2, would be "kp_uparrow" "kp_leftarrow" "kp_rightarrow" and "kp_downarrow" according to the corresponding numbers and arrows (by the way, 5 on the keypad is kp_5). Your NUM LOCK has to be on in order for these to work.
If you want some tips/help on how to make those wonderful color decals for Half-Life, check out the color decals tutorial page.
Well, wasn't all that helpful?
This shit is really dated since we've moved on from Counter "Boring" Strike.