Half Life Counter-Strike Official Strategy Guide

Counter-Strike Official Strategy Guide gives tips on what guns to use and how to use them. It also gives special strategies for each map, even if a player is playing on a public server.
This book's greatest strength addresses guns. The authors do a wonderful job of explaining how to use them, eg: with the MP5, aim for the shoulders, the enemy's head will move downward to give an easy headshot. It does have three errors I found:
A. It says the G3 is available to only the CT's (p42). The G3 is actually only available to the T's.
B. The book states that it takes a couple headshots, depending on what gun you use, to disable an opponent. This is wrong, one shot for any gun, excluding the glock, in a specific place will disable an opponent.
C. The last issue I would like to address is the TMP. The book idicates that the gun is bad and doesn't aim well or deal enough damage. I used it and got a 32 to 8 ratio. (pretty good for me)
The book overall helped...Read more

If you are relatively new to Counter-Strike this book is okay for becoming familiar with the weapons and maps. It has nice overhead views of maps and basic commentary on the weapons. However, I was a bit disappointed with the lack of content on general game tactics. I would say most of the book (about 65%) is clan match tactics, which most of us wouldn't use anyways, simply because they're not all that great. They show a few good camping spots (for you campers out there), but nothing you wouldn't have already figured out if you've been playing for a while.

The weapon information is OK at best. It gives very basic information concerning the accuracy and where to aim for some weapons. Unfortunately, some of the information is either outdated (written for CS 1.3) or wrong (just small errors like cost or availability) but if you're new to CS, this information can be very helpful.

If you're looking for a book to show you how to rack up frags online, this could help you out if...Read more

If you're new to Counterstrike, then this book is a pretty good bet. Lots of information to *introduce* you to concepts like podbots, scripting, control settings, etc. Some of the information is for advanced play in leagues or whatever, but if you're looking to just increase your frag count at the early stages, this will help.

Yeah, some information is outdated, but the general concepts are all there, and then you can get more info from web sites, faqs, etc. Concepts listed in the book like shooting through boxes, etc aren't always obvious on the web. Yeah, you can get the same info online, but this is a nice reference with the maps and all. If you've got a couple bucks to blow, go for it.

On the other hand, nothing beats experience so get out and PLAY!

Later.