Seoulscapade

Awp_india is a map I’ve always enjoyed, in all of its incarnations, from back in the CS 1.6 days up to now. The great thing about it for me is how everyone is made equal in terms of terrain and weapons. All you get is the AWP sniper rifle and a knife. The knife usually comes into place towards the end when only a few players are left running around.

The arena looks like this, so there is not much room for error:

You can see how there is a circular arrangement of various kinds of cover. Each side of the arena mirrors the other. Here is a view from a corner:

And here is another one from the other end:

One is very often exposed in this game. There is not much cover, and what there is you have to use wisely and quickly. This is what is looks like on the ground, when the game starts:

And here is another view:

The good thing about this small arena and risk of exposure is that the game play is fast. It’s all action from start to finish. This can make for some intense skirmishes, with the following result:

I’ve found that if you see an enemy at the other end, they’ve often seen you. So, if you then line up for a shot at them when they next duck out, you can bet they have registered where you are and will shoot at that spot as soon as they appear. I keep forgetting this rule and dying for it. The key is to keep moving, people!

If you can keep moving intelligently you can avoid being a part of a large body count.

The map really hasn’t changed much from how it was in CS 1.6. The map below doesn’t have much more than surface textures:

And here is another view of it:

But the following “modern” map includes some fundamental changes:

This was hard to get used to at first and seemed to me to be harder to play in because the extent of exposure seemed worse due to the side ramps.

I’ve only seen this on a server once, so I don’t think it is as popular as the traditional map.

But no matter what map, it’s always fun running around and feeling the immense satisfaction one feels when successful at blowing people way with a sniper rifle.

See the Counter Strike gallery.